This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Mad respect to you man! I don't have any Japanese advice, but I know with Spanish, as I kept reading my speed increased quite a lot (I was reading around 10 pages an hour when I first started out). So I would imagine the more you read in Japanese, the easier it might get. Something I've been trying with learning Italian is using the audiobook alongside the print book. You can set it to 0.75 or 0.8 speed and read much faster than by yourself. This might help a lot with Japanese, where I imagine a lot of the difficulty is with the association of Kana/Kanji with the sound of the word and thus the meaning.
My wife was very nice and got me some children's books in Spanish when she was visiting Mexico last year. It's very humbling how I can't even make it through the back cover blurb without being stumped on things I'm reading. I took Spanish as my language requirement in college, and I started practicing again with Duolingo a year or so ago, but it turns out I still would be put to shame by a 7-year-old in my grasp of the language.
The first three books are going to be very hard. I took some highschool Spanish and basically took a break for ~7 years before starting to get serious about the language in 2020. The first thing I read was Harry Potter and it was decidely not fun until book 3. If you're interested, I keep a pretty detailed log of my spanish learning here. Here is the first post in the series, which may be the most useful to you.
More options
Context Copy link
But you try, and that is worthy of respect, just as it sounds like she is if she gave it with the spirit and intentions you received it with.
Bi- or multi-lingualism is something many people do, but it's always worthy of respect all the same. Especially if you could get away in your life without it, or move too often to justify it, and even more so if you try later in life than earlier. Deliberate learning after your formative years is even harder, but putting in hard work to improve yourself is always meritorious.
To paraphrase a parable- a polygot who picked up every language with ease is less impressive than a bi-lingual who did it with much difficulty, because what impresses are things that are hard, not easy.
Kudos to you, and feel no shame.
(Plus, sometimes you get some funny dynamics if you try to learn via media you already somewhat know. Think 'spanish Harry Potter,' or 'Mexicans love Dragon Ball Z.')
This is similar to Scott's "Parable of the Talents", where he feels that his C- in Calculus that he had to sweat blood and tears for is more praiseworthy than his world-class essays that just appear whenever he has free time because he was born with incredible writing talent.
I... disagree? This kind of thinking is like the labor-theory of value for personal accomplishment. It matters the quality of the output you create, not how much effort you put in it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Thanks! I’ve read, or perhaps more accurately ‘skimmed’ about 70/80 books in the last 5 years but something just won’t click. I’ve actually got slower as I get better, because I understand more of the characters now and I can’t just skip over them the way I used to. That’s why I wonder downthread if it’s not an effect of formative training.
I will try your suggestion re: audiobooks :)
So I had a similar experience with spanish where my reading (and percieved language level actually) went down as my language ability went up. You notice a lot more detail and words that you just skimmed over before you now have the ability to try and parse out because you understand the surrouding context. Luckily at least for me this effect seems to be temporary, my reading speed has rebounded and continues to get slightly faster (although when I'm tired Spanish still is very hard to read). For context I've read ~86 books in Spanish all the way through. I would imagine this would all take a lot longer for Japanese, which is a langauge much further away from English.
Tell me about it, lol.
Thanks, really, this is interesting to hear. The vast majority of learners I know are either too new / too bad to give applicable advice, too Asian, or near-fluent but uninterested in reading anything longer than an essay comprehension passage.
I spent the last couple of hours trying your audiobook + novel tip and it worked a lot better than the last similar thing I tried a few years ago. I’ll keep experimenting with it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link