Lady Polyglots/The Polyglot Project Guy's Question

Open Forum
21

Why are the "iron"chefs on TV men, but, I assume, far more women cook than men on a regular basis?

I think it is helpful to look at it from a marketing angle. If you are promoting expertise, mastery, and the like, men sell themselves better than women. Women who promote themsleves well are usually not stressing their accomplishments, although they may have them, but some kind of self or societal improvement stance,. See Oprah, Madonna (sexual liberation) etc

SInce this from the POV of self-promotion, it is beside the point whether any of these people, men or women, are sincere in their stance, although no doubt some are.

22

Vera, Thank you again for your contribution to The Polyglot Project. By the way, the book seems to be taking about 2 weeks to get to Europe, so you should have it much sooner than February:-)

23

Steve, I think Benny was in the back of my mind because of his travel experiences and I doubt that many women could safely do the things he does in all the countries he visits, but I was mostly thinking about Glossika’s adventures because Claude mentioned him.

You are technically correct about equal opportunity in language dating. The “learn the language in bed” method is a pretty blunt way to put it, although I concede that’s a pretty funny and partially accurate description of what might be surmised from what I wrote.

There are two reasons I mentioned “prostitutes”. One is that prostitutes have often learned a few words in various languages in order to attract customers and some people who have travelled probably only know of this kind of female polyglot.

The second reason is many people have heard of language dating as a method. While this is “equal opportunity” language learning, women aren’t going to be praised widely if they announce on youtube that this was their method, in fact they may be called a coarser version of the word “prostitute”. Contrast this with the reaction a male polyglot may get. I would fully expect a “You da man” from youtube viewers who are impressed that “Polyglot A” not only speaks several languages, but that he is just one step away from being James Bond.

Claude,

Thank-you for responding and for your work on this project. Before I starting using the internet for language-related study, I was only aware of maybe two female polyglots if the definition is four or more languages. I meet a lot more people who are interested in languages now, but usually women I meet are interested in one or two languages, not several.

I understand SanneT’s pov, but I’m kind of with Vera, it is a huge step to go public.

Dooo made some interesting points.

In many cultures, self-promotion is distasteful. Even in the West it seems that “These are my accomplishments, now let me help you acheive the same” is a better way to frame this kind of self-promotion.

24

V8 you really are complicating things. Language learning is fun. Jumping in to bed is fun. They are not connected. They stand on their own merits and have their own rules.

It is nice to travel, but it is not a condition for learning a language, despite all of Benny’s annoying (to me at least) hype. I see the travel as a reward for the hard work of language learning, something to look forward to as we start our learning journey, not a condition of getting started.

I think there is a reason why women are less inclined to “promote themselves” as polyglots, but I do not know what that reason is. Inherent greater modestly among women. If this stereotype holds, then am sure there are exceptions.

25

“The second reason is many people have heard of language dating as a method. While this is “equal opportunity” language learning, women aren’t going to be praised widely if they announce on youtube that this was their method, in fact they may be called a coarser version of the word “prostitute”. Contrast this with the reaction a male polyglot may get. I would fully expect a “You da man” from youtube viewers who are impressed that “Polyglot A” not only speaks several languages, but that he is just one step away from being James Bond.”

Honestly, I have a hard time believing that you are serious in your claims :D. How many people have you met that, when you say ‘language learning technique’, they first think ‘aha, dating people from other languages!’? How many accomplished youtube polyglots have you heard speaking seriously about this ‘method’? How many such comments have you seen under the videos of accomplished polyglots?
At the end of the day, even if we assume that you are right (maybe in case of some female polyglot you are, but I can hardly imagine it) - person who hold herself back, who restrict herself because of the immature comments of a double-standards, misogynistic society, well, she deserves to be unseen and unheard of. But I have a better opinion about women polyglots. As I said, I can’t believe you are serious about this :).

26

Actually, I think I’ve heard of this before. Although maybe not so directly.
It might be as simple as the differences between men and women.

There are physical differences, like in brain structure. Such as the connections between the left and right hemisphere, in men these were weakened early on in the womb by male hormones, and in women these connections between the two are much better. I was told by my psychology teacher that this is why women can jump from one topic to another and just keep building on it, and soon they are off topic talking about something completely different, but in their mind it is all related, because the signals in their brain can bounce around more freely, allowing for less focus, or I should say, they are multitaskers juggling around many thoughts at once, like a sea of madness.

But in men the weaker connections allows for compartmentalization, where it can more easily separate things into groups and devote most attention to one thing, without others popping in so much. (Although there is ADHD) But Compartmentalize things such as Work, School, Home, to be really general. But it could also I would imagine manifest itself as One language, two language, three language, and allow for less overlapping and confusion between them.

So it might just be that it is an easier task for a man to do than a woman.
Although baby girls tend to learn language more quickly than boys, and girls have much boarder vocabularies than men statistically, so it’s not all hindering in the language field. But for Multiple languages maybe there’s a bit of an obstacle to cross, that isn’t as high of an obstacle for men.

But also, women might not see it as necessary to advertise it, and show off.
I developed this one from having seen youtubers in general, what the girls do versus the guys.
Seems guys like to show off what they can do and some talent and that’s what their channel is about, whereas girls tend to stick to more everyday things, weather it be their life, or things they notice in life. There are exceptions, it’s not the laws of physics.

A lot of things that work together?

27

V8’s message seems a bit outdated, as if my grandmother would have written it (and that is only when she was young).

Still, there are no famous youtube-guru-female-polyglots out there, just like there are less youtube-female-gurus in general, I don’ think learning languages makes any diference, it’s just how it is and there must be a reason, though nothing to do with polyglots.

Male youtube users that make videos outnumber the female ones, and it’s reasonable that more men stand out, less females to choose from. Why is this? I have no idea. See how there are female-gurus making videos about makeup, that’s because women outnumber the males there, so no youtube-male-gurus talking about makeup. So I guess I think the question here just should be why females like less to record videos.

So nothing to do with language dating so that they don’t end up calling us whores (really???). Nowadays we can do serial-dating and not being called prostitutes. We are not anymore either nuns or whores. (And if that cliché is still true, I don’t want to know :P)

28

What? No female polyglots? What about MissHannaMinx

29

There’s also LeylaRandomness. I love her video Polyglotte2 on youtube. She’s a native French, and speaks at least 5 languages.

30

Let’s also be frank about the goals of these youtube polyglots, (like me). We have something to promote. I make a point of mentioning LingQ, Benny promotes his book, Alex Arguelles promotes his polyglottery school, Laoshu his lessons etc. If you search for Pilates or cooking lesson videos on youtube you will find mostly women. So modesty is not necessarily the explanation.

31

I have had many girlfriends, and quite a few boyfriends, in order to learn foreign languages. When I say “friend” I mean “penfriend”. I haven’t slept with any of them. Our relationships are conducted over the internet and I’m not THAT good with computers :wink:

What do you count as a polyglot, Claude? I have studied 6 foreign languages, more or less, and I contributed to the Polyglot project. I don’t make YouTube videos because I’m shy. I don’t think it’s gender-related.

32

“It might be as simple as the differences between men and women…they are multitaskers juggling around many thoughts at once…”

whenever I hear this thing about women and multitasking, I automatically think: evolutionary psychology BS. :smiley: Neither me nor some of my female friends can multitask in that classical multitasking sense: speak on a phone, cook and write an email at the same time. At the contrary, I’m way worse than my bf in multitasking (and he learned the hard way no to talk to me when I’m concentrated doing something :slight_smile: ). Interestingly, all these friends I mentioned are scientists, so I’d say it is more a general personality trait, maybe slightly more prevalent in women than in men, but certainly not some clear men-women distinction.

I don’t make you tube video because I’m lazy (and because I do not consider myself a polyglot yet, although I can chat easily in 4 languages). Lack of women (with the exception of great Kato Lomb) among well known polyglots, both historically and today, is a really interesting question, but I can’t think of the infallible answer.

33

One of the more impressive polyglots I’ve seen is Linda de Mol who hosted the first European Soundmix talent show back in 1997. Participants from ten countries impersonated singers/groups, and when it was time for the jurys to call in the voting results, Linda spoke English, German, Dutch, Spanish and French. OK, “only” five languages, but the flow and the accent was SO good in each one of them.

34

I have done a lot of travelling, and have personally met 3 female polyglots (the number of languages they speak varying between 5 and 10) - but i have not personally met any male polyglots on my travels. So, before I found the polyglot videos on youtube, i was falsely beginning to think that most polyglots tend to be female! One thing that i have noticed with many of the women i have met who speak several languages, is that many women seem to be perfectionists and as we know, perfectionism can be a real hindrence to learning languages! They are very hesitant to begin learning a new language because they feel there is still work to be done with the languages that they have already learned… or they worry that they will lose something from the languages they know, if they start something new.

35

AlissaESL: That is a very interesting observation that had not occurred to me when I made the video! It is quite possible that men have fewer qualms about making videos precisely because they don’t suffer from the “paralysis of analysis” that results from being a language perfectionist.

36

Well, if we’re adding female polyglots we like… no one’s mentioned kat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQxH8qEzYqY

Seems as if we wrong the whole time, there are a number of female polyglots…

The better question to me is why don’t pay as much attention to them?

37

Very good question, Chris!

38

Yeah… I know this discussion was over already 10 months ago, but I’m rather irritated by some parts of this discussion

  1. A: “…a good and inexpensive way to learn a language is to get a girlfriend…”
    B: ““Get a girlfriend” ‘advice’ can sometimes be read on some language learning topics but it is never a serious advice”
    A: “I think that depends on the person receiving the advice. You can find this kind of “get a girlfriend” advice all over the internet.”
    C: "I doubt that any polyglots have relied on the “learn the language in bed " approach”
    A: “T…many people have heard of language dating as a method.”
    B: "Honestly, I have a hard time believing that you are serious in your claims :D. How many people have you met that, when you say ‘language learning technique’, they first think ‘aha, dating people from other languages!’? How many accomplished youtube polyglots have you heard speaking seriously about this ‘method’? How many such comments have you seen under the videos of accomplished polyglots? "

Why learn Portuguese by Susanna Zaraysky

Susanna: “Another excellent reason to learn Portuguese: love”
Jessie: “So I went to Brazil last year… …and I met a man… and fell in love”
Susanna: “That’s the way to learn!”

Okay, so YOU don’t think dating is a good way to learn a language. Fine. I learned Swedish that way. I married the guy. So it obviously works for some people.

I don’t know anything about the association with prostitutes, but obviously there is that association somewhere in the world. Good to know, that if I speak a lot of languages, some people will automatically think I’m a “working girl”. That reason doesn’t stop me from speaking languages and making videos about my language skills and learning etc. because it’s not part of my culture, but I have no right to tell others their experience is wrong simply because it’s not my experience.

  1. What’s with this “men and women are different (not really in any way that has to do with learning languages), men and women have different brains (not in any significant ways), bla bla bla”.
    When it comes to learning languages WE ALL have brains different from the next person, and WE ALL have to find a language learning system that works for ME. What works for YOU doesn’t necessarily work for ME, even when we have the same gender, religion, political opinions, skin color, nationality, or another such totally irrelevant quality. Yes, I say “nationality”, because even though it might be easier for me to learn the other Uralic languages than Navajo, it’s the same thing with everyone else. It’s easier to learn a language with more similarities to my mothertongue, than a language with more differences. Finns are not better or worse learning other languages than any other people in the world.
    The same way, I don’t do videos, because I don’t know how, and because I have a very bad social phobia, which makes it really difficult for me to be seen like that. It has nothing to do with my gender. I’m 100% sure of that there are men out there who can’t get over the fear of speaking in public also.
    Frankly, merely asking the question is chauvinist, and asking to be insulted in one way or another. Men are not just attentionseeking monkeys and bragging roosters, just as women are not just housekeepers and whores.