LOL.

There used to be plenty of smart people in the United States.

Me referia a tu español vs su ingles. Nice! y que impresion te dejo mi pais?

Me encantaba Argentina. Fue una gran experiencia, pero no tenía suficiente plata para viajar el país así que fue limitado a BA. Estoy bebiendo un Malbec ahorita. Todavía amo las chicas argentinas y ellas a mi también.

Hahaha, happy to hear it's reciprocal ;D.

I don’t really get the point of learning languages just to learn them. I’d much rather learn something I don’t know than learn how to say the same stuff I already can in a different way.

I'm very interested in language acquisition. In the 80's I opened and operated a chain of conversational English language schools in rural Japan. I was always amazed at the great disparity between my students' vocabulary/grammar knowledge and their ability to speak even simple sentences. They learned the former in school, but back then they had almost zero opportunity to speak out loud what they knew. Hence the tremendous interest in schools like mine. Actually, I would assert that back then Japanese people enjoyed bragging that they were actively studying English but were less concerned about actually improving their conversational skills. In case you don't remember, in the 80's Japan appeared poised to take over the world.

Then computers became a thing and the cumbersome nature of the Japanese language interfacing with computers threw their entire country for a loop. In the 90's, Japanese people started trying to learn conversational English for real employment-necessary reasons. It was very different from the 80's.

I'm cracker white, born in the USA, but personally enjoy learning other languages and learning about other cultures. For me it's fun. I'm fluent in Japanese and dangerous in Korean and Mandarin. I have 2 years of Duolingo Spanish under my belt. I have tried, and failed to learn Thai, Tagalog, French (but haven't given up entirely on French).

But like others have posted, unless there's a real economic reason for learning, most people in most countries don't want to be bothered. C'est la vie.

Americans won't spend two weeks learning basic logic and probability. Subjects that many of them might use once in a while. So its no surprise they won't spend two years to learn a foreign language.

There is no country on Earth where you couldn't take a guy off the street and get him into the top 1% of his country in basic logic in 2 weeks. But in a country like India, knowing 3 languages is (I'm guessing) way more common than knowing only one.

What languages do you speak?

As a French native , if I didn’t start to learn English by myself as a teenager (mostly through watching tv and reading ) I would of been very limited in many aspect of my life today imo .

I think the pleasure you get from speaking them clearly outweighs any potential practical use, but maybe that's just me. I can say that being fluent in more than one language feels like being a different person; what I experience when I express my emotions/thoughts in a foreign language differs vastly from what I experience when I do the same in my native tongue. If you are completely fluent even simple phrases will have a myriad of different nuances/connotations that otherwise would be unknown to you; you said ''say the same stuff I already can in a different way'' but that quote gives the impression that a ''different way'' doesn't entail such stark differences one can only be in awe of. I assume this post could be seen as hyperbolic but that's my honest take on how much richness I think one can discover seeing the world through the lens of new languages.

That's all fine as long as you agree that all the upsides you mention are not as important as what most people could gain from a two week logic/probability course.

Fascinating. I'm thinking about learning Japanese/Mandarin but I know I'll almost certainly have to study and practice at least 1.5k hours to reach an acceptable level. Can you share your experience learning those languages? Do you feel you've reached your limit in terms of the number of languages you can learn? Because I feel exactly that way now.

It depends on your definition of fluency, but as far as I know many people in India know 2 and speak another one decently. It's really common to encounter individuals fluent in 2 languages that have some knowledge of a third one. The most common combination in my interactions with them was fluent in English and one of the many languages of India (Tamil, to name one) and some knowledge of Hindi. The ones who spoke English and Hindi normally wouldn't speak a third one if memory serves.

As much as I love languages and culture in general, science and other manifestations of reason were always the things that drove my hunger for knowledge throughout my life. I definitely think a basic understanding of logic and probability would benefit someone tremendously, and the amount of time you need to actually gain something useful from it is ridiculously small compared to the study of foreign languages. I think we both know the kind of conclusions this exchange will lead us to.

He's talking from the perspective of a native English speaker whose language is spoken globally. I have to ask you something: Les quebecois sont-ils ''hostiles'' avec les canadiens anglophones ou c'est un prejudice sorti de mes 6 o 7 interactions avec vos gens? J'ai toujours eu l'impression que les quebecois regardent de haut les canadiens dont langue maternelle est l'anglais; une sorte de condescendance subtile.

EDIT: le forum reconnait pas les accents.

This is also true in many parts of Africa. There are so many languages spoken in Africa that almost every person seems to know two or three.

well this is a pretty depressing outlook

Agreed. There is an aesthetic element to language. It isn't just a tool for a purely practical purpose, like a wrench. And it is intrinsically linked to culture.

Very few languages if any are one for one carbon copies, by learning another language to a high level you will learn concepts and idea that simply dont exist in your native language and nuances attached to objects that again dont exist in your native language.

Its also revealing in that you get an insight into meaning and symbology you simply cant get any other way.

In holistic terms its hard to think of anything as educational as learning another language to a high level.

I'm meh on this idea. Do you have any specific examples?

Oftentimes there can be words to describe specific ideas that don't exist in ones native language-- schadenfreude is the classic example-- but it's not like that idea is too revolutionary for an English speaker. Do you mean stuff like this?

I always liked that the term for chandelier in Spanish is as araña de luces-- which literally would be spider of lights and certainly is more descriptive. I suppose that counts.

I don't know why you would say that? It seems you are telling others what they should value based on what you value. Beyond the pleasure aspects of a second language there are very quantifiable financial benefits available as well.

I know countless people in Canada alone who just because they speak French and English have so many more job options available, especially in tough times. Everything from school teachers who can teach both languages to corporate exec's who can be put on a mix of domestic and international accounts.

How many real estate agents here in Vancouver who are white males who went to China, out of University just for something to do and ended up teaching English as a second language there and they became fluent in one or more Chinese languages, came back to Canada and instantly had a top Real Estate career because they could speak to Chinese buyers.


I complain about people, especially on this forum needing to take a basic logic class, to help them with their argumentation so I am not denying that value, but languages have huge value as well. Also it is a massive ice breaker and engagement generator for males in talking to females they come across who may have poor(er) english when they can speak to them in their home tongue. the entire posture of the person changes when engaged that way.

Who's saying language is just a tool? I'm just saying if I didn't have basic undergrad level understanding of black holes or why there are as many even integers as integers I'd rather spend 1% of the effort learning those "useless" things than slogging through Mandarin.