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Metus comments on Open Thread March 31 - April 7 2014 - Less Wrong
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English is not my first language, German is. I am noticing a phenomenon more and more: Stuff I read does not annoy me as much in English as it does in German, though it is the exact same topic. The other day I read a German article complaining about the idiocy of a particular 'comedian', angering me that I wasted my time on reading about someone complaining about some idiotic person. Though I have no problem reading the standard subreddits on Reddit, which are no less idiotic than the average column in German. What is going on?
I assume that in German I have plenty of preformed conceptions about what is proper and what is not. In English though I am able to keep an open mind about what I experience, as it is a new and foreign culture. This narrative doesn't satisfy me though, as I do not see a proper way to test the hypothesis.
An alternative narrative - one should always have more than one hypothesis on any topic - is that German media is inherently inferior to English products. I refuse to believe this, though I am willing to accept an argument on statistical distributions and number of trials. Or am I just unable to find the niches in German that do satisfy my itches?
Is this a phenomenon anyone else encounters? What is your take on it?
Foreign language use is associated with weaker emotional reactions: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/foreign-language-improve-decisions/
I don't speak English natively, and haven't ever lived somewhere where English is the dominant language, and I've been wondering about the same thing. It seems to be easy to notice and get annoyed if someone's Finnish sounds stilted or off, and I'm pretty sure I have much less of a sense of textual voices in English. I think it comes down to having basically zero exposure to real-life face-to-face socialization and status play using spoken English, so the various subtle cues aren't internalized and need to be inferred.
I also can't tell non-native speakers apart from native ones based on writing style on a message board like LW. Can native English speakers do that?
Is it harder for you to read English than to read German? I've noticed that I don't get irritated as easily by what I read when I'm doing something else at the same time, even when it's something that you wouldn't think would take a lot of brainpower--brushing a cat, for example, or eating. Multitasking, even if it's really trivial multitasking, short-circuits the indignation feedback loop and I just read something else instead of getting pissed off.
Either way, it doesn't sound like a problem so much as a life hack. Be proud: you've discovered yet another benefit to learning a foreign language :)
Once you start paying attention to yourself there are plenty of things to notice. In every language I know I tend to exhibit different aspects of my personality and I tend to evaluate things differently in the languages I know.
I would expect english media to just be better on average, due to the larger, more competitive market. Is this what you mean? (I imagine the foreign language/emotional reaction effect is the dominant thing going on though)