Spanish or French? (pic) - Page 2
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
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Duoma
United States396 Posts
On May 11 2011 07:49 MoltkeWarding wrote: Naturally Spanish is more widespread; you can usually hear a Hispanophone speaking from across your building, usually uttering four times as many words as a normal person, while producing a tenth of his semantic content. Not that I generally get talking with them, as they are always eyeing the nearest blonde girl in the pub. I don't know what they say in Spanish, but the French call a certain kind of person a dragueur, which I think is the rule rather than the exception in Latin America. Tell her to learn French. Last time I checked, racism/massive generalization is not really welcome here. To the OP: It is incredibly silly and borderline racist to think of french as a "first-world language" and spanish as something else... This has been said several times already, but if she is learning another language for any sort of practical purposes, Spanish would likely be far more helpful. Far more people speak spanish in the world than french, and that will not change any time soon. What it really boils down to though is personal preference. Chances are this person will not become fluent enough to use it often in relation to work, so the choice really comes down to enjoyment of actually studying the language and preference in travel. | ||
MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
Last time I checked, racism/massive generalization is not really welcome here. It was also racist for the Elector of Brandenburg to imitate the gardens of Versailles and the cadence of Racine. How about Mme de Chatelet, who mastered Latin, English and Italian, but neglected her Spanish (in her time still considered one of the four civilized languages) because "the only book in it was unreadable?" How about Napoleon? According to him, the Spanish were "dirty, superstitious and priest-ridden." At least I'm sticking with what I have generally experienced. To the OP: It is incredibly silly and borderline racist to think of french as a "first-world language" and spanish as something else... It might surprise you to know that the GDP of the Francosphere is, with less than a quarter of the population, nearly equivalent to the GDP of the entire Hispanosphere. Anyway, how do you expect a person to answer the question French vs Spanish without a little racism here and there? | ||
Cloud
Sexico5880 Posts
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Duoma
United States396 Posts
This statement of yours now seems incredibly ironic "usually uttering four times as many words as a normal person, while producing a tenth of his semantic content." Perhaps you should take your own advice. As to the question of GDP, I am not entirely sure how you are defining "roughly equivalent", but the spanish speaking world has an extremely high capacity for development, at least in the short term. Much higher than the french speaking world. However this really has nothing to do with why I quoted your post. You generalizing about 500 million people with what? Anecdotal evidence from 200 year old megalomaniacs? You are simply a racist, and that kind of thought should not be welcome here. | ||
MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
So you bring up past occurences of xenophobia why exactly? I can bring up any number of quotes by Nietzsche that show misogyny, does that make it correct, or for that matter welcome on teamliquid? By all means, but to rid the world of misogyny, would you have to filter out of our literary cannon Homer, Aescylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Cervantes (what books would there be in Spanish then??), Milton, Shakespeare, Pope, Byron, Kipling, etc and so on. All megalomaniacs. There is a generalisation for you. Of generalisers you are by far the greater and more practiced. I only bound people into behavioural categories. You bind all categories into a single negative moral category. Talk about the sinner casting the stone! At some point in our "critical" civilization, people ceased possessing the ability to refute other people. Now they no longer care whether a statement is true or not, as long as it is the acceptable kind of statement to make. Put a little effort into it; the OP asked for a propaganda war of French vs Spanish. The only argument on the Hispanic side is "More people speak Spanish." Now, I'm sorry to say, but if you are silly enough to accept such a case, there is no argument which one can make in favour of French except ones which are racist by your definition. Claim French pedigree in culture, academics, or prestige? Racist. Claim that Francophones generally have higher standards of living? True, but racist. France as the more prolific tourist venue? Probably also racist. Haute Cuisine? Racist. In other words, there is one argument that needs consideration: demographics. Every other one is either meaninglessly subjective, or racist. As to the question of GDP, I am not entirely sure how you are defining "roughly equivalent", but the spanish speaking world has an extremely high capacity for development, at least in the short term. Much higher than the french speaking world. Yes, yes. In the time-horizon of eternity, every person will become on average as productive as any other. | ||
Golden Ghost
Netherlands1041 Posts
But if she want to learn a language that hardly anybody speaks in the place she's going because it gives her an extra skill I wouldn't bother at all. Almost all people going abroad speak at least English. | ||
Duoma
United States396 Posts
On May 11 2011 08:55 MoltkeWarding wrote: By all means, but to rid the world of misogyny, would you have to filter out of our literary cannon Homer, Aescylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Cervantes (what books would there be in Spanish then??), Milton, Shakespeare, Pope, Byron, Kipling, etc and so on. All megalomaniacs. There is a generalisation for you. Of generalisers you are by far the greater and more practiced. I only bound people into behavioural categories. You bind all categories into a single negative moral category. Talk about the sinner casting the stone! At some point in our "critical" civilization, people ceased possessing the ability to refute other people. Now they no longer care whether a statement is true or not, as long as it is the acceptable kind of statement to make. Put a little effort into it; the OP asked for a propaganda war of French vs Spanish. The only argument on the Hispanic side is "More people speak Spanish." Now, I'm sorry to say, but if you are silly enough to accept such a case, there is no argument which one can make in favour of French except ones which are racist by your definition. Claim French pedigree in culture, academics, or prestige? Racist. Claim that Francophones generally have higher standards of living? True, but racist. France as the more prolific tourist venue? Probably also racist. Haute Cuisine? Racist. In other words, there is one argument that needs consideration: demographics. Every other one is either meaninglessly subjective, or racist. Yes, yes. In the time-horizon of eternity, every person will become on average as productive as any other. You have a much greater penchant for verbosity than for reading-comprehension clearly. I am talking about OBJECTIVE facts regarding the usefulness of spanish versus french in practical pursuits(i.e. business) It is undeniable that in the SHORT term, not some "horizon of eternity" that more industry and wealth is/will be circulating in the spanish speaking world than the french-speaking world. OF COURSE all other factors than go into the choice of a "recreational" language are subjective. The way in which you order cultures in a linear fashion is really actually quite terrifying. While the OP may have been, in a circular fashion, asking for an "ordering of cultures" that is not what my post was about. I was trying to show that this manner of thinking is incredibly silly and outdated. Cultures cannot be ordered... especially when the only distinction being made is language. You are living in the wrong century moltke... and not in a good way. The only person in this thread who is discussing the "superiority" of language/culture is you. The rest of us are either talking about practical usefulness OR have stated that it is wholly a personal choice. | ||
FFGenerations
7088 Posts
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FFGenerations
7088 Posts
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
I am talking about OBJECTIVE facts regarding the usefulness of spanish versus french in practical pursuits(i.e. business) It is undeniable that in the SHORT term, not some "horizon of eternity" that more industry and wealth is/will be circulating in the spanish speaking world than the french-speaking world. Believe it or not, the objective fact is that the majority of people do not learn foreign languages for the purposes of employment, and even if they were, so what? Even if such a person were inclined to do business abroad, where would you recommend he emigrate? Venezuela? Spain, with an unemployment rate of 21%? Colombia? Argentina? Or France/Belgium/Switzerland/Canada/Luxembourg? Not to mention in terms of employability, even as an American, Spanish would give you the least additional benefit vis-a-vis other languages. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/SmallBiz/story?id=4349200&page=1 So much for that. Cultures cannot be ordered... especially when the only distinction being made is language. You are living in the wrong century moltke... and not in a good way. The only person in this thread who is discussing the "superiority" of language/culture is you. The rest of us are either talking about practical usefulness OR have stated that it is wholly a personal choice. Believe it or not, even anti-prejudicial remarks have to benefit from some exposition. Otherwise they remain what they purport not to be: prejudicial and biased. I have never denied that I am purporting that French is the superior language. In fact, that's rather the point. Are you keeping up now? | ||
FFGenerations
7088 Posts
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
On May 11 2011 08:21 Cloud wrote: France is also an old country. With it's birth rate barely above the mortality rate. Most of latin america is young countries in potency. Fyk France has a way better birth rate than Spain, it is really not that bad compared to the rest of Europe. Fertility is still > 2 and even if the population gets older it is still growing. On May 11 2011 09:36 FFGenerations wrote: do most french speaking peoples also speak english? how does that compare to spanish speakers? French people are usually bad at English especially the older generations. | ||
MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
Anything which needs to be said about this topic has been said there, and most things which didn't need to be said as well. | ||
aqui
Germany1023 Posts
On May 11 2011 07:45 Cloud wrote: Bleh, her reasons for preferring French are annoying and nonsensical (why would you go speak French where there are almost no French speakers?). If she wants to miss out on the bigger amounts of literature, cinema, theater, music, culture, etc. from Spanish speaking countries then French is fine. As for which is harder, I'd say that at least Spanish orthography makes more sense (I know enough French to read books comfortably). Laughable, i don't know whether this is even true for contemporary Art. France is an examplarily High Culture with an intellectual and cultural output that, summed up over the last centuries, is simply situated in other categories than the spanish one. | ||
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 11 2011 08:27 Duoma wrote: This statement of yours now seems incredibly ironic "usually uttering four times as many words as a normal person, while producing a tenth of his semantic content." Perhaps you should take your own advice. LMFAO buuuuuuuuuuuuuurn | ||
Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
French's awesome because I speak it. | ||
Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On May 12 2011 06:29 aqui wrote: Laughable, i don't know whether this is even true for contemporary Art. France is an examplarily High Culture with an intellectual and cultural output that, summed up over the last centuries, is simply situated in other categories than the spanish one. Yes, no kidding. Edit: Sorry for the double post, I'm very sleep deprived. | ||
Tippany
United States765 Posts
On May 11 2011 08:12 MoltkeWarding wrote: Anyway, how do you expect a person to answer the question French vs Spanish without a little racism here and there? Lol, wtf is this garbage? And why have these posts not received a warning at the very minimum? This guy drops into the blog to spew his verbose rhetoric about the semantics of racism and what not. The SC and TL community is an incredibly diverse one that has no borders, and you have that trashy attitude? On May 11 2011 09:36 FFGenerations wrote: do most french speaking peoples also speak english? how does that compare to spanish speakers? In my experiences I've found far more English speakers in France as opposed to Spain and South American countries. | ||
Endymion
United States3701 Posts
My best experience with French was in Marseille when I was sitting next to a native girl and we got to talking (in english mind you, my french is terrible). She ended up saying something like "Vous êtes étonnant, je t'adore," so I scrambled for something to respond with that would be somewhat french and flirty. It came out as "donnes moi ta sous-vetements" which i thought was pretty damn close to give me your underwear. Anyways she laughed a lot at how bad my french was, and I got a number from her. Take french, they're awesome! | ||
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