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How many of you learn for fun? | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | Motivation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4845 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 33 of 51 11 October 2014 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow, I'm astonished at how one-sided this is. Nobody else has taken my position in this debate.
I'm reminded of something I've heard about sports superstars. What separates the greatest athletes in the world from average athletes is that the former group doesn't just enjoy the games, but they also relish the stuff between matches: the running, the weight-lifting, the exercising, drills, dieting, etc. They actually enjoy doing all of the training necessary to get themselves to the highest levels of their sports. I think I remember hearing of one top marathon runner who enjoyed her daily training runs more than the actual competitions, including the Olympics. So, it just hit me that here at HTLAL, I - a casual language learner - am among some of the greatest language learners in the world. You guys are Premier League, and I'm Sunday League. Edited by kujichagulia on 11 October 2014 at 3:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 34 of 51 11 October 2014 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My favourite footballer said nobody likes the pre-season training. Maybe he's generalizing from his own experience, but it seems like this part of the season is objectively more tough. And perhaps it's comparable to reaching fluency in your first foreign language?
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 35 of 51 11 October 2014 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
When did it become a debate? We were asked if we learn for fun. Since most of us here are casual learners, it's not surprising that we enjoy our language learning. It might be different if we were learning a language for work, but I'm certain I would still want to make it fun. For the past 30 years or so, I've started and stopped languages more times than I want to count. I slowly came to realize that I need to include a large proportion of fun if I am to stay interested and motivated. To my great delight, the fun activities also turn out to be quite effective. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 36 of 51 11 October 2014 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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And it might be different if more of us had to learn languages we don't actually like. Those who come to ask for help in such a situation tend to disappear fast when they discover that what we recommend isn't magically better than what they've been doing. I think it's great that kuji didn't disappear and didn't give up :)
(I also suspect that you'd enjoy the process more if you simply had a consistent computer access. FSI etc *is* dry, and I loathe it) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 37 of 51 11 October 2014 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I enjoy learning languages, otherwise I wouldn't consistently put in so much time working on them every day! But
I would never learn a language "just for fun" if I didn't have the opportunity to use it. I learned Spanish because of travel and am learning Tagalog because of family. I may stop at these two foreign languages and just keep improving them. If I ever add another language, it will be because I'm surrounded by it - either for travel, by living abroad, or because I live in a community where the language is spoken. Last time I lived in Toronto, the two languages most often heard in my neighbourhood were Korean and Russian, so if I lived in the same neighbourhood, I might decide to learn one of those languages. But languages like Finnish, Turkish or Zulu? No interest unless I planned on long-term travel in the area. Ancient Greek, ancient Egyptian, Sanskrit or Latin? Zero interest. I suppose if I were doing advanced academic research, I would see the need to learn them. So, I guess I'd say that I learn for fun, but that part of the fun for me has to include regular opportunities to use the language. The sense of urgency that comes with the need to communicate is part of the fun for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 38 of 51 11 October 2014 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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No language other than Swedish and English (which was mandatory in school) has been forced upon me. "Fun" doesn't mean that language learning has always been effortless, but it has always been my own choice.
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| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4845 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 39 of 51 12 October 2014 at 8:52am | IP Logged | |||||
I think it became a debate when I joined in on the fun (pun totally intended). If you are offended, sorry about that. I enjoy debating. I was the runner up in my state's high school debate championships when I was a senior student 18 years ago. :)
But see, that is surprising to me. I'm not surprised that some people would enjoy learning languages for fun. I just thought it would be the minority, not the majority. I'm surprised that it seems that almost everybody here learns languages purely for the purpose of learning them. I was under the impression that most people would learn a language to use it sometime in the future, not simply to enjoy the act of learning. I'm surprised that most people here see language learning as the goal, not the means to a goal. Stelle said that she would not learn a language if she didn't think she would have the opportunity to use it, and I think I feel the same way. I learn Japanese because I live in Japan and I need to be fluent in it. If for some reason I left Japan or, God forbid, divorced my wife, I'd drop Japanese in a heartbeat. I learn Portuguese because I like the language, but it's a struggle because I have no current need for it. What motivates me to keep going with Portuguese is that I have goals of speaking with Portuguese speakers in Japan, or traveling to a Lusophone country someday, or perhaps doing something else, like a blog or something. If I didn't have those goals, I probably would have stopped learning Portuguese, because learning Portuguese just to be learning it is not enough. I don't wake up and think, "Wow, I can't wait to crack open that book, highlight a bunch of words I don't know, interrupt my story to look them up in the dictionary, and rinse and repeat. And really, who cares what the story is, because I enjoy looking up words in a dictionary." I think, "OK, I'm going to go through that book and look up those unknown words, because every new word is a step towards knowing the language, and when I know the language, that is when the real fun begins." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4845 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 40 of 51 12 October 2014 at 9:03am | IP Logged | |||||
Oops... I missed this the first time. You might be right, Serpent, in that it's comparable. Maybe the learning process could be fun for me, but maybe it just takes some time to see it as fun instead of a lot of work. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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