I'm glad many Taiwanese are still learning other languages

[bismarck]

Edit: Scratch that, I posted in haste on my way to work…

[sandman]

[quote]Ok. They seem unable to learn languages (other than languages they learn as babies from mommy and granma) to any degree of real proficiency. Due in large, in my experience, to educational methods and culture (face?). May also be that they’re not particularly linguistically talented, but I have no experience that could prove that one way or the other.
[/quote]
“In your experience” being the salient point. Mine is different. I work in a huge news office with hundreds of employees. All are trilingual at the very least. My wife is an interpreter and translator who speaks five languages. Most of her friends are in a similar line of work and have similar language skills.
Do I therefore think “Taiwanese have a propensity for language”? Of course not. That would be just silly. But its precisely what you are doing.

[Dragonbones]

@bismarck

Then again, in every group you will find people that are linguistically talented and people that aren’t. Just as with any subject. I do, however, think that most Far East Asians aren’t linguistically talented, for whatever reason.

I think that if we define ‘talented’ as having greater than average talent, then most homo sapiens sapiens aren’t linguistically talented, and whether one has the subjective perception that a particular subgroup is or isn’t on average ‘talented’ will depend primarily upon sample bias. Such statements of average levels of ability aren’t going to be particularly useful given the great degree of diversity within each group anyway.

[bismarck]

@sandman

[color=#FF0000]“In your experience” being the salient point.[/color] Mine is different. I work in a huge news office with hundreds of employees. All are trilingual at the very least. My wife is an interpreter and translator who speaks five languages. Most of her friends are in a similar line of work and have similar language skills.

Exactly. Other people’s experience on the matter may or may not lead them to the same opinion.

@sandman

Do I therefore think “Taiwanese have a propensity for language”? Of course not. That would be just silly. But its precisely what you are doing.

But I’m sure you have other experiences that have influenced your opinion one way or the other, even if your opinion is, “Perhaps. Perhaps not…”

@Dragonbones

[quote=“bismarck”]Then again, in every group you will find people that are linguistically talented and people that aren’t. Just as with any subject. I do, however, think that most Far East Asians aren’t linguistically talented, for whatever reason.

I think that if we define ‘talented’ as having greater than average talent, then most homo sapiens sapiens aren’t linguistically talented, and whether one has the subjective perception that a particular subgroup is or isn’t on average ‘talented’ will depend primarily upon sample bias. Such statements of average levels of ability aren’t going to be particularly useful given the great degree of diversity within each group anyway. [/quote]
I would agree with that…
Oddly enough, thinking about it at work I thought something different on “inherent talent/ability”. I’ll get to that below…

@bismarck

But let’s face it, [color=#FF0000]very very few Taiwanese (Far East Asians in general[/color], from my experience) seem linguistically talented.

@sjcma

[quote=“bismarck”]Could it be that [color=#FF0000]Asian people[/color] are just not linguistically talented? I don’t think so either, because as you pointed out, many are bi, or even tri-lingual (although the tri-lingual ones are few and far between IMO). At least, I don’t think they are any more or less able at the actual learning of foreign languages than say Europeans, Africans, Americans or Australasians.

I’m glad you’ve reversed yourself.[/quote]
I agree, but sorry to disappoint. I didn’t reverse myself, note the text highlighted in red. I think using the word talented is maybe not the best choice, and I was erring on the side of fairness. Let me try and order my thoughts and words better.

My thinking is that initially (and unless I’m reading him wrong, DB seems to disagree with me on this) all people have a propensity for learning languages. We all know that children are amazing at language learning when immersed in a language before seven. However, after that age very few people anywhere seem to maintain a similar ability (or anywhere close) at learning new languages. I think we can agree that this is true for almost anywhere.

After seven there are certain changes that occur in the linguistic patterns of the brain that make language learning much harder, especially to gain a high level of fluency.
But, as Sandman mentioned, although I have known some Taiwanese (I can’t speak for other FE Asians as I’ve never actually met one that could speak any language anywhere near proficiently, but then again, I’ve never lived in another FE Asian country and have met very few Koreans and Japanese, and not nearly enough Mainlanders to make any sort of judgement based on any sort of experience) that could speak three, four or five languages with a high level of fluency, they have been extremely few and far between. Although, here you could also argue that my work and city (Tainan) wouldn’t draw as many Taiwanese into my realm of experience as say living in Taipei. But I have met many Taiwanese who studied foreign languages and majored in Japanese, German, Spanish or English that admitted themselves that they couldn’t hold a basic conversation in that language if you held a gun to their mother’s head.

That said, it seems to me, from my experience that FE Asians (including Japanese and Korean students that I had long contact with at NCKU) have great difficulty (if linguistically talented is too contentious a phrase) in learning other languages after seven. And at NCKU specifically, I’m talking about Japanese and Korean students learning another Asian language, not even a completely different (written etc) European one.
Now, if I’m wrong in my opinion that FE Asians seem to have difficulty learning other languages, please show me how so? Is it well known to everyone but me that the average Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese can speak several different languages that they learned after the age of seven? Do Taiwanese students perform well in English tests, or even just speaking to strangers? In Taipei, the percentage is perhaps more than anywhere else on the island, but outside of Taipei you’d be lucky to get much more than hello and bye. Even from youngster who have spent around 12 years studying English (Although, to be fair, I’ve had Americans tell me they studied Spanish at school for several years and can’t speak or understand much beyond the barest of basics, and in SA I went to school with guys who had Afrikaans for 12 years and wouldn’t understand the simplest of Afrikaans. But I think both of those groups, certainly English speaking Saffas, are for the most part mono-lingual. And as you yourself mentioned, most Taiwanese are at least bi-lingual.)

So I still feel that FE Asians have difficulty learning new languages based at least on two factors:

1. Educational system (of which I’m not entirely convinced, because I’ve met numerous Saffas that were able to speak several languages that they learned after seven with possibly the worst educational system in the world)
2. Culture (which has been mentioned numerous times on this board, i.e. unwilling to even try and speak for fear of looking foolish)

Another factor may be the learners perception of usefulness and not really trying to learn the language, but only cramming for a test. But that kind of fits into category one above.

But as Sandman pointed out, (whether I’m being silly for doing it or not) my perception is based on my experience. And unless I see anything to the contrary I don’t think I’ll be changing my opinion any time soon.
I’m not saying I’m right or wrong, I’m just voicing my opinion.

Teachers lament poor scores in English
Taiwanese students score worse than South Koreans in English test
Taiwanese barely make the grade in IELTS tests
Students get zero scores in English, Chinese
Interestingly, I could find articles showing Taiwanese outperforming most countries in math and science, but nothing showing a propensity for languages.

[cranky_laowai]

The MOE folded, of course.

[bismarck]

@cranky laowai

The MOE folded, of course.

Interesting article…

The county government’s plan previously drew criticism from the National Teachers Association (NTA), which argued that the classes violated elementary curriculum guidelines and [color=#FF0000]infringed upon children’s rights[/color].

How? What am I missing here?

Wu said elementary schools students are required to take 7,440 sessions from the first to the sixth grades, significantly more than the 5,016 classes for Finnish students and 5,645 for Japanese students.

And yet Japanese students still achieve better on standardized tests (not that that’s saying much), and I bet Finnish students are light years ahead with their English abilities. Although, that’s just conjecture and opinion. I could be wrong and the Finns could mostly have shite English.