Arrogance in learning a language
Posted: July 5th, 2008 5:46 pm
The other day I was chatting with someone online that was arrogant in that he knew English as a second language. I said that I would chat with him on one condition, and that was if he ever had to ask what I meant, chat was over and no explanations would be given. He agreed to it, and said that I couldn't possibly chat over his head.
I started off in a normal chat, and as it progressed he became more and more arrogant sounding. I finally started speaking in slang, idioms, and threw in some Deep South hick words for good measure. He finally begged me to explain everything. I said sorry, chat's over, and you need to relearn English.
The point of this is, even if you pass Level 1 of the JLPT, you still wouldn't know squat about Japanese because you've never lived as a native speaker. Even the differences between the USA, England, and Australia are major enough that I myself need to learn British and Australian English, although English is my first language!
I started off in a normal chat, and as it progressed he became more and more arrogant sounding. I finally started speaking in slang, idioms, and threw in some Deep South hick words for good measure. He finally begged me to explain everything. I said sorry, chat's over, and you need to relearn English.
The point of this is, even if you pass Level 1 of the JLPT, you still wouldn't know squat about Japanese because you've never lived as a native speaker. Even the differences between the USA, England, and Australia are major enough that I myself need to learn British and Australian English, although English is my first language!