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Characteristics of language learners | ||
Tags: Learning Experience | Reasons for study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Torbyrne Super Polyglot Senior Member Macedonia SpeakingFluently.com Joined 6094 days ago 126 posts - 721 votes  Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian | Message 9 of 18 31 January 2013 at 8:26pm | IP Logged |
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Hello Lakeseayesno,
I hope this helps in your study: - Did you start learning languages (for pleasure) before or after you became an adult? I started as a child. As far back as I can remember, I picked up language books, tried to copy accents, words and learn to speak like other people. - Do you have a set routine for studying, or are a "learn-as-you-go" learner? I don't have a set routine per se, but it just so happens that I study whenever I have spare time. I am not sure how many hours I put into it, but I have made my life so that I used languages all the time for study, work and daily life. On top of that I actively seek out groups, courses, clubs or individuals to spur me on with a more structured seting. - Did you have motivation or a reason to start learning languages, or started doing it as an extracurricular activity? I was fascinating how different people used sounds (other languages) in different ways to express themselves and I wanted to try to do the same and communicate with them in their languages. - Do you like reading? I don't like reading literature or fictional pieces. If I read, I prefer to read factual material. Mostly my reading is language related. - Do you consider yourself "passionate" about learning your chosen language (or, if you've stopped studying actively, were you passionate about it at the time)? I am always passionate about all languages. I do have my "flavour of the week/month/year" like many other language butterflies out there. I tend to focus on what I need the language for and assess the level I realistically need/want and can keep up moving forwards. Then I aim for that level. If it is a basic level I am after only, then I do usually stop there. Some languages I take to intermediate, advanced and beyond and they are of course longer-term investments for me. :) Whatever the level, to maintain the language at any stage in the learning process or to move forward little by little, a language is for life and not just for Christmas! :) Edited by Torbyrne on 31 January 2013 at 8:28pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5846 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 18 31 January 2013 at 9:04pm | IP Logged |
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YOUR QUESTIONS AND MY ANSWERS
- Did you start learning languages (for pleasure) before or after you became an adult? I had already four school languages (English, Latin, French and Ancient Greek) but my learning of languages as a hobby and for pleasure started as a young adult and I was triggered by the succes I had with learning Dutch at university. - Do you have a set routine for studying, or are a "learn-as-you-go" learner? I favourise class learning so I am used to attend a language evening course once a week and doing homework for the course and additional self-study during course holidays I do whenenver I feel inspired to. I like to sit in a café with my books listening to music and work on my Danish native-level texts for example. - Did you have motivation or a reason to start learning languages, or started doing it as an extracurricular activity? When I choose a certain language to learn I always have several reasons for this choice. One reason is not enough because this reason may vanish and then the motivation will not be strong enough to continue with the language. So my motivation for learning a certain language is usually well-founded so that I will continue even when I experience some obstacles in my learning process. - Do you like reading? I have never been a free-will reader of large quantities. I am specialized on non-fictional reading and I normally read smaller pieces such as for example one popular science article of 3-4 pages. My favourite reading topic is popular astronomy. - Do you consider yourself "passionate" about learning your chosen language (or, if you've stopped studying actively, were you passionate about it at the time)? Yes, sure that! I am always VERY passionate about my chosen target language! For me being passionate with language learning is related to the fascination a certain language has for me. I experience this with my target language Danish at the moment. The fascination on me does not only have the language itself but the whole culture which is connected to it. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 02 February 2013 at 10:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 18 31 January 2013 at 11:13pm | IP Logged |
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- Did you start learning languages (for pleasure) before or after you became an adult?
I started out as a child with home studies of Spanish and Italian plus the vocabulary part of Latin, and in school I learned English and German - later on (as a teen) also French and Latin. - Do you have a set routine for studying, or are a "learn-as-you-go" learner? I have fixed formats for text copies and wordlists and other things, but deliberately shun fixed daily routines - Did you have motivation or a reason to start learning languages, or started doing it as an extracurricular activity? I became interested in Latin through the scientific names of animals (including extinct animals), and I became interested in Italian through the tempo markings and annotations in musical scores - I composed music back then. - Do you like reading? Certainly - and I read fast but I rarely read fiction - Do you consider yourself "passionate" about learning your chosen language (or, if you've stopped studying actively, were you passionate about it at the time)? It's more like I'm passionate about language learning in general, including specific disciplines such as grammar and vocabulary studies, rather than individual languages. I'm also passionate about travelling, and using my languages in practice is a part of that endeavour, but I don't like speaking to people I can't see, and so far I have not been sufficiently desperate to breach that barrier - I don't even have a Skype account. Edited by Iversen on 01 February 2013 at 1:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 12 of 18 01 February 2013 at 2:22pm | IP Logged |
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- Did you start learning languages (for pleasure) before or after you became an adult?
I always liked learning them. I started as a child, much like Torbyrne, with English in my case. - Do you have a set routine for studying, or are a "learn-as-you-go" learner? Part of the routine is set, part of it changes. It also has to do with university, band occupations and all that. I usually do something every day, when during the day that happens depends. - Did you have motivation or a reason to start learning languages, or started doing it as an extracurricular activity? I'm just curious. It was extracurricular at first because I grew up learning English in an immersive environment. - Do you like reading? That depends on what I am reading. I don't enjoy classic literature in general though, I find most novelists use way too flowery language and are just showing off. I like reading for knowledge though, yes, and there are authors I admire; but none of them would feature on a list of great books. - Do you consider yourself "passionate" about learning your chosen language (or, if you've stopped studying actively, were you passionate about it at the time)? I don't choose a language. A language chooses me ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4333 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 13 of 18 02 February 2013 at 3:27am | IP Logged |
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Wow. You guys have no idea how much your replies are enrichening my research. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer!
Keep them coming, everybody! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 18 02 February 2013 at 4:56am | IP Logged |
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Did you start learning languages (for pleasure) before or after you became an adult?
In school, I studied Latin, German, Italian and Latin again, in that order. The only time I could actually struggle through easy native materials was the second time with Latin. On my own, I poked at Esperanto, Italian and Old Norse, but never made it anywhere with any of them. I started learning French after age 30. Do you have a set routine for studying, or are a "learn-as-you-go" learner? I make it up as I go along. I'll often focus on a given task for 30 days or so and try to be really regular about it. But outside of that, I just do something every day, preferably something fun, and try to keep up with Anki reviews. I agree with Khatzumoto, the AJATT guy: It's really useful to have easy access to a huge variety of interesting native media, because then you don't need nearly so much raw willpower. I do grammar as an afterthought, when I want to answer a question, or when I get corrected on lang-8. Did you have motivation or a reason to start learning languages, or started doing it as an extracurricular activity? French is my wife's native language, so I have lots of good reasons to use it. One of things I love best is that I don't have to force everybody to struggle in English just to include me, but can take my turn struggling. Sure, tons of people can speak English, but unless you've struggled with a foreign language on your own, you don't really understand how hard you're asking other people to work. Do you like reading? Love it. I've probably read over a million words in French, and vastly more than that in my native language. Do you consider yourself "passionate" about learning your chosen language (or, if you've stopped studying actively, were you passionate about it at the time)? Yeah, I'm having fun. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4843 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 15 of 18 02 February 2013 at 12:57pm | IP Logged |
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Did you start learning languages (for pleasure) before or after you became an adult?
I learned English, Latin, and French at school and started teaching myself Italian and Swedish when I was 14 or 15. Do you have a set routine for studying, or are a "learn-as-you-go" learner? I focus on textbooks during my first steps into a new language. After that, I'll read, watch, and listen to native material in order to get to "the real thing". I don't really have a routine, but I try to study as regularly as possible, which is sometimes difficult because of other obligations. Did you have motivation or a reason to start learning languages, or started doing it as an extracurricular activity? I started learning languages because I was curious what they were like. I like the sound of foreign languages and the different way of expressing thoughts. For me, a language is a passport to another culture, which offers me many new insights and experiences. Do you like reading? Yes, I am an avid reader. I read fiction as well as non-fiction. Do you consider yourself "passionate" about learning your chosen language (or, if you've stopped studying actively, were you passionate about it at the time)? Yes, of course. If I didn't have a passion for languages, I wouldn't learn such exotic ones like Icelandic and Scottish Gaelic. Edited by Josquin on 02 February 2013 at 12:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bismuth Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 4350 days ago 30 posts - 46 votes Speaks: German*, English, Russian Studies: Icelandic, Spanish | Message 16 of 18 02 February 2013 at 10:55pm | IP Logged |
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Did you start learning languages (for pleasure) before or after you became an adult?
Hard to answer for me personally. I learned English without a lot of effort other than listening to music, reading and writing on the internet, etc.. Though I did that with a lot of pleasure, I'm not sure whether this counts for you ? The first language I started learning from 0 was a few months ago at the age of 18. Do you rate that as adult ? Decide on your own. If I would have to give a clear answer I would say: I learned languages before I became an adult. Do you have a set routine for studying, or are a "learn-as-you-go" learner? I don't have a set routine for studying. I go my own pace and try not to push me all too much. That way I'll give me a lot of time where I'm not studying, but that is pretty much ok with me as that way I will get a lot of motivation after a few days. That way I will do each chapter with more dash than I would, if I had to push me to do one chapter a day or what.. Did you have motivation or a reason to start learning languages, or started doing it as an extracurricular activity? Reasons vary for each language.. Somebody who learns languages for fun has different reasons for different languages. I generally started learning Spanish and icelandic because those languages convince me throughout. I love them and I enjoy listening to them a lot.. I want to speak them myself, so that's why I learn them. I will be in South America this year for about 8-10 weeks so that's also quite a reason why I want to do some progress with my Spanish studies soon. Do you like reading? Depends. Generally yes, but it's hard to hold the motivation up, if there are so many other fun things to do. I'm pretty much expacting this to change soon as I'm going to university this year and plan on reading more during my spare time. The last book I read was 6 months ago, but I'm really looking forward to put a little bit more effort into that.. Do you consider yourself "passionate" about learning your chosen language (or, if you've stopped studying actively, were you passionate about it at the time)? Yes, I definitely consider myself as a passionate learner. I'm pretty much annoying my friends when I'm talking with them about the Spanish or icelandic language, because most of them really couldn't care less about other languages. I have no doubt that one day (whenever that may be) I will be fluent in those 2 languages as well. I also have some other languages I'm flirting with, so I can see myself also tackling those tasks at one points. Language learning for me is all about passion. I couldn't learn a language where I don't feel the 'vibe' of the culture. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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