I grew up being good at languages, and very lucky. We had introductory Spanish in elementary school and Spanish class from junior high school, all through high school when I was growing up. By the time I got to college, I was dating a Spanish-speaking girl, working in restaurants with many Spanish-speaking co-workers, and shopping at stores where the shop-keepers spoke Spanish.

After meeting my wife, I followed her to Japan where we lived 10 years. I got really good at Japanese.

In my job, I get paid a premium because I have these languages. My clients dig it, and I love the thrill of catching an unsuspecting Japanese tourist off-guard. They just never expect it. Spanish-speakers aren't as surprised, but just as appreciative.

Here comes my pet peeve. When I was visiting Utah, some relatives were putting together a birthday sign. One of my cousin's kids had been to Japan as a missionary. If you go to Japan as a missionary, they really discourage studying the writing system. But they asked the wonderboy RM to write something in Japanese. First of all, he had been back a few years and had pretty much lost all his Japanese (some people just aren't good at languages). And he had never studied the writing system.

I offered to help out. I can write about 2000 characters from memory. Everybody recoiled as if I had offered to share my coffee. "Cousin Wingnut went to Japan on his mission. We want him to do it."

Another time was with a nephew who had been on a Spanish-speaking mission. He was trying to talk to a young Latina. Not to embarrass him, but to say hello, I introduced myself. She asked me a few questions, and explained that she wanted to get into the same profession. We had a great conversation, but my poor nephew got left behind. He could discuss Mormonism, but his own one-dimensional focus on using Spanish at church had left him completely unable to discus anything else.

He must have wanted to get me back or something because later he told me in front of a group of family members, "I didn't know you spoke Spanish." I explained that I had taken classes for years, taught Spanish, and used it a lot at work.

His brainless answer? "What I mean is, you didn't go on a Spanish-speaking mission, so I didn't think you spoke Spanish."

I guess he wanted to make a point that he is an RM and I am not.

Have any other linguists on the board encountered this? It just sounds like another way Mormons use to remind others that their brainwashing rituals make them better than others. Or is it a way to make themselves feel better that they wasted 2 years of their lives, gaining a skill that I gained while chasing girls and drinking beer?

T-Bone



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2012 10:50PM by T-Bone.

I grew up trilingual with two different scripts, have since studied French, Hebrew, and Amharic, and have gotten decent. I don't think I could possibly agree with you more. I just couldn't.

Learning a language is learning a culture, a history, an alternate new worldview. That's what's fascinating to me--in addition to connecting patterns in conjugations, declensions, etc. However, learning a language for a mission is mostly bunk. You're learning a code to try and successfully sell something. You're not immersing yourself in the culture to truly understand the language whatsoever. You belong to a church whose ultimate goal IS cultural genocide and the mass conversion of everyone from their traditional way living to fully programmed Morgbots.

It's sickening. Even as a "TBM," whenever someone would suggest I might have a role in bringing more people from my father's background to Mormonism, I found it abhorrent and would shudder inside. They're fine the way they are.

I am impressed. I've always loved languages, but learning them is difficult for me. I've heard that Japanese is one of the toughest languages for an english speaker to learn.

I've always had tons of respect for people who are bi or multi lingual. Especially when it is languages that are tough, or rare. I work with a girl who grew up traveling overseas with her expat parents. She speaks Afrikaans. She gets paid a 5% premium at work, where we are 911 operators. She's been there for 8 years and never once had to use Afrikaans on a call. I'm still amazed by the language and am forever asking her how to say different things.

I had the discussions memorized in Navaho which were on a fairly high level. But ,In general conversation I sound like a five year old.

George P. Lee arrived as mission president listened to how we were slaughtering the language and had the breathern shut down the Navaho language training program at YBU training center. It was a good call. I was among the last generation of Elders that spoke Navaho.

Now when the missies show up and I speak some Navaho to them and they cant speak any "I say well so much for the gift of tongues."

The worst part is that is my family, almost everyone is still fluent in the languages of where they went on their missions.

It's like it's instant faith promoting garbage.

I did not mean to dis those who went on missions or learned languages on your mission, just the narrow-minded thinking of some of my family members.

T-Bone

Nah, didn't come off that way at all.

I learned German in high school and am trying to learn Mandarin Chinese. Anyone that says that my language skills don't count because of not serving a mission will be told "去 死 吧 你！” (" Go to hell!")



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2012 01:35AM by hellrazor.

"Learning a language is learning a culture, a history, an alternate new worldview. That's what's fascinating to me."

Same here.

But it never makes me feel..embarrassed, belittled, or angry when another person demonstrate a higher level of fluency than mine in a certain language. I would usually think of that as an opportunity to learn from that person or to motivate myself to learn a little more about that language or the culture it's connected to.

I was called to Germany (my mum is Austrian) and grew up bilingual. I had always grown up with two languages and parents who encouraged written and spoken sophistication in both.

A few weeks in, the MP hauled me in and told me to show humility - the German elders were intimidated by my English, and the (mostly) Americans said I spoke German too quickly.

So I stopped speaking either. Apparently the spirit was strong in this new quiet, withdrawn me.

I did a few interpreting things but tried to stay humble. Later in the year there was a celebration thing for Uchtdorf being made a 70. One of the senior Germans, on hearing me speak both languages, said in front of my MP, "Bua, Stell' dein Liccchht nit unda da' Scheffel, ge'." My MP couldn't quite catch Bavarian (don't hide your light under a bushel) so I translated, feeling ill.

Without missing a beat he beamed, "Yes, I'm always telling him."

Mormon politics 101 - always kiss arse up the hierarchy, always kick arse down it.

austrobrit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Mormon politics 101 - always kiss arse up the
> hierarchy, always kick arse down it.


yup.

Did you know a guy named Peter Shneider (sp)?

I am trilingual, French being my first. I've been learning English since in elementary school (still can remember my first lesson from Look, Listen and Learn: Meet Sandy and Sue. This is Sue's class. Her teacher is Mr. Crisp. "Which one is your pen Sue? -The red pen, Sir. -Here you are Sue. -Thank you, Sir!")
Sorry, just a little trip down memory lane ;)

Then I learned a bit of Spanish in High School and eventually also 'served a mish' in Spanish. And I've been using the 3 languages almost everyday for the past 20 some years.

I remember when I came back from the mish. Suddenly each time there was a need for Spanish in the ward, they always asked for my help. Until, little by little, more and more people with Spanish ended-up in our ward, then I was not special anymore. (I'm sure they would just say they wanted to give me a break...)

In any case, I think maybe the "You didn't learn it on your mission so it doesn't count" thing is not much of an issue here because in our area knowing more then one language is something natural since most francophones know that to know English is a good thing if you want to advance at school and in the work field.

CAUTION CAUTION There is a swear two lines in.
I absolutely love throwing Mormons off center with this. I speak three languages. English, Spanish, French. If some dumb fucking Mormon hears me speaking Spanish or French to someone they say the same thing. "Where did you go on your mission?" Just to see if the person is actually interested I give the same answer. "Iceland." And every time. I mean every time the person says "Cool". What an uneducated group the Mormons are.

This ranks as one of the most bizarre stories I have ever read here.

But it totally makes sense, when you stop to realize that Mormons pride themselves on being one of the most homogeneous & xenophobic cultures in the entire world. So of course, if you learned a non-English language it must have been - could only have been - while you were doing something all Mormon-y and spirchul in the first place. Because from their point of view, what else matters?

::shakes head::

I especially appreciate our exmo friend from Canada. You know what they say?
A person who speaks 3 languages is trilingual.
A person who speaks 2 languages is bilingual.
A person who speaks 1 language? American!

Although in the circles I travel in, everybody speaks a foreign language or two. (I'm not that unique in the international business world.)

There are few things that bother me about the Mormon church or Utah these days. This is one of them. And calling the Mormon church "The" Church is the other.

T-Bone