Other people might even practice the pronunciation system a lot and dive into the introductory grammar of the language so they can make simple sentences and hold their own in dumbed-down conversations with locals. Lots of people buy phrasebooks before their travels and most barely even open them! But some people actually study a little bit of the language, maybe learning some simple phrases like greetings, how to order food in a restaurant, how to ask for directions, how to scream “Police!”, maybe a naughty word or two. Learning travel phrases or “survival” language Arabic helped me make some new friends in Tripoli, Lebanon. So learning a language is an important part of understanding a culture, and even if you just learn a little of the language, you understand the culture that much more and gain new insight into the way people in that culture think. I think that`s because each culture, or collective personality, is linked to its language, which is kind of like a lense through which you see the world. People have told me on a few occasions that I seem to act differently when I speak different languages. A culture is like a collective personality, in a way. By learning even introductory Japanese you will likely be impressed by the degree of politeness and relative hierarchy within Japanese culture, because this is reflected in the language.Įvery culture is imbued with its own unique (and unconscious) set of values, beliefs, and assumptions that determine how people in that culture perceive the world. For example, if you are interested in the Middle East and North Africa and you study even a little bit of the Arabic language you will have a much more lucid understanding of just how much religion affects daily life in those areas. Similarly if you have a cultural interest in a certain language, dabbling can be pretty beneficial. In short, any language study will help you better appreciate languages, even if you just dabble a little bit here and there. You`ll be able to participate more in conversations about the languages of the world, you`ll have more understanding and appreciation of your own language, you can enjoy trying to decipher bits of foreign language text you stumble upon and guess what language it might be. But that`s ok, because for my purposes (understanding what`s going on in the world) my knowledge base is pretty much sufficient.īuilding a general knowledge base about how languages work is the same kind of thing. I read the news and I listen to political stories on CNN, but I`m never going to attend the Democratic National Convention or vote in the primaries or anything like that. Think about it – you probably read articles about topics you will never be an expert in, because you want to have a general awareness and knowledge base. If your goal is to gain a general awareness of how languages work and learn the general features of various language families, then learning a little bit of one language before jumping to another makes perfect sense. Gaining an awareness of how languages work The first three reasons for dabbling are perfectly legitimate, because you can achieve your desired goal by dabbling. They may start off with ideas of studying the language more seriously, but start to lose motivation after an initial honeymoon period.They are planning to travel to a country where that language is spoken and want to learn a little to help them “get by” or communicate more easily with the locals.They also may have a cultural interest in an area where that language is spoken, and want to learn a little of the language to gain some more insight into the way the people think and interact, but have little need for proficiency.They`re interested in linguistics, in how languages work. Dabblers often enjoy learning about languages and gaining a general understanding of how people communicate in a particular language.Pick any given language, and there will be people dabbling in it for the following reasons (among others): Is dabbling a waste of time? Should you feel guilty about it? Well that depends. Like most language enthusiasts I spend some of my time dabbling with languages of interest, and some of my time going to war with the main languages I want to conquer. □ But I literally don`t know another single word of Estonian. From what I`ve been told, that phrase is highly relevant and useful for men visiting the Baltic nation. Sa oled ilus! That`s the one phrase I know in the Estonian language, meaning “You`re beautiful”.
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