Rant ahead:
Mar. 4th, 2008 08:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyrasantaeOne of the disadvantages of subscribing to LJ communities such as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
linguaphiles and finland is that inevitably, users ask about learning Finnish or studying in Finland and all that. Now, I don't have a problem with it, but sometimes the enthusiasm of these users sting me deep inside. I hold my tongue and say nothing there, but I will say it here.
Great, you want to go there and study there and learn their language and their culture - but why? What has it ever done for you?
I think there's a long-standing opinion of Finnish as a very different and very difficult language, and one of a land from which (apparently) a lot of good music exists (apparently) (mostly in English). The issue with this is that the language becomes a novelty, rather than complementing the intrinsic cultural and historical identity that comes with it.
And that bugs me, just as much as people who are head over heels over learning Chinese because it's the next big business language - go ahead and learn it, but don't learn it just because you can/should/want to, learn it because you care about it on more than the surface level.
I think that if it's more of a novelty for yourself, then learn it locally (as I'm doing with German) or on your own; but if you want to take that big step and dive into the sea, ask yourself first why you want it, and then do it like it means everything. "Genuine interest" isn't quite enough.
linguaphiles and finland is that inevitably, users ask about learning Finnish or studying in Finland and all that. Now, I don't have a problem with it, but sometimes the enthusiasm of these users sting me deep inside. I hold my tongue and say nothing there, but I will say it here.Great, you want to go there and study there and learn their language and their culture - but why? What has it ever done for you?
I think there's a long-standing opinion of Finnish as a very different and very difficult language, and one of a land from which (apparently) a lot of good music exists (apparently) (mostly in English). The issue with this is that the language becomes a novelty, rather than complementing the intrinsic cultural and historical identity that comes with it.
And that bugs me, just as much as people who are head over heels over learning Chinese because it's the next big business language - go ahead and learn it, but don't learn it just because you can/should/want to, learn it because you care about it on more than the surface level.
I think that if it's more of a novelty for yourself, then learn it locally (as I'm doing with German) or on your own; but if you want to take that big step and dive into the sea, ask yourself first why you want it, and then do it like it means everything. "Genuine interest" isn't quite enough.
