Languages as tools

[Cafih]

Seeing there's a surge of interest in language learning on this subforum, I dare presuming people formed opinions on their value.

I decided against hijacking any thread, and instead open a new one: I am free to be critized on this, for one thread may've as well sufficed, instead of 3, somewhat intervened threads opened recently.

I invite you to discuss the merits of learning a language, for use as a tool, and specifically, a tool for INTPs. Hobbies aren't to be held to the same standard.

The old theses of people thinking faster, or better, based on their language is discredited, though they may think different. I feel it important, 'cause a google search would give sites listing this as one of the greatest benefits of it.
Personally, I think these lists most often don't serve well: they fall into trying to make a long list, to seem like what the writer did -for most often they post after learning a language, or even, more- a rational decision. It need'nt be. I mean that, as in doing it cause you wanted to learn a language is a fully valid reason.

Meanwhile, I would rather like to learn a language based on a rational decision. It should also be rational, if we're thinking public education.

That's only wild guessing on my part, but because it was a privilige of the noble. Lotsa people want to be princes(ess), but also, with equality coming and all, the blue-bloods still were visibly better: not limited to languages, but we shall not swerve off.

I am all for learning english, I probably had more benefits from it than learning my native tongue, even living in a country, where I could hardy live knowing only english, I would be willing to move 'skill points' between my native, and second language, even though I have no plans of moving.

That is because english is an useful language. It is a language of science, business, dick-jokes, everything. Not much languages have any such fields of use. Sure, italian is for music, french for disguising food on the menu. I want you to name languages, and specific areas, where it is indeed a lingua franca, or reasons one may want to learn a specific language. Take into account the internet...no, pretend, that you only exist on the internet. All information written is avaliable to you, and you don't have to learn a language cause those darn bulungians across the border are the main investors in the country.

I would find it incredibly sad, if people only learned languages 'cause it's chic. Hobbies are excepted, but lotsa people are rather crusading if they do it as a hobby

 

[Seed-Wad]

Seeing there's a surge of interest in language learning on this subforum, I dare presuming people formed opinions on their value.

[...]

I invite you to discuss the merits of learning a language, for use as a tool, and specifically, a tool for INTPs. Hobbies aren't to be held to the same standard.

The old theses of people thinking faster, or better, based on their language is discredited, though they may think different. I feel it important, 'cause a google search would give sites listing this as one of the greatest benefits of it.
Personally, I think these lists most often don't serve well: they fall into trying to make a long list, to seem like what the writer did -for most often they post after learning a language, or even, more- a rational decision. It need'nt be. I mean that, as in doing it cause you wanted to learn a language is a fully valid reason.

Meanwhile, I would rather like to learn a language based on a rational decision. It should also be rational, if we're thinking public education.

[...]

I want you to name languages, and specific areas, where it is indeed a lingua franca, or reasons one may want to learn a specific language. Take into account the internet...no, pretend, that you only exist on the internet. All information written is avaliable to you, and you don't have to learn a language cause those darn bulungians across the border are the main investors in the country.

I would find it incredibly sad, if people only learned languages 'cause it's chic. Hobbies are excepted, but lotsa people are rather crusading if they do it as a hobby

I'd have to say, in the most practical sense, a language is a tool for understanding the thoughts of all those who share the same language, thus for me (Dutch) it was the most rational decision to learn English, because I'd otherwise be limited to only the Dutch community for my input. (Never mind that I would've been forced to learn English if I hadn't wanted to).

Richard Dawkins made a nice tweet some time back: 'All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge.' Which caused quite a stir as you could imagine. Some people connected this fact to another fact: 'Spain translates more books into Spanish each year than the entire Arab world has translated into Arabic since the ninth century.'
IMHO 1+1=2, supposing the facts can be held at face value. Historically, in Europe, for erudite input, one had to learn Latin, then German, and now English. To get more input, all efforts should now be focused on translating all works to English, and for everyone to learn English.

Related to this, it is also quite practical to learn new languages because you can get a much better job in many fields if you master more languages.

Beyond the practical, you address the topic of how language changes the way one thinks. I can say, being proficient at both Dutch and English, I like English far the better, as many Dutch people do, because it has more allure, it is more poetic. But if it really changes the way you think, I can't tell. (Only thing I noticed was that once I finally learned to teach myself Piano I felt as if my thoughts became much more harmonized, more 'free flowing'. And in some sense music is a kind of language as well).

At the moment I am teaching myself Italian, because IMO it is the most beautiful language of them all. I fell in love with Italy when I was very young and on holiday to Isola d'Elba, later on while reading Dante's Inferno & La Vita Nuova. I would love to read those works in Italian once, but I'm nowhere near that point yet. It also showed me that the more languages you know, the more you can understand and appreciate your own language.

As for your last question, I have never experienced such a thing, but if you ever cross some specific jargon, you can always just learn what they mean in the original language right? I don' t think learning the entire language is at all necessary then. Take science, how many latin/greek words they use, never needed it at all and in the end you can deduce the original meaning anyways through simple crossreferencing.

gr. Seed-Wad

ps. I hated learning languages at school, even my own. French would never stick, even after six years, I can't understand a word, never mind speak it. But for Italian, I have found this incredible method, called Pimsleur, which takes a much more natural approach, teaching little at a time, but in a way that it sticks without having to memorize, instead making you do ' linguistic arithmetic' in your head trying to figure out how to say new things using that what you've already been teached, simultaneously revising old teachings and connecting it to the new.