I think that one of the most important parts of travel and probably one of the biggest differences between a tourist and a traveler is speaking the local language. You won’t always be in a country where they speak a foreign language but for us native English speakers it can be a little too easy for us to be lazy and not even try to learn a foreign language. Knowing just some of the language myths has really helped me to better understand how to learn more foreign language in less time.
Since I am in early stages of learning a foreign language (or several languages) and I haven’t ever been given any real institutionalized instruction (since it’s such a low priority here in the US) I have no idea where to start learning in order to be effective. Without any real guidance as to what will work the best for me, I have shifted more of my focus toward linguistics and a more scientific approach to learn another language.
I wasn’t looking for this book specifically but when I found it in a library one day, I ended up buying it on Amazon so I could finish reading it and own it for reference (when I decide to write my own book). In order to know more about language would’t it make sense to know about any myths or mental roadblocks that society might have about language? …and the arguments that have exposed such myths?
Some of these didn’t interest me as much as others but it was good to be exposed to some of these ideas for the first time as myths instead of truth. A couple times I actually found myself agreeing with the myth (and still probably do since this book was written before social media started to effect language) but for the most part I was just exposed to a lot of parts of language that I didn’t know existed just by hearing the arguments against these 22 language myths.
I was quite familiar with a number of these myths like “Some languages have no grammar”, “Everyone has an accent except me” and “Some languages are harder than others” but I had never heard of “In the Appalachians they speak like Shakespeare” or “You should’t say ‘It’s me’ cause ME is accusative”.
Even if you’re not some nerdy traveling amateur linguist, I think it’s a great book to read for anyone looking for a primer to study a foreign language or even just to better understand your own language and what linguistic myths you might believe in.
