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fezziwig comments on Open Thread March 31 - April 7 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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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?
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.