An extremely weird recurring theme for me is: I start learning a new language, I read/watch/listen to a lot of stuff in said language, I get really into various cultural stuff, someone decides to make fun of me about it. Like. Can they... Not?
Listen, I know I& #39;m often embarrassingly into things! It& #39;s a feature! I know it& #39;s probably hilarious to call me a koreaboo while I listen to music in Korean and watch Korean shows and talk about them a lot and so on but consider: how the fuck else am I supposed to learn a language
Like. Cultural background study is super important for learning a language??? You...you have to do that or you& #39;ll totally miss a bunch of stuff. You can& #39;t actually learn a language just reading a grammar textbook and making flashcards of kitchen utensil vocabulary.
I know people can& #39;t bear the thought that people know they like things, I know it gives them second hand embarrassment when I totally fail to be embarrassed about liking kpop or donghua or BL manga, and I know it& #39;s possible to be weirdly, racistly into these things.
But I& #39;m never ever gonna know if I really do pull some white gaze bullshit because actually doing the reading/listening immersion and cultural studies part of language learning is inherently cringey apparently *sigh*.
This would be why English speakers suck at languages.
This would be why English speakers suck at languages.