this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025

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Language Learning

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How has learning a language as an adult helped you to learn about a culture / gain new perspective? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I personally feel like I understand German-speaking people better the more I study the language.

E.g. my experience was that they are generally good listeners because their language has a sentence structure which forces the listener to wait for the most important information at the end of a sentence.

Bad Denglish to demonstrate:

"I have yesterday night... at the football field.... together with friends ... (dude get to the point) had a beer"

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There's research to suggest that every language comes with its own specific mode of thinking, which means that for every additional language you pick up, you quite literally gain a new perspective on things in general. I absolutely believe it. It's also why the party in 1984 was hellbent on using newspeak and outlawing previous languages.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Language indeed has a lot of power and control over how we think.

It's been in various pieces of classical literature and 1984 is a great example!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

i believe it but i think people vastly overstate the degree to which it's true, it's not like it completely changes how you think, every language just has some different quirks to it. I mean look at the language people adopt in places like hong kong to avoid censorship, you can communicate basically anything no matter how limited your language is, you just need some time to develop a shared understanding.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Funny, as a German speaker who learned Spanish its exactly the other way round. Here people already start responding to what you say before you can finish the sentence. And generally people love to talk very fast.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I can imagine! Last time I was in spain I ditched the translator app and tried to communicate with my hands because by the time I was able to write something I felt that the other person had switched topics 3 times.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I can read manga without waiting for a scanlation team to post a poorly done chapter in random intervals. also can read and watch cool anime and manga that doesn’t get picked up for localization by viz or whoever

livin that weeb life

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Be a proud weeb! That is incredibly cool and a useful skill you should be proud of.

Keep on weebin!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

やります、ありがとう

Oh this made me think of another one: years ago I worked with kids and teens. sometimes they would fuck with my phone when I wasn’t paying attention to go on youtube but I would leave the keyboard on the kana flick keyboard which would stump them

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Ha! Smart! I once accidentally changed my phone language to arabic and was completely lost with the settings trying to figure out where are the language settings.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Learning spanish has given me better insight in to latin american cultures. I don't know how much of that is through the language, but just being able to move around in South America with Spanish connected me with it in a way I couldn't have achieved with English alone

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Must be even better with so many countries and cultures where that same language can connect you to their individual local culture!

Felt like a door opening into a new world when I travelled through German-speaking countries a second time after learning enough to get by.

Although it could also be that inbetween the travels I grew as a person and was more interested in the culture than before.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That was pretty much my experience. I went to Argentina with very little Spanish, and then got the chance to go back again a few years later with much better Spanish, and yeah, it felt like a door had opened to experiences that just weren't available to me before. Even something as simple as heading to the store to get some milk and bread was radically different.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I can 100% relate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Could not agree more!

I used to be someone who talked a lot without ever listening. Learning a language made me start to listen to people all around the world... And wow did it change me. It was especially cool to hear people with completely polarizing political views speak for themselves, instead of me hearing them through the lens of news and memes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Act of listening is a skill indeed, be proud! I had the same problem that I used to be a terrible listener. Thankfully I've had amazing people around me that called it out but were patient and helped me learn.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Listening is the hardest part of language learning in my opinion. It took me years of listening every day to be conversational and I still mishear so many things in my second language.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

It is really hard! My teachers tried to give me tips and tricks but honestly there was no way around it: exercising listening A LOT was the only way to learn.