What I’m Reading: Linguistic ignorance can be bliss
Here's an old post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 5 years ago, in 2019, on the World Wide Web.
Shared Article from The Japan Times
Linguistic ignorance can be bliss | The Japan Times
When it was revealed that Pico Iyer knew only a “smattering” of Japanese despite living in Japan for 25 years, some were critical. However, could ther…
japantimes.co.jp
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There are, surely, as the article points out, a) people who learn the language but don’t engage with the culture, and b) people who engage with the culture without learning the language.
But there are also, equally surely, c) people who do both [as well as, of course, d) people who do neither]. I thus can’t quite see what the argument is for seeing learning the language as a barrier to engaging with the culture. And in my travels I’ve certainly never felt liberated by not being able to read signs or understand what people are saying.