Dillards 38: Still Chewing on that Foot in His Mouth

[FloraDoraDolly]

1 hour ago, singsingsing said:

@Miggy what are the eleven criteria if you don't mind my asking? I tried to google and got nothing.

I'd like to see this too, as well as the criteria for other social classes.

[MsSaylor]

Dude there is no way in fuck the Duggars or any adult with average intellectual ability haveca vocabulary of only 400-800 words. That is absurdly low. Yes there is a gap in vocabulary and language development based on SES but quick google searches tell me that 400-800 words is obscenely far off of anything, most articles i read said that kids in poverty are 1-3 years behind in language development but the average adult has at least 10-20k words. So I cant with this.

[Dugg@rTime]

So, I did some googling about defining generational poverty/middle class/generational wealth and the defining criteria for labelling of an individual. I didn't find anything like a checklist but this group has identified 11 resources which it believes to be related.

http://www.peaceconnections.org/Circles_of_Hope__2013.pdf

 key resources:

mental,

emotional,

spiritual,

physical,

financial,

formal language skills,

role models,

support systems,

understanding the hidden rules of class,

motivation and persistence,

integrity and trust.

I can see how most of these, or a lack thereof could impact someone's ability to better themselves out of generational poverty. I definitely would like to hear more now.

[JillyO]

10 hours ago, SeekingAdventure said:

I spent a year in South America last year (not to missionicate, obv.) and I spoke spanish pretty fluent quite soon. I gave myself a quickstart learning some basic grammar already at home, whilst working full time and then while being on sick leave and having to go to a health scare. I managed to be on Level B2 within 4 weeks with doing a course.. So if somebody puts a bit of work into it, it is absolutely not impossible to do it, even if you are not the most talented with languages (which was said about me, in regards to both english and spanish)

Either I am misunderstanding what you're saying, or you're vastly overestimating how quickly you learned Spanish, or you are some kind of language learning wiz.

I happen to work in this field, and assuming you are talking about about the Common European Frame of Reference for Language (CEFR) when you say you managed to get to level B2 with a four-week course, I'm just going to tell you that that is not possible. No way, no how.

The rule of thumb at my work is that a small-group intensive course (six hours per day, five days a week) will finish one level (i.e. A1) in six weeks while living in an immersive environment. This means that it would take an average, educated learner at least 24 weeks to get to the B2 level when they start from nothing while living in the country and taking an extremely intensive class.

If it were possible to learn a language to the point of being able to "interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party" (part of the definition of the B2 level) in four weeks, I guarantee you that most people would run around speaking like 20 different languages.

But maybe I misunderstood what you were saying. Either way, the Dillards' lack of Spanish-speaking ability is just sad.

[Dugg@rTime]

@MsSaylor said:
Dude there is no way in fuck the Duggars ... have a vocabulary of only 400-800 words. That is absurdly low...

 

Yeah, I have to agree with this. I've been studying Spanish for a couple of months now and Duolingo reckons I know around 700 Spanish words. I'm in no way fluent, I can hold limited conversations around a very narrow range of subjects, and I definitely don't feel ready for my holiday in Spain, but Jill's command of English is far better than my Spanish!

[laPapessaGiovanna]

@JillyO maybe @SeekingAdventure is a romance language native speaker. I am Italian an I understand written spanish very well even if I never studied it, never took a course, never visited a spanish speaking country for more than some days. I am fairly confident I would be able to master the language at B2 level in four weeks. How do I know? My brother did his 5th year of med school in Spain with Erasmus, he had applied for another European country but it wasn't possible so he had to choose Spain, with only four weeks to prepare he passed a B2 level exam that was necessary to be accepted for the Erasmus program there. He attended med school courses in Spanish for one year and, even if he said first two months were intense, he passed all his exams.

On the other hand I studied German at school and I still know quite a bit of its grammar, but after all these years I am not confident that a six weeks intensive course would help me pass a B2 level exam, maybe a six months one lol.

[Foudeb]

6 hours ago, Georgiana said:

I don't know about Generational Poverty, but I DO know about neuro-linguistics!

The language centers we are born with look VERY different than the language centers we end up with. As the brain matures, the centers start to "fuse", at which point they are "stuck" . 

To make it VERY short, the end result is why adults have to actively learn a language and will do so slowly, whereas children will automatically learn a language quickly in an immersive environment. 

If GP has a neuro component, which from @Miggy's description it sounds like it does, some parts of language skill will "freeze" in GP as the brain matures. We have limited data on this, but while adult progress CAN be made to improve these skills, progress is incredibly slow and incredibly limited AT BEST. Sometimes impossible.

Now, for your outliers! This fusion process in the language centers of the brain DOES NOT OCCUR in all people. Around 10% of people have completely to partially unfused language centers. These people's language centers are incredibly malleable and robust, and like children, they easily and effortlessly consume and build language data. So, like a child, they would be able to learn the language of the more affluent  into adulthood and via less traditional exposure.

I'm really not sure about that. When does a child become fluent, 3 yo? And that's 3 years of total immersion surrounded by people who are helpful (speaking slowly, repeating words) and when the baby has very little else to  focus on (motor skills maybe but that's about it). 

Why are we surprised it would take an adult longer? Adults have to earn a living and keep a household going and usually have some sort of social life before they can spend time on language learning. And when they do they usually don't get that context of immersion surrounded by helpful people - we have to pay to get that and usually can't afford more than one hour a week or so. 

So lets not be defeatist. Outliers may have genetically abnormal brains and / or just the free time, money, motivation and grit to put into learning. Translate a baby's 3 years of full time learning into what you can spare in your free time for part time learning - it may turn into 10 or 20 years or more but you will get there, trust me. It's about the motivation and the persistence. 

[JillyO]

1 hour ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

@JillyO maybe @SeekingAdventure is a romance language native speaker.

Point taken (although your brother still sounds impressive!). But then that's not really indicative of someone learning a completely different language (like Jill and Derick learning Spanish) at all.

[SeekingAdventure]

@JillyO

I think i did not write it out all that clearly.

I spoke Italian and French before I ever went to South America. I also took a year of spanish in High school, although that year pretty much didn't help anything at all, because the teacher was pregnant and since it was a voluntary class, they didn't really bother to get another teacher, so we had maybe a class every three weeks. Seeing as I was terrible in French (or so my teacher says), i had to concenctrate on that, and therefor lost pretty much all of my spanish vocabulary. 

Then I had to learn Italian for work, which made me lose some more spanish, and it was only when I decided to quit my job and go to South America that I restarted studying spanish. I do have a huge amount of materials at home though, all sorts of school books, as well as Audio-CD's etc, and with basic knowledge (i would not call it more, even though I used it a lot) of Italian, and I guess a natural knack for spanish and also the will to learn, I managed to pick back up the grammar quite fast. I found it helped a lot to learn from english to spanish, instead of from german (native language - as for you, if I'm not wrong?), and I found the spanish grammar in many ways to be more similar to french.

When we picked our second languages everybody told us italian is easy in the beginning, and then hard, and french is the other way around. I picked french, because I liked it more and because it is more useful on an international level, and I found that it helped me a lot.

That being said, I had about 4 months to prepare myself with grammar, pronounciation etc, and I used pretty much every resource possible. A bit of Duolingo, all sorts of vocabulary, spanish Audio CD's, spanish music etc, just to get me into the right mindset. I was having a very hard time when I first arrived, but due to the fact that I already spoke other 'similar' languages, and also because the initial placing test was written, I straight out skipped level A1 and started in the middle of A2. In the course I went to, you had about 4 weeksw for A1, 4 weeks of A2 etc. I also took private classes, and we managed to do a lot of the materials for B1 as well, which is why they put me into level B2 in the end.

It was a very small school with 4 students per level approximatly, and therefor we could work quite rapidly if everyone caught on quickly. Also, we did spend a lot of time with some of the teachers also privately, which also helps. Also, as someone pointed out, fluency is different for everyone. My level of spanish is high enough that I can hold up a conversation without having to pause every other word because I cannot remember one. If I cannot remember a word, then I can explain my way around it in spanish. For travelling around the country for a year, this is just what i needed, and now I can use spanish in my job as well, so I'm quite happy with it. I do not need to know fancy words for philosophical discussions, or complicated sentence structures. Being able to communicate with locals was my goal, and I managed that. Language levels are very subjective anyways. I was on the same 'level' with an american girl, that had already studied spanish for 3 years, and she had a hard time making up sentences without stopping after every 2 or three years. Also with a british girl, that had lived with a Chilean guy and had a kid with him for three years, she spoke worse than all of us. (not to dish on native english speakers, because I have just as many positive examples, and I think it is a lot easier for us to learn other languages, since we already have to study one or two in school in the first place..)

 

i think someone was asking for places to study. For grammar, and some basic vocab, i liked studyspanish.com - i found the explanations quite easy to follow, and at least when I used it, big parts of it were free, just skip over the things you have to pay, you can redo the free examples as much as you want to, usually they change whenever you reload it.

[JillyO]

Thanks for elaborating, @SeekingAdventure. That makes much more sense. It still sounds like you have a knack for learning languages; don't sell yourself short!

[SapphireSlytherin]

Another recommendation for learning languages is the "Coffee Break" podcast. They have multiple languages, and they're kind of fun - I listen every afternoon in my car, as I'm trying to learn enough French that this year's visit to Paris might (MIGHT) be more enjoyable. :/

I know they have French, Spanish, Italian, and German. There may be others. 

Highly recommend them, perhaps in conjunction with DuoLingo. The best part about the podcasts is that you can do those while you're driving, and DuoLingo requires hands-on.

[SeekingAdventure]

1 hour ago, JillyO said:

Thanks for elaborating, @SeekingAdventure. That makes much more sense. It still sounds like you have a knack for learning languages; don't sell yourself short!

 

I wrote it a bit longer yesterday but then the post got too long and I have a tendency to write waaay too much anyways. So I shortened it a bit and I guess part of the context got lost, but it was late, so yeah..

And I guess I do have a knack, but as you said, if you speak one language in the same family, it is a lot easier to pick up others. I used to work in a transport company for four years, and was dealing with clients from all over Europe, you pick up a lot of phrases quite quickly, so that helps. I also have loads of international friends, because I was travelling a lot in the last years, and that helps to practice as well.

I still agree that people have different ways of picking up languages, and as I described above, I used pretty much every way to hammer spanish in my brain, some work better, some not as well, but if you pick up a little bit from everything, thats still a lot more than the Dullards do.

I think one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of Jill is that she had, IMO so much potential, and she just didn't use it (or get to use it, I cannot imagine how it is to grow up in that compound). It makes me really sad, because she's my age, and now she's stuck in a marriage that to outsiders seems not that happy, has been dragged repeatedly to a country she apperantly did not feel safe in and has to deal with one toddler and one oversized toddler that throws even bigger tantrums. The two surgerys thrown in, I cannot imagine how the poor girl must feel right now. But at some point, she has to take control of her own life, and it does not seem to me like she is doing that, so the sympathy is slowly (or not so slowly) disappearing.

@SapphireSlytherin that sounds like a good tip, I've got a long way to work and back, always good to do something productive  Love your name by the way, even though I am way more Gryffindor

[lomo6]

@Miggy

Some of your theories don't quite compute for me. As others have pointed out, 400-800 words basically means intellectually handicapped. This article from the Economist says that most native English speakers know 4,000 words by age 4. (LINK) I don't doubt that Jill's language abilities have been stunted by her sub-par education, and that the Duggars' very repetitive speech patterns are connected. But I truly doubt that Jill's vocabulary is more limited than the average 4-year-old's.

Also, Derick grew up in a middle class home and had a normal education - what's his excuse?

And as a strong language learner who grew up in a middle/upper middle class environment, I witnessed a wide, wide spectrum of language abilities that had nothing to do with how well off people grew up. Same in college and grad school, where everyone in my language classes was smart and well-educated and, in the vasty majority of cases, came from middle/upper middle class or straight up wealthy backgrounds. 

I know that's anecdotal, but your theories also don't align with all of the poor immigrants who come to the US and learn English pretty well despite having 3rd grade educations from rural Mexican schools. Sure, they will probably never write an essay on Proustian ethics in English, but they can run businesses and get on with their daily lives. And the same with lower educated people in Europe or Latin America who learn English to work in taxis or the tourist trades. 

Also, there are huge differences between countries in terms of how many people are bilingual or more that has nothing to do with wealth. People in the US, UK, and France are notoriously bad at learning other languages, while the Dutch and the Swedes are not. There are a lot of factors at play here, including how easy it is to get away with only knowing your native language. 

I'm not remotely excusing the Dillards, but learning languages as an adult is very hard, especially if you haven't advanced with a different second language when you were younger. Jill seems like she was pretty isolated in CA, so I don't know how much she was actually interacting in Spanish, and she probably also lacked the study skills to build vocabulary, especially in her emotional state. Again, not sure what Derick's excuse is, but that seems to be a common theme. 

 

 

 

[PainfullyAware]

@SeekingAdventure maybe you are part of the 10% who still have malleable neural connections to learn languages, like kids,  as someone up above describes

[Four is Enough]

16 hours ago, MiddleAgedLady said:

L.A. Colors Color Last in Gravity. 

I see that Maryland flag! Is that a pillow?

[OyToTheVey]

18 hours ago, divadivine said:

I taught Kindergarten at a ritzy private school. One of the families had a nanny from Venezuela. She spoke very little English when she arrived. She learned English by watching cartoons and practicing with the youngest child. She was fluent when she went back home after being here two years. And the little girl was fairly fluent in Spanish, too. Hello, you have to put some effort into learning. 

This reminds me when one of my cousins had a Polish nanny. The toddler spoke Polish and no one understood him. It was hysterical. He would ask for something and we'd be like what does this child want. I've noticed that a lot of kids when they're with babysitters and nannies of a different culture, they pick up the language very fast.

[cascarones]

10 hours ago, Snarkylark said:

What are some good programs for learning Spanish? I should have taken it in HS but decided to take French. I could really use some basic Spanish to help me  communicate with some of my patients. 

I'm not sure what your profession is, but here's a gathered list for learning medical spanish/ phrases to help with basic patient interactions. Both online, classes and immersion programs are offered. 

https://depts.washington.edu/hhpway/Medspanish-nhsc.pdf

Hope that's helpful! I know my Dad has a cheat book for when he was still practicing in a clinical setting.

[Fluffy14]

Is it repetitive words used over and over in everyday life with no variation? Not the total of known spoken words?

[BlackberryGirl]

I am quite deaf, and hearing aids don't help. I have tried to learn German, Spanish, and Latin. In all 3 cases I was given a medical excuse.  I can read French fairly well actually, I taught myself by reading the French edition of some fashion magazine years ago. Some people have a gift for language, some just don't and some can learn well enough with work.

 

[SeekingAdventure]

@PainfullyAware I don't know if I am, but that would be really cool.

@Fluffy14 I do not watch too much of their episodes (and frankly, I have no idea how I even heard about the Duggars etc) but it sure seems like they repeat a lot of the same words and phrases etc. And if you once possessed extensive vocabulary, but you never ever use it, then you'll forget it, so maybe their overall vocabulary is higher, but they only use very basic and therefor many words are forgotten? I dunno about that, but it certainly seems like possible. Although, to be fair, it is probably more than 400 words, but I have conversations with my mum in 5 minutes that include a bigger variation of words than the duggars if you would watch 4 episodes after another, and they are 20+ people.

[Snarkylark]

Thank you @cascarones! I'll check those out. 

[calimojo]

@JillyO  I am confused by what you wrote re: language fluency.  My sister took 2 years of HS Spanish and then lived with a family in Northern Spain for 3 months, and when she returned she was what I would define as fluent.  She was fully capable of carrying on full conversations in Spanish and could read it well.  She was about 17 at this time.  Now, in her 50's she can barely speak it, but can still understand Spanish fairly well.  Of course, the Spanish she learned is what we called at the time "Classic" Spanish, as she learned it in Spain.  But most of her contact with Spanish back here in the US, has been with people from Central America and Puerto Rico, and obviously that is different than what she orginally learned. 

I find it fascinating that after being immersed and picking up the language so quickly, that she lost it also very quickly.  This was in the late 1970's so apps and internet learning, was not possible then.  If she had that experience today, it would be so easy for her to stay connected to her host family, and be involved in some online community or program to keep up her language skills. I do wonder if she did immersion again, if she would fall back into it pretty quickly since it is probably imprinted somewhere in her brain.

 

[Rachel333]

It's really not quite true that kids are better at learning languages. You're probably not going to sound like a native speaker unless you learn a language very young, and kids tend to be much less inhibited which helps a lot in learning a language, but in other ways adults are better than kids at learning languages. They pick up grammar a lot faster, for instance. Here are a couple articles about this. That's not to say kids don't have an advantage, but adults shouldn't feel like it's impossible for them to learn a language too!

[nastyhobbitses]

I took Spanish for six years in school and was pretty good at it (tested into Spanish literature courses at college), but when I got to college, I chose to focus exclusively on Mandarin Chinese (which I started learning the summer before my junior year of high school -- so in high school I was taking both Mandarin Chinese and Spanish classes). In college I took Mandarin every semester and spent my junior year spring in an immersion program in Beijing, and then I moved to China for a year and a half after I graduated. Now I'd say that I'm daily-life fluent in Mandarin -- I can easily carry on conversations and perform tasks and read the news, but it's a lot of work to get through really academic or literary writing. I'm working hard now on business Mandarin so I can read and translate documents at work (we do a lot of business in East Asia).

My Spanish is pretty crap now. I can understand it OK if I'm reading it or if someone speaks relatively slowly to me and I can follow the Spanish parts of Narcos pretty well, but it's hard to do anything more than very basic conversations. And actually, this is really weird, but sometimes I find myself switching to Mandarin mid-sentence when I'm speaking Spanish! It's kind of embarrassing when it happens. I live in a predominantly Latino neighborhood, so I try to practice with people (shopkeepers, etc.) as often as I can, but I feel pretty self-conscious about how bad my Spanish is. I'm hoping to sign up for a class or a language meetup so I can get back up to speed.

And then once I get my Spanish and Mandarin up to snuff, I want to try working on German, since when I was traveling in Germany, I found myself picking it up fairly quickly. I was still just about at Drunk Three-Year-Old Level, but I could understand directions, ask where things were, ask for stuff, greet people, count, and understand decent chunks of conversations. Though I also think it might be useful and a fun challenge to learn Hindi (all I can say in Hindi right now is "hello, how are you", "my name is NastyHobbitses", and "what is this").

[JillyO]

@calimojo: Not sure how what you wrote corresponds to what I was saying. Or maybe you just tagged the wrong user?