Hello again guys. I would like to respond to a statement that my reader Sandra has left in the comments section of my last post as I think it deserves a longer answer. She said, "Parents may think: what's the use in my child learning French or Korean if my child is likely to never go there or to go there once in a blue moon?" She made a couple of other points but let's keep this post focused on this question. I am totally fluent in French - it is my second language in fact, my French is better than my Chinese; I have tried learning Korean in the past but gave up because I simply got nowhere I'm afraid, it was way too difficult and my mind just didn't take to it. But then again, I've lived in France - I've spent time there at university and I have worked in Paris whilst I have never ever set foot in South Korea yet - I will one day. Thus I am glad that Sandra has picked two very different languages - one that I am fluent in and one that I can't speak! I've watched Squid Game and I was totally dependent on the subtitles - oh I was quite disappointed at just how little I managed to understand despite having tried to study Korean before. I was barely able to catch the odd word here and there, but I still really enjoyed watching Squid Game. So here are five points for you parents to contemplate when it comes to this issue.
1. The benefits of leaving your comfort zone.
The problem with our education system is that it is very funnel-shaped: at primary and secondary level we study a wide array of subjects but as we progress further and further in our education journey, we become more and more specialized until we graduate with a degree in one particular discipline. Sure there are some people who do joint-honours programmes or are allowed to do a few modules from a different department, but the contrast is huge: at secondary school, we study many subjects whilst at university, we usually only study one subject and become an expert on it. Thus picking a foreign language to learn along the way can really take us out of our comfort zone and it is definitely useful to challenge ourselves to learn something that's quite different from our main academic discipline. This is such useful training for your working life - whilst it is very clear what my area of expertise is as a "fixed income distribution specialist", there are often times when I encounter something totally unfamiliar at work and I'm just expected to figure it out quickly in order to deal with that problem. You're not going to be a very good problem solver in this context if you always avoid anything that you're not already very familiar with. If you want to do a professional job at a very senior level, then you will be expected to solve problems that may involve elements that you're totally unfamiliar with. On the other end of the scale, there are people who work in a very mundane working class jobs (such as preparing food in a McDonald's kitchen), such people would never be taken out of their comfort zone, their daily routine will never ever change but people with such jobs are paid so little in comparison to a chief executive, who has to solve all these complex problems.
It is therefore a philosophical question of what kind of job you want your child to do in the future: do you want your child to be in a role where they do the same repetitive task day in, day out, where they simply turn to their line manager and say, "okay boss, I've just finished what you told me to do, tell me what do you want me to do next." Learning Korean was very difficult for me because everything was unfamiliar: the grammar system is totally different from any of the languages I speak (and I already speak 25 languages) - for example, the object marketing particle is used in very few languages (others include Japanese, Hindi and Mongolian) yet it is a fundamental part of every sentence in Korean. Whilst the writing system is logical, it is also a brand new alphabet system that I had to learn from scratch. Whilst there are some loan words from English, Mandarin and Hokkien, a lot of the native Korean vocabulary is completely unfamiliar to me. If I wanted to pick an easier language to learn, then I would pick a language like Romanian or Portuguese which share Latin roots with French, Spanish and Italian (which I can already speak to a high standard). Thus the benefit of learning Korean isn't so much that "Korean is a useful language for business, it will make your CV shine", rather it is more an exercise of deliberately taking ourselves out of our comfort zones and forcing us to figure out something that is thoroughly unfamiliar and complex. Whether or not you become fluent in Korean doesn't really matter by that token, because your brain will still benefit from the kind of problem solving experience you would have to go through when figuring out something as complex and puzzling as Korean grammar and studying Korean is good training for your brain!
2. Opportunity cost: pick your battles
So should we all learn Korean then? Another major factor to guide your decision is opportunity cost: learning Korean is going to take a lot of time, money and effort. Would that time, money and effort yield much better results if it was dedicated to something else like learning how to code, learning a musical instrument or a new sport? So allow me to tell you about this guy I met at my gymnastics recently, his name is Robert and I thought, okay you look Chinese so I asked him if he spoke Mandarin or Cantonese? He admitted that whilst he is indeed British-Chinese, he only spoke English and was unfortunately hopelessly monolingual. "Well I took some Chinese classes as a child, but as Chinese wasn't available as a subject at my school, my parents tried to send me to Chinese classes in town but the schedule clashed with my gymnastics training - I was making such good progress in gymnastics that I simply had to make a choice between Chinese and gymnastics as I didn't have the time to do both: so I chose to focus on my gymnastics and my parents supported my decision." To be fair to Robert, he is still an amazing gymnast today and I thought: good for you mate, you chose well! You have your brilliant skills in gymnastics today. He could have been a brilliant gymnast or just someone who has a basic grasp of Cantonese and/or Mandarin - he chose the former over the latter and I consider that a rational and sensible decision when faced with such a decision. After all, Robert can still go on to learn Chinese today if that is what he wanted to do, but he chose to focus on his gymnastics whilst he was at the right age to excel at the sport.
In the case study above, Robert had an extraordinary talent in gymnastics. So in short, he had something better to do with his time than to learn a foreign/second language which was fair enough. There are only so many hours in a week that Robert had at his disposal once he had completed his school work and he chose to dedicate that time to an activity that would yield the best possible results. It is a perfectly logical choice to make under such circumstances. But allow me to use my nephew as an example: he hasn't shown any special talent in sports and the one thing that he enjoys is playing computer games - I even went as far as to get a professional gamer to confirm that his performance in his favourite computer games are at best barely average and thus we can quite safely say that he has no special talent with computer games (even if it is an activity he enjoys). With this in mind, learning Korean might be a really good idea for my nephew because I know he is an exceptionally hardworking student. Most learners find it daunting to climb the very steep learning curve when starting to learn a new language but that would be no problem for my nephew! I bet you my nephew can memorize the entire Korean textbook cover to cover in under a week: he is a product of the Singaporean education system after all. Given that there's little opportunity cost in him learning Korean (okay, so he gets less time playing his favourite computer games), that's a very small price to pay for him to acquire a brand new language that would help him stand out from his peers. Hence in my nephew's case, he has everything to gain and nothing to lose by learning Korean.
Sandra is postulating that the only time that one might need Korean is when one visits Korea on a holiday and an extension of that might be if one ends up working in a job where you have to deal Korean-speaking clients. Now even if you don't visit Korea, you could simply use your Korean language skills to enjoy Korean culture - I like K-pop and of course I've watched Squid Game but I'm doing all that without understanding much Korean at all. But another major Netflix series that I truly enjoyed was Money Heist (La casa de papel) and it is entirely in Spanish - I watched it with English subtitles as my husband doesn't speak Spanish but I wasn't dependent on the English subtitles since my Spanish is quite fluent. I found myself having to hit the pause button every now and then and saying, "okay, the subtitles then didn't quite capture what she said, allow me to explain." If my Korean had been as good as my Spanish, then I might have been able to do the same thing with Squid Game given how many have complained about how the English subtitles didn't quite capture the more subtle essence of many references to aspects of Korean culture. Simply being able to understand another language when I watch a TV programme or listen to music can bring me great joy - it is that special glee which comes with that sense of achievement when I know I have managed to achieve something. When I watch Money Heist, sometimes the English subtitles appear before the character actually says the line in Spanish, thus I would quickly translate that into Spanish and try to say it out aloud before the character does: when I get it right, I would feel quite smug and I could do all that from the comfort of my living room - I don't need to be in Spain to use my Spanish.
Indeed, you can use your Korean language skills in Singapore or London without actually going to Korea - you can always hunt down Korean restaurants and cafes to experience a bit of their culture and there will be Korean cultural festivals happening. Whilst you may argue that Korean expatriates living in cities like Singapore and London probably do speak English rather well, your knowledge of Korean language and culture is probably going to allow you to break the ice with them and allow you to forge a social connection with them a lot faster. Furthermore, you could also socialize with others in your city who are equally passionate about learning Korean; since you do share that passion for Korean in common, it is a great way to connect and make new friends. I remember meeting a very interesting lady from China who was totally fluent in Korean and I had such a really long chat with her because she had succeeded where I had sadly failed - I wanted to know how she managed to master Korean. What was even more incredible was that she studied Korean whilst holding down a full time job working in a Chinese media production company in Shanghai, which meant that her Korean entirely self-taught as she simply didn't have time to attend classes in a regular basis (you know how crazy hard they work in China with their 996 culture) but instead she studied Korean on her own whenever she had some free time like between meetings or during meal times. We both shared a love for K-pop and I even helped her track down the various locations in London where G-Dragon had shot his music video for Crooked. Thus even my very limited knowledge of Korean has brought me so much joy in so many different ways and I have not even set foot in Korea yet! I hope to eventually do so after this pandemic ends - South Korea is definitely on the list of countries I'd really love to visit.
4. It will make your CV shine but not in the way you thought.
Many people believe that the key reason to learn a foreign language like Korean would be to make them more employable - so they could get a job where they can use their Korean language skills, such as working at a tourist attraction which welcomes many Korean tourists or a company which has South Korea as a key market they sell to. There's another obvious reason why having Korean on your CV is helpful: as a gatekeeper, I'm always looking for people who are not just intelligent but are hardworking and can follow through with their projects. This is because anyone whom I hire will have to encounter a steep learning curve in the first few weeks of the job, even if they do have some experience and come from within the industry, there's still so much they have to learn about the company's processes and products. It is impossible and unreasonable to expect someone to hit the ground running at this level - there has always got to be a period of adjustment where they scale this steep learning curve but obviously, as the employer, we would rather this period of adjustment to be something closer to six weeks rather than six months or more, then the new employee can start making useful contributions to the company. Thus I want to hire someone who would be willing and able to learn complex subject matters and processes very quickly. Becoming fluent in a difficult language like Korean in a short space of time will send the message: I'm a fast learner, if I can master Korean in just two years, I can handle anything you can throw at me because I'm not just intelligent, but I'm also hardworking, diligent and well organized. So even if we had no Korean clients and no interest in the Korean market, I'd still hire the candidate who can speak Korean.
When you do apply for a job with a good company, the competition is bound to be stiff. You need something to make your CV stand out from the crowd and let's go back to the case of my nephew - he is a pretty typical Singaporean student with good grades, but then again, what he lacks is anything special that makes him stand out from other Singaporeans with equally good grades. Having an unusual hobby or skill (such as the ability to speak Korean) will definitely help you stand out from the crowd if the gatekeeper is having to go through hundreds of applications. It also helps you look like a more interesting person - don't forget, the employer isn't trying to reward the person with the best results with the job. A key question they're always asking is whether or not this candidate would be a good fit for the team; but if I may translate that to more honest language, it means more like "would this person be a pleasure to work with or would s/he be boring? Does s/he have an interesting personality and what would it be like to chat with this person at work? Is this a person who never had any real hobbies, has never done anything beyond what was required of him/her at school?" After all, if we're spending that much time at work with our colleagues, we definitely want to hire someone we would want to enjoy spending the working day with in the office. Having an unusual interest like a passion for Korean language and culture would definitely help you stand out in this aspect, though you can achieve this too by having any kind of interesting hobby or interest of course. If you are very interested in Korean culture, this is yet another good reason to learn Korean.
5. Isn't Sandra talking about a worst case scenario? What's with the pessimism Sandra?
Allow me use myself as an example: I have mastered French as a foreign language, it is now effectively my second language and I am totally fluent in French - needless to say of course, that took a lot of hard work but that investment has paid off. At university, I went on exchange to Paris-IV Sorbonne (one of the top universities in the French speaking world) and work has taken me to French speaking countries like Belgium, Switzerland and of course, I have worked for Google France in Paris. Did I study at a top Korean university or work in Seoul? No, because I don't speak Korean, I've never mastered the language to a high level. Would I have been able to access all those lucrative work opportunities in Belgium, France and Switzerland if I wasn't already fluent in French? No way, my work there was indeed contingent on me being able to operate in a French-speaking work environment. I studied French to a very high standard because I wanted to access such incredible opportunities in French-speaking countries and who knows, if I had felt the same way about Korean back when I was much younger, I may have gone down that route with Korean as well. So we have a catch-22 situation here: would everyone who studied French be able to get really cool, well paid jobs with prestigious companies like Google France? No, I relied on more than my French language skills to get that contract - there's no guarantee that anyone who studies French will be able to do jobs like that. But would I have been able to get that job without having first mastered the French language to quite a high standard? Again no, I had to be totally fluent in French!
Thus Sandra's self-fulfilling prophesy is based on a worst case scenario whereby the student spends many years studying French to a high standard, only for it to be totally irrelevant or useless in the student's future working life except for that one holiday s/he takes in France. If this worst case scenario was a reality, then it would make sense to cut your losses and never even bother learning French. Whilst we don't have a crystal ball to accurately predict our future, should we be so pessimistic and make decisions based on the worst possible outcome? Oh dear, what's with all the gloom and doom? Let's compare this to a decision like going to university - the worst case scenario is that you struggle and fail to pass the difficult exams, then you flunk out of university without graduating. Or you may graduate and then find your degree not useful at all in finding a graduate-level job, you may then end up working as a taxi driver or a barista at Starbucks despite having a degree. Whilst that is a possibility of course, we must recognize that it is a worst case scenario that would only happen to a small number of people who do decide to go to university and pursue a degree. Thus the decision to learn a foreign language like French or Korean should be seen in the same light - yes there is a possibility that it may turn out to be a total waste of time, but you go into the endeavour with good faith that you're going to try your best, work hard, become good at that foreign language and hope for the best in terms of how it would serve you in the future. If we took a pessimistic 'worst case scenario' stance whenever we consider a new venture, then we would never get a degree, never start a new job, never go into a relationship, never start a business simply because of the possibility of things going wrong and not working out. Why focus on the worst case scenario, how is that useful then?
Sandra mentioned that some parents wonder if it is worth learning a foreign language given that their kids may never set foot in the country or visit it just once in a blue moon. Well prior to the pandemic, millions of tourists do visit France and South Korea. In fact, 90 million foreign tourists visited France in 2019 and 26 million visited South Korea that same year - the vast majority of the tourists who went to France and South Korea don't speak more than just a few words of the language of the local language but it doesn't matter. Both countries are so tourist friendly and will gladly use English as a lingua franca to communicate - so if a French tourist goes to Seoul or if a Korean tourist goes to Paris, guess what? They'll just end up speaking in English to get themselves understood and as long as you stick to the big cities, stay in big hotel chains and visit the main tourist attractions, you'll probably be perfectly fine with just English. It is only when you venture deep into the countryside, way off the tourist beaten path then yeah, being able to speak the local language to communicate would be really useful. I remember when I was last in Bangkok and I was trying to buy a ticket for the Skytrain: I was valiantly struggling on in Thai when the lady behind the counter just said, "you can speak to me in English, just tell me which ticket you need." I know I usually turn up in a country speaking the local language but that's just me; I'm very unusual in this respect whilst most people just default to English and failing which there is Google Translate. You should learn a foreign language because it is a rewarding process, with or without the international travel.
I hope I've given Sandra the answer her question deserves - I spent quite a lot of time and effort crafting this reply because I think her statement was based on pessimism. I've encountered so much pessimism growing up in Singapore; I swear I was surrounded by people who chose to cut their losses by not even trying to do something amazing for themselves just in case it didn't work out. The amount of pessimism I encountered from my own parents when I started learning French was on another level I swear. Nonetheless I was able to put all that negativity aside and became not just fluent in French, but I became a polyglot who can speak 25 languages in spite of my parents, not because of my parents. But I've made my arguments so now I'm going to turn this over to you - so what do you think? Have you ever tried to learn a foreign language and what were your experiences like? Did you receive support or were those around you simply pessimistic about your ability to master a new language? What benefits did you derive from the process of learning another language? Has your new language served you well and in what ways? Why do you think some people enjoy this process of learning a new language a lot more than others - is it just a question of having a natural talent for picking up languages? If you could learn a new language which would it be? Leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
Hi Sandra, yes I know the context which you made the comments, but I just wanted to take one statement and respond to it, simply because I have heard comments like that before - it resonated with me. I know you weren't expressing a personal point of view, rather you were reflecting a sentiment that is out there, that others have said before and hence that's why I felt the need to respond to it.
ReplyDeleteThe pessimism is the thing I wanted to deal with though: I remember meeting this lady from Singapore years ago and we were chatting, I mentioned that I studied French at university. So she then asked me if I can speak any French, at first I felt insulted. Didn't I just tell you I studied French at university? Can you imagine if someone told you they studied geography at university and they then asked you a lame ass question like, "so do you know what is the capital city of China?" I then asked her why she would ask a question like that and it turns out that this lady tried to study French when she was younger and gave up, she found it too difficult. Her best friend also tried and gave up as well - again, the conclusion was that it was mission impossible to learn French. So her question was not so much that she thought I was stupid or bad at languages, but it was based on her own pessimism about how hard it is to master a foreign language. I could have been quite mean and pointed out that I'm probably a lot smarter than her (and her best friend who also gave up on French), that's why I am fluent in French today whilst she isn't. But it's just that pessimism that I wanted to deal with, it is hardly a useful mindset to have. That's pessimism is the reason why our open-mindedness and curiousity to learn more about the world isn't valued by some people and I'm just calling that out.
Speaking of "greed is good", I accidentally found out how much someone I know through work was paid and my reaction was, "whaaaaat? But he's as useful as a chocolate teapot and that's how much money he is making?" But I just turn that around and think, well what am I doing wrong then? Why aren't I making that kind of money as well? What can I do to make that kind of money? We live in the same world Sandra, I'm probably not that far from you as the crow flies (hello from Camden) but our perspectives are different not just because of our age difference, but because of our very different characters and I appreciate you sharing your perspective with me here.
And of course, I also needed to point out that there are huge benefits to be gained when you study a foreign language like Korean, even if you never set foot in Korea. I don't know why some people focus on actually being in Korea before they reap the benefits of knowing another language when those benefits could be enjoyed from the comfort of their living rooms. Being multilingual does awesome things for you, it is fantastic training for your brain and believe you me, others around you (in particular, employers and gatekeepers who look at your CV) will notice.
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting that your analysis about the differences between our mindsets has been based mostly on age/generation gap rather than culture per se. You see the differences I tend to encounter are usually based on cultural differences rather than age per se. There are times when I encounter a situation (say at work), I'd choose to react one way whilst my colleagues may choose to react in a totally different manner. I would say, "aaah this is because I'm Asian and my mindset is still quite Asian even if I did spend more than half my life in the West". I wouldn't necessarily go for the age / generation gap thing, but perhaps that's because of a part of me is in denial about being so freaking old. I'm still spending my evenings at my gymnastics club training with young people less than half my age because I don't have kids, whilst when my sister was my age, she was at home cooking dinner for her family, helping her son with his homework etc. Hence for me, I'm always more acutely aware of the cultural differences rather than the age difference per se; but of course, since you and I are both from Singapore, I can't turn to that when dealing with you of course.
ReplyDeleteAnd in case I don't say this enough, let me say this again: I really appreciate you sharing your point of view with me as I think it is important not to be stuck in an echo chamber. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! Learning a second language helps a person master the first language and vice versa. Why would any parent not expose a child to a second language if the opportunity is there? Language learning need not be for mastery in mind but learn it for culture, brainpower, critical thinking, and problem-solving, and possibly for enjoyment.
ReplyDeleteHi Di, thanks for your comment. What do you think about what Sandra said about how some parents feel that it will be a waste of time learning a language like Korean because they may never visit Korea or only visit it once in a blue moon? Admittedly, I've never been to Korea despite having tried to learn Korean. Granted it isn't her personal point of view, I think this attitude does prevail in Singapore (there's no smoke without fire), hence the very, very low uptake of anyone learning a third/foreign language. Why do you think this is the case in Singapore then Di?
DeleteMany parents think education ought to lead to a career that makes good money. Learning a second language would then only be out of necessity to make the cut to get into post-secondary institutions. I don't know about the current situation, but when I was there, a pass in a second language was one of the criteria to get into NUS.
ReplyDeleteNow, why bother with a language like Korean which is completely unnecessary to further one's chances of NUS acceptance?
Unless one is vying for a job posting to Korea, why bother to learn the language? In fact, why bother to learn any language if it's purely out of idle interest? We don't need to know the language to travel. Hence, the notion that language learning for interest or personal satisfaction is an indulgence.
If one thinks that way, why bother to learn Shakespeare? People do not speak that way anymore, so what use is Shakespeare? That way of thinking is very limiting. Why learn anything outside of school then? Tennis? Piano? Skiing? Why? Because it makes us more interesting! That's why! It builds character.
You have hit the nail on the head - I think a lot of parents are still under the impression that the best job goes to the students with the top grades, that's not completely true IMHO because even if you are a student with good grades, guess what? You're never going to be the top student anyway - what are the chances of your children being in the top 0.001% of their cohort, where they can purely rely on their grades and academic brilliance to be on the top of their field? So your kid ends up in the top 10% with very good grades and has to compete with plenty of other applicants with equally impressive grades, that's where other aspects of their skills such as foreign languages, sports, work experience etc come into play. Sure the system in Singapore does go a lot further than the West to reward the kids with better grades when it comes to the job market, but otherwise, activities for building character does go a lot further than just improving your job prospects - it makes you a much better adult and surely that's the parents' job to nurture their children this way, for them to mature into adults with interesting characters, rather than just swots who know how to memorize thick textbooks and deal with complex math equations.
DeleteBtw Alex, what is a SWOT? I can't seem to find a definition of it which is relevant to how you use the term.
DeleteHello Amanda, maybe it's a British English vs American English thing. Allow me to refer you to a recent post from October 2021 https://limpehft.blogspot.com/2021/10/brian-wong-is-censored-is-cancel.html The opening paragraph of that story about Brian Wong there was the line, "Wong was a total and utter SWOT." It went on to describe how Wong was obsessed with mathematics and had very poor social skills, that he always had to be right when it came to maths. Then in the middle of the story, "the SWOT had struck again" referring to a time when Wong gave the right answer to a riddle that the rest of the class got wrong. And then, "even the sensible teacher Mr Shrewdly felt indicted to egg the SWOT on". So you get it, the difference between a nerd/geek and a swot is that a nerd/geek simply has poor social skills and is socially awkward, doesn't fit in with the cool kids at school. The swot is a nerd/geek by that definition but the difference is that you need to be mega-intelligent to be a swot as well, hence a swot has all the properties of a geek/nerd but is also very academically gifted. By that token, there are plenty of swots in Singapore. Gosh, I grew up surrounded by so many swots I swear.
DeleteOh in American English we call someone who only has bad social skills but isn't particularly academically talented a "dork", while "nerd/geek" is our word for SWOT. Does SWOT stand for something? Anyway I haven't been commenting much here because I've been going to gymnastics and training in the gym throughout other days of the week. Btw I notice your favorite kinda exercises on instagram are the floor and balance beam. I just started the balance beam 4 days ago, fell lots of times when the coaches asked me to run across the beam haha.
DeleteOh I must vary my Instagram content and post some new skills, but you're right I tend to post my favourite skills there but I am capable of a lot more than just the 1.5 twists backwards and the straight front punch front full - oh and that gainer dismount from the beam. I love it cos I can do it better than the girls who need to compete that dismount. But I will try to post something different this weekend!
DeleteYeah I was surprised you showcased balance beam because that is traditionally a women's event. When I go to youtube and get recommended men's gymnastics videos, its all pommel horse or rings or parallel beams.
DeleteWell I am not trying to land that somersault on the beam, I remember training that dismount and so many people told me, "that's such a scary skill", because you're somersaulting backwards whilst traveling forwards off the end of the beam, so there's the possibility of hitting your head (or your feet) on the beam if you do not clear the beam fast enough and yes, I've seen people get it wrong and mess up badly on it before. There's not much room for error on that skill, that's why it is rated a C in women's gymnastics - you see, gymnastics skills are rated A to K with A being the easiest and K being the hardest and for a man to be able to do a skill worth a C for women, that's actually quite rare. But point taken, I will definitely post something else rather than usual same few skills on my Instagram, thank you!
DeleteYeah like whenever I do gymnastics my main worry is always "don't hit the head!", and a forward somersault looks at least somewhat safer than a backflip off a balance beam. Oh do you like to try the women's events sometimes? I'm surprised there are separate events for women and men, though the overlapping ones are floor exercise and vault. At my gym there's only ladies events so the guys that attend don't do any guys events. But anyway I'd love to see your other skills too Alex!
DeleteOh it's not the back somersault vs front somersault issue - there are two kinds of skills which are from diving which are considered the most confusing. The term we use is 'mindfuck'. There's the inward somersault where you jump backwards and rotate forwards whilst the reverse somersault is when you jump forwards and rotate backwards. A front somersault is so much simpler in that you jump forwards whilst rotating forwards. The mindfuck category of somersaults scare even the best gymnasts which is why my reverse somersault off the beam often doesn't look that impressive to people who don't know much about gymnastics, but the gymnasts in my gym who realize that it is a reverse somersault usually exclaim, "that's so freaking scary." I failed to do any videos this evening but I will definitely do some for you on Sunday.
DeleteJumping forwards rotating backwards I've seen before at my gym, but jumping backwards and rotating forwards is a whole mindfuck haha. Yeah I used to not appreciate the difficulty of gymnastics until I tried it myself. Even simple tasks like walking in a straight line on a balance beam require so many additional muscles the average person doesn't even use in their daily life.
DeleteBtw regarding your reply to Di Talasi below about how one doesn't have to master to get something out of it, I think that's totally right. If I wasn't doing gymnastics or another sport or hobby that has a skill ladder, then I'd just be watching tv and playing videogames and not really challenging myself mentally which can lead to boredom. I think this is more the work to live mindset rather than the live to work mindset which people who judge hobbies by their monetary value tend to have.
In gymnastics, we're always looking for ways to increase the difficulty. In our competitions, we're rewarded for difficulty and hence doing things the wrong way, ie. jumping forwards whilst rotating backwards is counter-intuitive, it is a major mindfuck because you're rotating the 'wrong' way compared to a normal somersault and the rules will reward that. Hence a simple front or back somersault dismount from the beam is just an A (the lowest difficult rating there is) whilst my dismount, the reverse somersault, is valued at a C because of the mindfuck factor.
DeleteI am so glad we share something in common, I can't wait for you to post something on Instagram from your gymnastics training - looking forward to that Amanda!
Yeah when I hear the commentators during the Olympics they might say things like "the amplitude is lower but the difficulty is so high" when they were talking about Max Whitlock's Olympic gold at the pommel horse in Tokyo 2020. Then I realized Whitlock is unusually tall for a gymnast (170cm), which is why he has lower amplitude so the best way for him to score points over other shorter gymnasts is on difficulty.
DeleteYeah, its nice having a former national athlete to talk to about gymnastics over the other stuff we discuss. I managed to do a handstand forward roll recently after only 3 weeks of classes. Didn't get it on camera because it was the last few minutes of class, but I will try next week.
OK you saw my post in Instagram tonight, now's your turn Amanda!
DeleteYup! My gymnastics class is tomorrow, I will try to get someone to video me doing what little tricks I can do.
DeleteI do not think it is advisable for every person to learn multiple languages.
ReplyDeleteI am speaking for the average person on the street.
For most people, it will be better off mastering one or at most two languages.
Thanks for your comment Jon, I don't agree with you but am rushing for a meeting now. I will write you a much longer and more comprehensive response later today, thank you!
DeleteI am referring to learning a language to a high level. An average person will not be able to learn and maintain high level of competence of say 3 or more languages.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I think you're wrong on that and allow me to explain. In Singapore, the system is such that you have your first language, your second language or in some cases, if you're very good at Chinese for example, you can take Higher Chinese (ie. aka Chinese as a first language) and then very few people opt for a third language - but the system is such that only those who are academically gifted are given the option of doing a third language like Japanese, German or French. Certainly, many average students are considered incapable of doing a 3rd language because the system has deemed them incapable of mastering 3 or more languages. This problem is similar in the UK, where foreign languages are deemed as something for a exceptionally bright students who are capable of mastering something so difficult, hence that's why the majority of the people here in the UK are monolingual.
DeleteHowever, if you were to go to a country like Switzerland, Belgium or Finland - everyone is trilingual and that's the basic minimum. So in Switzerland, people speak French, German + English, in Belgium people speak French, Dutch + English and in Finland they speak Finnish, Swedish + English. Even the road sweeper is trilingual and when I was in Estonia, I went to a health spa and the lady at the counter giving out the towels, the free drinks etc spoke English, Estonian, Russian and Finnish fluently. Why? It's not because countries like Finland or Estonia have a better education system, it's simply what you consider the norm. If being monolingual is the norm (as in the UK), then people who are multi-lingual are considered exceptionally brilliant (whoopee, I am in the right place then). But if I go to Tallinn or Helsinki where everyone is so multi-lingual, then being able to speak 3 or more languages fluently is considered normal, not exceptional and if you only speak 2 languages, then people would think, oh dear you're only bilingual? Do you have learning difficulties? How low is your IQ? How is your brain so weak that you can only handle two languages - like what's wrong with you? Why are you so painfully stupid?
I also realize you're a lot younger than me. If we go back to my parents' generation, it wasn't uncommon to find Singaporeans and Malaysians who spoke English, Mandarin, Malay + Hokkien and Cantonese fluently. That's effectively 5 languages and these were not the professors at the university, hell no - these were the uncles and aunties who were working in the market and they needed different languages to serve their customers and make money. It was a means to an end, your generation has become a lot more English speaking and it has eliminated the need to speak 5 languages. So going back to the 1970s and even 1980s, Singapore was a far more multilingual place than it is today - it's just your norms and perceptions about what is normal has changed.
But I think you do raise a good question about the difference between what is considered the norm in Singapore + the UK vs countries like Estonia, Finland, Switzerland and Belgium where being trilingual is the bare minimum and you're a real retard if you spoke only 2 languages. Part of my mission with my blog is to help expose you to other cultures from countries like Finland and Estonia which have a radically different culture to what you are used to in Singapore. You are young and well educated, you should open your mind up to how people do things differently in other countries.
DeleteI think when it comes to language, some people are still thinking of mastery in mind. Yes, of course, it is easier to master one language than two or three languages. Not impossible but easier. That goes without saying. However, does learning a language have to be for mastery? Again the mindset that it must serve a purpose. Couldn't one learn languages just for fun? My son play competitive tennis, but he plays basketball, soccer, and badminton for fun. He also swims, skis, and bikes for fun. If he wants to learn a smattering of different languages, why not? Not every learning undertaking has to be for academic or professional purpose.
ReplyDeleteThank you Di, you're totally right of course. Why the focus on mastery per se? I am involved in my gymnastics club's adult gymnastics programme as well as my university alumni's gymnastics club. Most of the adults I deal with in the two programmes will never master gymnastics to a high level, but they have great fun in challenging themselves to learn a new sport and they also get to make loads of friends in the process. They benefit so much from such new experiences so it makes absolute sense for them to participate of course. But kiasu Singaporean parents may think, what's the point in a recreational activity that you will never 'master' - wouldn't you be better off pursuing something that you can indeed master or failing which, simply spend that time and energy studying harder? There is so much to unpack here, I ought to write a whole post about it.
DeleteHi Lift, do most of those people in Finland and Switzerland able to speak all those languages at a high level? Many people at my parents age can speak English, Mandarin, Malay plus dialects but not many can speak all of the languages well.
ReplyDeleteI agree it is okay not to learn multiple languages at a high level but the point I am making is for most people, our brain can only learn and maintain 1-2 languages at a high level.
The answer is yes, the vast majority of people in Finland and Switzerland grow up speaking at least 3 languages to a very high level. And we're not talking about graduates from the top universities here, we're talking about ordinary folks who do very ordinary jobs being totally fluent in at least 3 languages. Take Finland for example, there are two official languages that everyone has to learn at school: Finnish and Swedish. Long story, Finland used to be a part of Sweden so Swedish is retained as an official language - it is a compulsory language even for Finnish kids today as long as they go to a Finnish school. Then on top of that everyone has to master English to a super high level. So I have a friend who works in a pharmacy in Helsinki, the customer has the right (by law in Finland) to demand to be served by the pharmacist in Finnish and Swedish, so the pharmacy has to employ someone who is fluent enough in Swedish to deal with a customer entirely in Swedish. So my pharmacist friend speaks Finnish as a first language, English as a second language to a super high standard and then Swedish as a competent third language (along with some Norwegian as a fourth language). He had to pass the equivalent of A levels in Swedish to get a job like that. So this is a man who works in a pharmacy and he's effectively trilingual or quadralingual if you include Norwegian. He doesn't consider himself good with languages, but he is effectively trilingual after having been brought up in Finland where all the students simply must learn three languages and that's the bare minimum for their system. Likewise in Switzerland, the students who have gone through the Swiss system will have French, German, English and often Italian as well under their belt, they are minimum effectively trilingual - but often speak 4 languages and that's just completely normal for them.
DeleteIf your theory is that normal people can only learn and maintain 1 or 2 languages at a high level, then that's because that's the norm in your society. Heck, I live in a society where most people are hopelessly monolingual. But I say you're wrong because I don't think the people in places like Finland or Switzerland are that different, they just have a society where learning 3 or 4 languages as a child to a very high standard is not considered exceptional but simply bare minimum. If you were expecting me to say something like "people in Finland and Switzerland are only fluent in one language and struggle in 1 or 2 more", then nope, that's clearly NOT the case. So why is it these countries can produce people who are so effectively multi-lingual in 3 or 4 languages? We're talking ordinary folks in Finland and Switzerland mastering 3 or 4 languages to a very high standard whilst you're making the mistake (oooh and it's a terrible mistake Jon) of only looking at what's happening in Singapore and assuming that the same thing applies to the rest of the world. That's clearly not true, you're wrong about this one. Don't assume that Singapore is the same as the rest of the world. I think there's a spectrum, there are countries which are hopelessly monolingual like the UK and Japan where most people speak only 1 language. Then there's Singapore which is not that multilingual but at least has a more diverse linguistic landscape. Then there's the likes of Estonia, Belgium, Switzerland and Finland that totally kick your ass and even the street cleaner there is fluent in 4 languages and she'll look at you and think, "I'm cleaning the gutters here and I can fucking fluent in 4 languages, what the hell is wrong with your brain Jon? Why are you so fucking retarded?" Are Finnish and Swiss people more intelligent? I don't think so, but they are clearly doing something right when it comes to making sure everyone feels the need to become at the very least effectively trilingual.
DeleteSo once again, please just accept that you're wrong and I'm right because you're only talking about Singapore, you don't know anything about what's happening in countries like Finland and Switzerland.
Hi LIFT, I am not as well travelled as you hence I cannot speak from personal experience.
DeleteSo I did some research online. https://www.quora.com/How-many-languages-is-the-typical-Swiss-citizen-fluent-in. Two Swiss citizens wrote that the typical Swiss citizen is only fluent in 1 language.
According to Bundesamt für Statistik , data in 2014, only about 25% of the Swiss speak 3 or more languages regularly and we all know proficiency in a language will deteriorate with neglect.
I find it hard to believe the average Swiss, let alone a street cleaner is able to create well-structured and detailed texts on complex topics, in 3 or more languages.
Hence, I stand by my view that the average person e.g the Swiss, is not able to maintain more than 2 languages at a high level.
Thank you.
I hate to do this but I've spent time working in Switzerland and obviously, have real life experience in Switzerland but all you have done is quoted a link from Quora. So allow me to offer you two responses in terms of what you've read because I think you're being very selective of picking evidence that suits your narrative whilst totally ignoring anything to the contrary.
Delete1. When you're in a country like Sweden, Switzerland or Austria and you stop someone in the street randomly to ask for directions, you may be polite and start with, "sorry, do you speak English please?" The person will probably reply, "yes a little" or something to that effect of "only a little bit", only to be then totally fluent in giving you directions and recommendations about your destination in perfect English. Once that happened to me in Switzerland and I had to ask the lady why she was so modest about being totally fluent in English, she then said, "oh there are people who are better than me in English even amongst my friends here in Switzerland, so I always feel like my English is not as good as theirs, so I always am a little bit shy about using English, especially with someone like you as you come from an English-speaking country." So this Swiss lady may choose not to claim to be fluent in English because she has set the bar so high. I remember being in a cafe in Zurich - it's the kind of cafe where you walk in, grab your tray, pick up items like sandwiches, bowls of soup, cakes, snacks, salads, drinks etc and then you line up at the cashier, the cashier then looks at what you've picked up and tell you the price before you pay. That lady at the cashier was dealing with customers in four languages: Italian, German, French and English - granted she is probably only saying things like, "Good afternoon, I see you have a slice of the chocolate cake, a Greek salad, a soup of the day, a small Diet Coke and an orange juice, that would be 14 CHF, would you like to pay in card or cash?" Even when customers were asking her more complex questions like, "is there any meat product like butter or cream in the soup? I am vegan." She was able to handle all the questions in 4 languages, now this is just a lady working as a cashier in what is like a food court. In Singapore, I'd probably speak to the auntie in Mandarin if I encountered a cashier type character under such circumstances. Would this cashier lady be able to considered multilingual or do you want to be really strict and say, "she's only properly fluent in her mother tongue German, she has a working knowledge of the other three languages but no, I simply refuse to consider her fluent in any of the others."
I think it's quite unhelpful to take that approach because you're either saying A) that lady speaks 4 languages fluently or B) that lady is practically monolingual as I only consider her fluent in 1 language. If you're going to set the bar extremely high and expect our cashier lady in the cafe to be able to "create well-structured and detailed texts on complex topics", then I think you're artificially constructing a set of circumstances where you're categorizing a lady who uses 4 languages at work on a regular basis as monolingual, which simply isn't an accurate reflection of the situation in Switzerland.
Oh I just realized that in the example above, the price of 14 CHF for all of those items would be unrealistically cheap for a nice cafe in central Zurich or Geneva given how bloody expensive Switzerland is. You wanna pick up 5 items like that in a cafe, it'll cost a lot more than 14 CHF for sure, especially in that lovely cafe I visited. My point is simple: I have actually been on the ground in Switzerland, both for work and for leisure, many times over the years. On top of that, I actually speak all 4 of the most commonly used languages in Switzerland (German, French, Italian and English) and I have many Swiss friends as well on top of that. Thus my observations are based on everyday situations such as witnessing that cashier lady at work in the cafe in Zurich and so I can then ask you, "so, would you consider this lady in the case study multi-lingual? Or are you going to artificially raise the bar so high that you're going to insist that she is monolingual, someone who is fluent in only 1 language then?" You've picked and choose a Quora link which suits your narrative but I actually have the real life experience in places like Switzerland and Finland to back up my narrative - whilst all you can do is search on Google until you find something that backs up your version of events. This is hardly a black and white issue but there are many shades of grey involved, unfortunately you seem to be determined to search on Google until you find someone who agrees with your version of event without actually stopping for a moment to listen to me, when I am trying to present the shades of grey to you and that's a reflection of your poor social skills I'm afraid.
DeleteHi LIFT, first of all thank you very much for replying to me in details. I appreciate that.
ReplyDeleteI like to read your blogs and I like to drop comments from time to time.
I acknowledge that you have real life experience in Switzerland and know more than me in anything related to Switzerland.
I also recognize that many Swiss/Finns is able to communicate fairly well in 3-4 languages.
What I am trying to do here is not to pick bones with you , but to express my view that the average person is only able to learn and maintain 1-2 languages at a high level, and yes I set the bar high.
If you disagree with me, that is fine.
Let's agree to disagree.
Cheers.
OK on the issue of setting the bar very high, how would you feel if I subjected you to the same standards and declared that you're effectively monolingual, since your Chinese is never going to be as good as someone who is a native speaker of Mandarin in China? Would you then protest and say, hey my Mandarin is very good by Singaporeans standards and I'm certainly competent in Chinese. I can communicate in Mandarin, I can read and write fairly well, sure it isn't my mother tongue nor is it at first language standard, but to thus dismiss it altogether by setting the bar so high and declaring me monolingual is somewhat unfair? After all, you do have some ability in Chinese even if it isn't your first language. I'm just trying to get you to see the shades of grey here, rather than have this simplistic "nope you've not mastered the language to a high enough standard, so I'm going to ignore any ability you may have in the language" approach. The world is way too complex to reduce to a simplistic black or white dichotomy like that, we need to recognize the many shades of grey in between the two extremes of the scale.
DeleteOK, point taken. Do allow me to refine my view :
DeleteThe average person is able to learn and maintain 1-2 languages at a high level, plus a few more languages at an intermediate or beginner level.
I will deal with this in a full post as I think it's a complex issue. If you're in an environment where you're a) rewarded for speaking a third language and b) penalized for not speaking a third language (such as in Finland), then yeah it creates a situation where most people are forced to become trilingual whether they are gifted at languages or not. But if you're in Singapore (I'm gonna use it as an example of a place you're familiar with but it's a great example), even if the preconditions are there for people to become multilingual (so many languages spoken by the population + the expats), that's actively discouraged and everyone defaults to English, giving people no incentive to learn even a second language. I always use the example of my two sisters in Singapore who speak Mandarin fluently but do not ever use it in the workplace out of respect for their Malay & Indian colleagues who expect my sisters to communicate in English only in the workplace - speaking Mandarin in front of them could at best cause misunderstandings as they don't understand Mandarin, at worst they could feel insulted and discriminated against. Hence it has created a situation where the Singaporean workplace for my two sisters' companies have become English-only zones rather than multilingual environments. Thus I am pointing out that you happen to live in the latter - an environment where being multilingual is actually not rewarded and even discouraged in some circumstances (such as in an office where you have non-Chinese colleagues). I just wanted to point out that in other countries like Finland for example, the circumstances are very different indeed regarding which languages they are expected to be able to speak at the work place. Akan datang, more in the next post.
DeleteI remember an incident from my JC days when I was speaking in English with my classmates which included one Indian girl, I slipped in a word in Mandarin (as one does in Singlish, we use loads of loanwords from other languages) but she didn't understand that word. So not only did she stop me mid-sentence to ask me what that word meant, but she also asked me, "please can you not do that when I'm in the group as obviously I don't speak Mandarin - how would you like it if I started speaking Tamil in front of you, alienating you from the conversation?" So yeah, my JC was thus very much an English only environment.
DeleteIn fact you could probably argue that as a Singaporean Indian, she could have been expected to know a little Mandarin and Hokkien, at least enough to understand the usual loanwords that we might use in Singlish, the same way everyone knows some Malay words commonly used in Singlish like malu, kena, bodoh, jelak, sekali, karung guni - these are common Malay words that have become a part of Singlish and used by non-Malays. But you know what the situation is like in Singapore, non-Chinese people often refuse to learn any Mandarin for political reasons and thus everyone just defaults to English, the safe neutral middle ground. Was it weird that my Indian classmate wanted me to speak the Queen's English rather than Singlish when I was in a Singaporean school? We can spend ages talking about that one.
DeleteHi LIFT,
DeleteI read your previous post on Vietnam trip. u said it hard to listen to their local tones at airport , street etc. I like to ask that. isn't listen in from basic Vietnamese speaking from learning book and YouTube video etc, no good enough to understand the locals tones in Vietnam? is that case, how do u cope ? by translate with Google or shown them Vietnam/ English phase book as simple communication?
thank you
regard
Wong
Hi LIFT,
DeleteI read your previous post on Vietnam trip. u said it hard to listen to their local tones at airport , street etc. I like to ask that. isn't listen in from basic Vietnamese speaking from learning book and YouTube video etc, no good enough to understand the locals tones in Vietnam? is that case, how do u cope ? by translate with Google or shown them Vietnam/ English phase book as simple communication?
thank you
regard
Wong
Hi Wong, oh the Vietnam trip post was from ages ago in 2011, I have only been to Vietnam once. You dug up a really old post. Back in 2011, Google Translate didn't work very well and certainly it wasn't capable of translating the way it can in 2021. Google translate really only came of age in 2014-2015 - I know because I actually worked a contract for Google translate in that period and that was the relaunch after they made massive improvements in the software. In 2011, nobody relied on Google translate. I didn't even buy a phrase book. I simply learnt enough Vietnamese to get by, it was very basic and I struggled a lot - but I used my brain rather than relied on a computer programme or a book. If you're new to my blog, hello I'm a polyglot who speaks 25 languages. My brain is capable of doing things like learning the basics of a brand new language like Vietnamese in a matter of weeks and I prefer using my brain than relying on books or Google translate. Most normal people can't do what I do, certainly not in the short space of time that I can absorb a new language. Did I get very far in Vietnamese? No, I didn't - I only mastered the basics and it was a struggle of course. But compare that to the other tourists who I encountered in Vietnam who made zero effort and simply joined a guided tour with an English speaking guide. Duh. They didn't struggle because they didn't even try to utter a single word of Vietnamese.
Delete