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How do you decide when to drop a language | ||
Tags: dropping a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4642 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 1 of 6 31 March 2014 at 3:14am | IP Logged |
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I was thinking lately about my goals in various languages including which I'd like to learn and how far to take them. Now, language learning for me is a passionate hobby, but not my main one. I simply don't have the motivation to learn as many as I want to the levels I want.
So, how do you guys figure out how to revise your goals when you're already fairly far into a language? Or in general? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4088 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 2 of 6 31 March 2014 at 5:07am | IP Logged |
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Sunk cost fallacy
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communicat ion/how-the-sunk-cost- fallacy-makes-you- act-stupid.html Edited by Gemuse on 31 March 2014 at 5:07am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4364 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 3 of 6 31 March 2014 at 8:17am | IP Logged |
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When you simply can't bring yourself to study the language any more, and it feels like an awful obligation and a boring burden, maybe it's time to let it go.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5772 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 6 31 March 2014 at 2:05pm | IP Logged |
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When I don't have the time and energy to study, then I don't have it. When I can maintain most of my level by doing things that are relatively easy to squeeze into my leisure time, then that's okay. But for speaking skills, and if my level is too low for easy maintenance - I let it go. If I ever really want to learn the language again I will recover/learn it more easily than the first time, and that alone makes it easier to accept that my priorities have changed.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5268 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 6 31 March 2014 at 2:40pm | IP Logged |
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It all depends on what you want to do with a language. There's a cost to be paid in learning a language beyond the price of materials and that cost is time- time in learning, improving and maintaining. I think we HTLALers tend to get so caught up in learning and carried away by the momentum here on the forum at times that the process can take over. "Some (any) member is learning five languages on her log. If she can do it then what's wrong with me? I need to regroup."
Perhaps as longtime members here and having learned some languages to a high level we may think that whatever language we take up we must give the exact same amount of dedication and effort, that anything less than a high level and giving it our best is somehow, a failure. That's because we know what is possible and achievable if we do give the same effort and dedication we gave to our other languages. It's not a failure to realize that you don't want to give X language that same effort. There's nothing wrong with that, at all. For me, I think it's more about the focus on goals. Zenhabits is a blog I follow and its author, Leo Babauta, talks about goals and how achieving without goals is possible by changing how you look at things. It is often our expectations that make us unhappy. Letting go of these and "just doing" may be more effective than a full frontal assault. Ultimately, if you don't want to do something, don't feel as if you must "soldier on" because of the time and effort you've already expended. Life is too short to continue to do something you don't really want to do. Edited by iguanamon on 31 March 2014 at 4:19pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4450 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 6 of 6 10 April 2014 at 5:30pm | IP Logged |
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Learning any language you need to have the interest and be willing to spend the time. Many of us have
busy schedules so you'd have to rework your schedule to discontinue certain activities so that you can devote more time to learning 1 or more languages. Otherwise you'd have to put off learning new language(s) until a later time. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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