Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

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Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby Unknown » 2017-01-10, 17:25

There may already be a thread devoted to this topic and if there is, I apologize in advance.

Are there any languages you already speak well (particularly foreign languages ofc) that you just cannot stand and wish you never spoke?

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-01-20, 15:15

No, there aren't. I don't even really understand how that's possible, although perhaps that depends on what you mean by "well." How do you get to an advanced level in a language without a strong motivation to study it up to that point? By involuntary immersion or something?

That being said, I don't really have a native language since every single language I know is a language I studied (or have been studying) as a foreign language, and I probably used to have an attitude like this towards English. I hated English for the high-and-mighty neo-imperialist attitudes of its speakers (especially its American speakers). Now, I appreciate it for its rather interesting history, and I think I find some consolation in the fact that American pride appears to have been wounded by the global financial crisis combined with revelations of various awful things our fellow countrymen have done. However, one time, I did see someone (on this forum, no less) attempt to learn Malayalam soon after saying rather negative things about the language, which has always pissed me off as a Malayalee myself. Most of us Malayalees have a negative attitude about our language; who is putting a gun to this user's damn head and forcing them to learn it?! How on Earth is it supposed to do us any good if foreigners trying to learn our language also view it as inferior?

OK, rant over. :lol:

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby Vlürch » 2017-01-21, 3:16

I first read the title as "languages you already speak that you cannot understand" and laughed so hard my eyes started watering.

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby kevin » 2017-01-21, 11:52

vijayjohn wrote:No, there aren't. I don't even really understand how that's possible, although perhaps that depends on what you mean by "well." How do you get to an advanced level in a language without a strong motivation to study it up to that point? By involuntary immersion or something?

Can't you still have a strong extrinsic motivation to learn a language even if you can't stand it, e.g. you need it for your job? I mean, "cannot stand" is by far too strong for me, but I speak English and don't particularly care for it. Learning it is just a necessity, not a fun hobby.

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby france-eesti » 2017-01-21, 15:06

yeah!!! The one for me Spanish! Second language was mandatory at school so as my parents didn't wish me to learn German, I was forced to learn Spanish and I hated every minute of it (except when I was in love with that Portuguese boy I only met in the Spanish class).
And now I'm a grown up and feel hatred every time I hear Spanish being spoken and if someone speaks Spanish to me, I'll answer in English or in Portuguese. And I have no idea why (maybe I should start a therapy for that).

One idea is that my sister, who is a fully-fledged Spanish speaker, was playing to speak Spanish to our cousin (married to an Ecuadorian woman) in front of me to "pass on secrets" so that I don't understand but I did understand. And I do hate Salsa and mojito and tapas and all the food with Spanish name (except Chili con carne :lol: )

Am I a lost soul? :evil:
(fr) Native - (en) Fluentish - (pt) Fluentish when I was younger - (hu) Can sustain a conversation with a patient and kind magyar or order some beer and lecsó in Budapest - (it) On Duolingo ma posso ordinare uno Spritz ed antipasti in un ristorante :blush:

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby Aurinĭa » 2017-01-21, 15:25

Why did your parents not want you to learn German?

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-01-21, 16:23

kevin wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:No, there aren't. I don't even really understand how that's possible, although perhaps that depends on what you mean by "well." How do you get to an advanced level in a language without a strong motivation to study it up to that point? By involuntary immersion or something?

Can't you still have a strong extrinsic motivation to learn a language even if you can't stand it, e.g. you need it for your job? I mean, "cannot stand" is by far too strong for me, but I speak English and don't particularly care for it. Learning it is just a necessity, not a fun hobby.

But how well do you need to know English for your job anyway? Do you need to have near-native fluency, do you just need a working knowledge of it, or do you need something in the middle?

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby Osias » 2017-01-21, 16:59

france-eesti wrote:And now I'm a grown up and feel hatred every time I hear Spanish being spoken and if someone speaks Spanish to me, I'll answer in English or in Portuguese. And I have no idea why (maybe I should start a therapy for that).

Não seria porque...
(except when I was in love with that Portuguese boy I only met in the Spanish class).


...?
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby france-eesti » 2017-01-21, 17:08

Aurinĭa => they basically had a dislike towards German... Maybe because their ancestors killed some of my ancestors in the Shoah. Or maybe because they just thought it was useless. And at that time we had family in South America, so they felt more sympathy towards Spanish.

Osias => Não entendo a questão :mrgreen: But of course I've fell in love with Portuguese the minute I saw it and it would be complete hypocrisy from me to deny Spanish helped me in the learning process :ohwell:
(fr) Native - (en) Fluentish - (pt) Fluentish when I was younger - (hu) Can sustain a conversation with a patient and kind magyar or order some beer and lecsó in Budapest - (it) On Duolingo ma posso ordinare uno Spritz ed antipasti in un ristorante :blush:

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby Osias » 2017-01-21, 17:25

Você não faz ideia de porque responde em português quando falam em espanhol como você, MAS... não seria a resposta que a única coisa boa que teve naquele seu curso foi o menino de Portugal?

Quer dizer, precisa de terapia pra ver isso? :whistle:
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby france-eesti » 2017-01-21, 19:01

Ahah ! pode ser que tenha alguma razão... Só que a verdadeira questão para mim é :
- porquê tanto detesto o espanhol?
e não:
- porque respondo em português quando alguem fala em espanhol? :P
porque sim, a resposta a essa segunda pergunta é bastante evidente :mrgreen:
(fr) Native - (en) Fluentish - (pt) Fluentish when I was younger - (hu) Can sustain a conversation with a patient and kind magyar or order some beer and lecsó in Budapest - (it) On Duolingo ma posso ordinare uno Spritz ed antipasti in un ristorante :blush:

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby Osias » 2017-01-21, 19:25

france-eesti wrote:Ahah ! pode ser que tenha alguma razão... Só que a verdadeira questão para mim é :
- por que tanto detesto o espanhol?

Preconceito contra uma língua de terceiro mundo.
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby france-eesti » 2017-01-21, 21:18

Terceiro mundo? e acha que aos 13 anos alguem já pode estar com preconceitos? 8-)
(fr) Native - (en) Fluentish - (pt) Fluentish when I was younger - (hu) Can sustain a conversation with a patient and kind magyar or order some beer and lecsó in Budapest - (it) On Duolingo ma posso ordinare uno Spritz ed antipasti in un ristorante :blush:

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby Osias » 2017-01-21, 21:55

Oh, yes, bêibi! Isso vem desde o berçário.
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby kevin » 2017-01-21, 22:43

vijayjohn wrote:But how well do you need to know English for your job anyway? Do you need to have near-native fluency, do you just need a working knowledge of it, or do you need something in the middle?

My job specifically? Almost all communication is in English and I need to understand it well enough and easily enough that I don't think about the language but about what is said or written (mostly dealing with emails, but team meetings etc. are on the phone). At least for the phone calls, fluency is necessary, but perfectly correct use of the language isn't that important as long as it stil resembles English closely enough that others understand what I'm trying to say.

The original question was about "speak well", which I think we can assume when you can communicate confidently on the phone about your work, no matter if the grammar is off occasionally.

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-01-21, 23:08

kevin wrote:The original question was about "speak well", which I think we can assume when you can communicate confidently on the phone about your work, no matter if the grammar is off occasionally.

I don't see why we should assume this because in practice, people mean all kinds of different things by "speak well," and in any case, how confidently you can talk on the phone about your work in a given language is going to require different amounts of effort depending on what kind of work you're doing in the first place. I think if you're an interpreter, you need to know a lot more than a nurse, who in turn may need to know considerably more than a bus driver.

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby Unknown » 2017-01-22, 3:29

vijayjohn wrote:I don't see why we should assume this because in practice, people mean all kinds of different things by "speak well," and in any case, how confidently you can talk on the phone about your work in a given language is going to require different amounts of effort depending on what kind of work you're doing in the first place. I think if you're an interpreter, you need to know a lot more than a nurse, who in turn may need to know considerably more than a bus driver.


What I meant in this case is a language that you're the strongest in that you wish you weren't.

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby Antea » 2017-01-22, 8:17

I didn't like English very much, when I started to learn it. I suppose, because it was mandatory at school and because everybody thought that of course you should know English at a Proficiency level, and if you didn't ,they assumed you were almost illiterate. So every effort I was trying to provide was never enough. My English teacher had no patience at all, and was always shouting at class. So I really feared this class, because instead of kindly correcting and explaining mistakes, the teacher was shouting at the class and saying that we had no idea at all.

But I overcame all this a long time ago. I like all the languages and of course I was not going to allow that neither a bad teacher of English, nor anybody else, prevented me from learning English, or from reading English literature in its original language, or from comunicating with lots of people who are either natives or use this language on daily basis.

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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby mōdgethanc » 2017-01-23, 2:40

I don't know if this counts, but I got to the point of being conversational in Spanish whereas now I barely understand it and I dislike the sound of it. This isn't the fault of native speakers but has to do more with certain attitudes of white L2 speakers that I associate with it. That is, I picked up some negative associations with it in a classic example of aversive conditioning - in other words, NS + CS = CR (neutral stimulus of Spanish plus conditioned stimulus of these L2 speakers equals conditioned response of negativity towards Spanish).
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Re: Languages you already speak that you cannot stand

Postby Saim » 2017-01-23, 3:37

mōdgethanc wrote:certain attitudes of white L2 speakers that I associate with it.


What do you mean?


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