Let's Talk About: Language & Linguistics with Nathan Andrud
To start off, I think we should talk about linguistics. I think it's a term that most people have heard, but don't truly haven't understanding of so to begin. Can you explain in your own words what linguistics is, why you think it's important and why you decided to make it the focus of your undergraduate studies
Nathan Andrud
@Gronagardar420 · 4:43
And as of right now, linguistics is actually very in demand, profession or area of study for people who want to work in tech companies like Google or Amazon or Apple, because linguistics has a lot of practical uses in the job market, especially when it comes to computers and machine learning and machine translation, especially. I mean, machine translation is less important than the other two. But linguistics definitely has its practical use in our contemporary world, and it's not just about grammar or education or teaching
Nathan Andrud
@Gronagardar420 · 4:53
So it was basically like I remember my experience of linguistics in 7th grade was underlining different parts of speech in the sentence with different colored pencils, and the teacher would correct us often if we didn't get the right part of speech or if we messed up the grammar construction somehow. So that's prescriptivism, for example. But yeah, I actually was interested more so in the foreign language part of it
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
I love that perspective. I think that if a lot more people started to view learning language the way you do, where it's a game or a puzzle to be solved, I think people would be much more enthusiastic about it, and they should be because, as you said and love the way you said this. By the way, understanding linguistics is understanding human culture. And I think developing that understanding is more important now than ever
Nathan Andrud
@Gronagardar420 · 3:59
There's also a lot of opportunity here within the United States that we have so many people from all over the world who speak so many different languages that we could bring these people in, or, Conversely, have the students go to a space or meet with people who speak another language in person. I think this would be a great opportunity for them to practice their language skills, their conversational skills. And yeah, I think that's what we can definitely improve on
I think you bring up a lot of good points. Practice is certainly something that needs to be more of a priority in foreign language classrooms. Maybe. And I'm just saying this because I love to teach and I'm always is coming up with ideas. But maybe it would be beneficial for public school systems to create a pen pal program so students can use their language skills in casual conversations. But anyway, I just wanted to put that out there
Nathan Andrud
@Gronagardar420 · 4:46
And it was a really cool opportunity for me to practice language while I was over there and interact more with the locals and just it's a different way of understanding things. I feel like
Nathan Andrud
@Gronagardar420 · 4:55
This is a really good question, actually. And there's a lot of misconceptions people have about learning a language that I think stems from this education and foreign language and just experience, like general thoughts among Anglophones about American English speakers, native English speakers about how hard it is to learn a language or how useful it actually is because a lot of Americans don't have the opportunity or resources to travel to another country and actually have to use another language when getting around or communicating with people
So if you have any final remarks that you would like to add, feel free to do so. But that is all the questions that I have for you today. If any listeners would like to join in on the conversation, add your input and your perspective. Share your experiences with learning language. I would love to hear them, and I'm sure Nathan would love to hear that as well. Thanks again for chatting with me today, Nathan. Bye
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 1:52
So I really appreciated all of your tips. And also I just loved what you had to say about learning other languages as a path to more empathy, because I do think that until you are in that position of like you said, having moments where you can't think of a word you're trying to remember or anything like that, it's not the same as just thinking about what it's like to be in the shoes of someone who's learning another language