🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <317BF10A.167E@sgi.com>, Sean Yamamoto  <seany@sgi.com> wrote:
> One of the things learning a foreign language does teach (when it's
> learned correctly) is the ability to think in a different way. Let's
> say you learned to speak Eskimo. You would probably never think
> about snow in quite the same way that you might have in just
> speaking English.

Oh, man, won't this myth ever die?  The notion that people's thoughts
are limited by the language that they speak has been debunked for
decades, and yet you still see it being quoted every month or so.  The
truth is that Eskimos can differentiate lots of different types of
snow because they have to relate to it on a day to day basis for their
livelihood.  But they cannot, on average, differentiate more types of
snow than other people who deal with it a lot, like avid (monolingual
English speaking) skiers.

>Since American high school students rank dead last in industrialized
>nations in science, foreign languages, and many other domains (e.g.,
>geography) and a huge number can't decipher a timetable for a
>bus....

You're right, those timetables are confusing.  I think we need more
education for the people who make them up.

- Ross

-- 
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