Cool or Trendy Languages

[clawgrip]

What a weird comment.

[Melteor]

People do learn a bit of language for the cool factor, but it's rarely the language itself that has all the cool. For example, the number of white kids who study Japanese is way higher than the number of white kids who study Korean, despite Korean being the clearly superior language. Why do they do this? Is it because they like non-past grammatical markers and dislike phonemic aspiration? No. They do it because they think (wrongly) that Japan is cool, not Japanese itself. They imagine a land of giant robots and blue-haired women who will have sex with them somehow, and they express their enthusiasm for this East Asian Elysium by shouting "Yokatta ZeeeeeEEEEEE!!!!111" and calling each other Steve-kun.

It's funny that the opposite is true, Japan is cool because it's dangerous---it's trying to kill you all the time. And sometimes by boredom.

[Shrdlu]

And then we have the opposite: the Japanese Paris syndrome.

[Melteor]

And then we have the opposite: the Japanese Paris syndrome.

The French eat it up.

[Shrdlu]

no, this is serious biznis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome

[Babbler]

So, how much does the "cool" factor determine the aquisition of a language?

There will be more people trying to learn the language, but failing.

Are you more likely to learn a language that is considered "cool" than useful? Out of Chinese/Japanese/Korean and German/Russian, which do you think is most highly regarded by your native countrymen?

Me. Probably not. I would say in the general public here in Canada, Chinese is probably "cooler" than the other language, because that's what everybody thinks the next world language is going to be, even though Japanese is popular among the anime fanboys.

Within my university, it does seem that Japanese and ASL are more popular than one would imagine. I've known several people who have completed Japanese and ASL minors, but this is probably a very skewed sample.

Also, is there a way to make a conlang appear "chic" to non language fanboys?

Probably not.

[GrinningManiac]

I learn my languages based on how cool I consider them. Cool in this context is a personal sense of "How do I like the sound of this language?" The end result being I find it awesome to make those noises myself in an intelligable manner. Russian, Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi and Scottish Gaelic have all in one small way or another fascinated me with their weird and wonderful sounds. Vietnamese, though I have nothing against it, will not be on my wishlist any time soon as I don't like its gulping quality.

Oh yeah, but beyond obsessives (sorry, Weeaboos, but that's basically what you are) people who consider language chic actually very rarely learn it. I had a housemate who kept mentioning how she'd like to learn French. For her birthday I brought her a french course with audio and a short story she could aspire to read. She thanked me and never opened the damn thing. She didn't want to learn French so much as she liked the feeling of being "cultured" or, in this context, "cool" enough to consider learning a language. She kept saying it because she thought it was a cool and interesting thing to say. She never went through with it.

In England I think the most impressive language you can learn is any language since Englishmen have it in their heads that every foreign language is impossible and it takes a lifetime to become fluent in Spanish and so on. French and German (and these days Spanish) aren't AS revered since everyone learnt a little at school and whilst they'd be fascinated by fluency they would be mildly interested in merely learning the thing. Mandarin is the big one over here since everyone is convinced it's the hardest language in the world and tones are completely alien to English so we can never truly learn to pick up the tones ourselves and the characters are meaningless scribbles with no logic behind them. If you can spurt out a longish sentence like "Wo bu zhidao ni shuo shenme" then even the Chinese immigrants will think you're hot stuff.

[din]

Think you forgot a 的 there, hot stuff

[clawgrip]

Even without 的 they'll think you're hot stuff.

[Melteor]

I learn my languages based on how cool I consider them...Oh yeah, but beyond obsessives (sorry, Weeaboos, but that's basically what you are) people who consider language chic actually very rarely learn it.

(Did you just call yourself a weeaboo? ) The girl could have been one of those people who learns to pepper her English papers with italicized French phrases...Did you really want to create that kind of monster? :p

It's impossible to show off a language without looking like a dick. A girl whom I met who knew Chinese only begrudgingly said a few words in it. It really was no big deal to her; she grew up in Hong Kong. I think that's enviable though to people who speak just one language, and that's the key word there, 'envy'.

She lived nearby though partially because of the Chinese immersion school, which is surprisingly a big draw to the area. That's another thing about America imo--the pervasive attitude towards not learning another language, and the belief that throwing money at problems works, means that good methods of learning languages have no visibility and no appeal, especially for younger kids. Too bad more bookworms can't get into things when they're kids, although the availability of Spanish materials combats that, if you like Spanish; mostly that's to the credit of the demanding Spanish parents who want their kids to be bilingual. Oh and I'm not saying that Chinese immersion school is bad, it's just ridiculously prohibitive if you need to move here to get access (good for you if your parents are already located here and are forward thinking and willing to pay extra.)

[GrinningManiac]

I learn my languages based on how cool I consider them...Oh yeah, but beyond obsessives (sorry, Weeaboos, but that's basically what you are) people who consider language chic actually very rarely learn it.

(Did you just call yourself a weeaboo? ) The girl could have been one of those people who learns to pepper her English papers with italicized French phrases...Did you really want to create that kind of monster? :p

It's impossible to show off a language without looking like a dick. A girl whom I met who knew Chinese only begrudgingly said a few words in it. It really was no big deal to her; she grew up in Hong Kong. I think that's enviable though to people who speak just one language, and that's the key word there, 'envy'.

She lived nearby though partially because of the Chinese immersion school, which is surprisingly a big draw to the area. That's another thing about America imo--the pervasive attitude towards not learning another language, and the belief that throwing money at problems works, means that good methods of learning languages have no visibility and no appeal, especially for younger kids. Too bad more bookworms can't get into things when they're kids, although the availability of Spanish materials combats that, if you like Spanish; mostly that's to the credit of the demanding Spanish parents who want their kids to be bilingual. Oh and I'm not saying that Chinese immersion school is bad, it's just ridiculously prohibitive if you need to move here to get access (good for you if your parents are already located here and are forward thinking and willing to pay extra.)

Yeah, I'd classify myself as an obsessive about languages. What I meant but failed to write down was that people who are obsessed with a culture a la Weeaboos tend to do quite well learning a language but not people who just "think it's rather cool".

Fun aside - there's a girl I know who had a MASSIVE, UGLY tattoo on her waist last year reading "Non, je ne regrette rien"...the joke just writes itself, no?

I agree with you that bilinguals often don't fancy showing off their skills - I have a friend who's damn-near fluent in German but insists it's terrible even though she can understand entire conversations when she overhears them. I'm living with a Ukranian and I barely get a peep of the Old Tongue out of him. I disagree that it's impossible to show off a language without looking like a dick. It depends on whether you're asked to speak a language or not. Most of the time people will either discover through conversation that I can say phrases in languages they find "chic". Also, I'll be frank, I do lie when it comes to Scottish Gaelic. I can barely pronounce the damn thing but no-one knows any better. If they ask me to say something in Gaelic I just repeat the lyrics of an old folk song in a conversational manner, ha ha.

For me it comes down to liking the sound of my own voice, basically. I like listening to myself speaking in Russian even if that Russian is awful.

Think you forgot a 的 there, hot stuff

I'm always trying to improve - where does the de go and why?

[L'alphabētarium]

...the Old Tongue...

...the Old Tongue...

...the Old Tongue...

My mind flew to another direction for a moment...

[din]

Think you forgot a 的 there, hot stuff

I'm always trying to improve - where does the de go and why?

Same here -- don't think I was trying to sound superior. I was just using your words to make a joke.

It goes before the 什么, but I did get a lot of results (though fewer) for what you wrote, too, when I just googled it. I guess we need an actual expert here.

[valency]

I know that Australian education policy on language education definitely twists in the winds of fashion. When i was in primary school there was a half-assed attempt to teach me French, then, education bureaucrats realized we were in Asia, not Europe, and concluded the Japanese were going to take over the world and they switched to a half-assed attempt to teach me and every other student Japanese, then a half-assed attempt to teach me and every other student Indonesian.

End result: a lot of money wasted and too few contact hours for me to learn more than a few canned phrases. Now the opposition education spokesperson is proposing revisiting that failed policy with another Big Push towards teaching every Australian schoolchild an Asian language.