4 ms·

You lose nothing by learning other people's language or way of thinking. Knowledge as they say is power... even if those giving it to you don't have your best i

You lose nothing by learning other people's language or way of thinking. Knowledge as they say is power... even if those giving it to you don't have your best interests at heart.

Scaevolus 8y ago
It's not the language, it's everything that comes with it. The Congolese weren't happy to be learning French in 1900, either.
learc83 8y ago
>You lose nothing by learning other people's language That's not quite true. Bilingual speakers tend to have a smaller vocabularies in each individual language than monolingual speakers (even though they have a larger total vocabulary across both languages). According to some studies monolingual speakers also have faster word retrieval and better verbal fluency overall. Of course this has to be weighed against the benefits of learning another language, but there are costs.
- jean- 8y ago
  > Bilingual speakers tend to have a smaller vocabularies in each individual language than monolingual speakers Do you have any citations to support this? From the research I have read (and my own anecdotal experience) this is not necessarily the case, especially when taking into account the bilingual speakers' dominant language. See e.g. Pearson et al. (1993). Lexical Development in Bilingual Infants and Toddlers: Comparison to Monolingual Norms. Allman (2005). Vocabulary Size and Accuracy of Monolingual and Bilingual Preschool Children. – although note the difference in English vs Spanish vocabulary scores for monolingual vs bilingual speakers.
  - learc83 8y ago
    That's not a controversial position. Neither of your links refute that bilinguals tend to have smaller vocabularies than monolinguals across each individual language. From your 2nd link: "However, on tests of vocabulary bilinguals frequently seem to perform at lower levels than monolinguals (Ben Zeev, 1977b; Doyle, Champagne, & Segalowitz, 1978). The reason for this seems to be that bilingual children have to learn two different labels for everything, which reduces the frequency of a particular word in either language" "These findings also support Bialystok’s (2001) suggestions that bilinguals have a greater Total Vocabulary than monolinguals..." The conclusion says nothing about vocabularies within individual languages, it's only talking about total vocabulary across languages. Here's another study: "The profile effects indicated comparable performance of bilingual and monolingual children in basic reading tasks, but lower vocabulary scores for the bilinguals in both languages." "The distributed characteristic of bilingual knowledge provides an explanation for the low standard scores that have often been reported in bilingual children on vocabulary tests in both the first language (L1) and the L2 (Ben Zeev, 1977a; Fernández et al., 1992; Pearson & Fernández, 1994; Umbel et al., 1992). The low scores do not indicate that bilingual children are poor vocabulary learners, but that some of the vocabulary possessed by bilingual children is encoded in the L1 but not the L2, and vice versa, the signature pattern of the distributed characteristic." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358777/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358777/ If you want to read more you can follow up with the citations from that last paper.
koonsolo 8y ago
This is not always the case, as was shown in the history of Belgium and Brussels (and still is). If you learn the other people's language, you will communicate in their language. If you are inside a company with mixed languages, that company will be run in the language of the people that do not speak the other language. As you know, companies are highly political, and if you are missing all the nuances of a language because you are not a native speaker, your chances of taking a good position within that company will be lower. This is exactly what I saw in a company in Brussels when I worked there. All help-desk operators were Flemish, because they are bilingual in Dutch and French (and English of course). Management were all native French speaking, unable to communicate in Dutch. My direct manager, who was Flemish, had a hard time covering his own ass in this political environment, because of the foreign language nuances. So in effect, the ones who don't speak the other persons language have the benefit.
- dingoegret 8y ago
  It's funny really. When countries like Iran ban English and clamp down on Western studies, it's oPpReSsIve. Western subversion? Why that's a conspiracy theory hurr. Mandarin taught in Kenya? Oh no muh takeover

You lose nothing by learning other people's language or way of thinking. Knowledge as they say is power... even if those giving it to you don't have your best interests at heart.

Scaevolus 8y ago

It's not the language, it's everything that comes with it. The Congolese weren't happy to be learning French in 1900, either.

learc83 8y ago

>You lose nothing by learning other people's language That's not quite true. Bilingual speakers tend to have a smaller vocabularies in each individual language than monolingual speakers (even though they have a larger total vocabulary across both languages). According to some studies monolingual speakers also have faster word retrieval and better verbal fluency overall. Of course this has to be weighed against the benefits of learning another language, but there are costs.

jean- 8y ago
> Bilingual speakers tend to have a smaller vocabularies in each individual language than monolingual speakers Do you have any citations to support this? From the research I have read (and my own anecdotal experience) this is not necessarily the case, especially when taking into account the bilingual speakers' dominant language. See e.g. Pearson et al. (1993). Lexical Development in Bilingual Infants and Toddlers: Comparison to Monolingual Norms. Allman (2005). Vocabulary Size and Accuracy of Monolingual and Bilingual Preschool Children. – although note the difference in English vs Spanish vocabulary scores for monolingual vs bilingual speakers.
- learc83 8y ago
  That's not a controversial position. Neither of your links refute that bilinguals tend to have smaller vocabularies than monolinguals across each individual language. From your 2nd link: "However, on tests of vocabulary bilinguals frequently seem to perform at lower levels than monolinguals (Ben Zeev, 1977b; Doyle, Champagne, & Segalowitz, 1978). The reason for this seems to be that bilingual children have to learn two different labels for everything, which reduces the frequency of a particular word in either language" "These findings also support Bialystok’s (2001) suggestions that bilinguals have a greater Total Vocabulary than monolinguals..." The conclusion says nothing about vocabularies within individual languages, it's only talking about total vocabulary across languages. Here's another study: "The profile effects indicated comparable performance of bilingual and monolingual children in basic reading tasks, but lower vocabulary scores for the bilinguals in both languages." "The distributed characteristic of bilingual knowledge provides an explanation for the low standard scores that have often been reported in bilingual children on vocabulary tests in both the first language (L1) and the L2 (Ben Zeev, 1977a; Fernández et al., 1992; Pearson & Fernández, 1994; Umbel et al., 1992). The low scores do not indicate that bilingual children are poor vocabulary learners, but that some of the vocabulary possessed by bilingual children is encoded in the L1 but not the L2, and vice versa, the signature pattern of the distributed characteristic." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358777/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358777/ If you want to read more you can follow up with the citations from that last paper.

koonsolo 8y ago

This is not always the case, as was shown in the history of Belgium and Brussels (and still is). If you learn the other people's language, you will communicate in their language. If you are inside a company with mixed languages, that company will be run in the language of the people that do not speak the other language. As you know, companies are highly political, and if you are missing all the nuances of a language because you are not a native speaker, your chances of taking a good position within that company will be lower. This is exactly what I saw in a company in Brussels when I worked there. All help-desk operators were Flemish, because they are bilingual in Dutch and French (and English of course). Management were all native French speaking, unable to communicate in Dutch. My direct manager, who was Flemish, had a hard time covering his own ass in this political environment, because of the foreign language nuances. So in effect, the ones who don't speak the other persons language have the benefit.

dingoegret 8y ago
It's funny really. When countries like Iran ban English and clamp down on Western studies, it's oPpReSsIve. Western subversion? Why that's a conspiracy theory hurr. Mandarin taught in Kenya? Oh no muh takeover