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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 |  | |
| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3823 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 41 of 51 12 October 2014 at 9:38am | IP Logged | |||||
You do have to remember that you're on a language learning forum, and as such, the statistics are very biased. :) People that are not serious about learning at least one foreign language wouldn't spend much time here. For myself, I do consider learning Japanese and Hawaiian fun; Spanish and Italian I see as really-beneficial-if-I-learned-them, and so I do not spend the time as I should. However, the fun factor rises exponentially when I get to use these with other speakers. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chiara-sai Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3706 days ago 54 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German, Japanese | Message 42 of 51 12 October 2014 at 10:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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To be fair, the threshold at which a language becomes “useful” is quite subjective.
For example, I have said that I have no “use” for my languages (apart from English), but that’s just because I’m not studying my languages with a precise goal in mind (like having friends who speak it, or appreciating the literature and wanting to read it in the original…). However that doesn’t mean that I’m studying languages that I don’t plan on using at all, I’m certainly going to read books, watch movies, listen to music and probably even speak to people (although I am very shy!) in those languages, so in this sense I do have a use for them, they’re just not the main reason I’m studying the language. It is true though that I wouldn’t study a language that has literally no use at all (say a conlang that I invented myself and didn’t tell anyone about), so maybe those reasons do matter. Sometimes it’s just really hard to tell. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6580 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 43 of 51 12 October 2014 at 10:14am | IP Logged | |||||
This is a good point. I want a lot of media (books, movies and TV series) in the languages I study, because exploring the culture is part of the fun of language learning. So I wouldn't choose a small language in Papua New Guinea to study, even if it looked super interesting, because it'd be really frustrating to find materials and opportunities to use it. So being able to use a language is definitely part of the motivation for me. But the decision process goes like this: I want to learn a new language -> This language looks interesting, and there are media and opportunities to use it, too. It does not go loke this: This language would give me a lot of opportunities and I'd be able to do this thing I've always dreamed of -> I'm going to learn this language The drive to learn languages is always primary for me, but I don't just choose languages based on how linguistically interesting they are. If that were the case, I'd have never started with Portuguese, which I actually chose because I'll go to Cape Verde in January. Once I've started learning it, though, I've found it's the Cantonese to Spanish's Mandarin, that is, smaller but much more fun and lively. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 44 of 51 12 October 2014 at 10:19am | IP Logged | |||||
It's largely just the nature of any discussion forum, and the culture of this one in general. If a person "had" to learn a language for work, they would probably hire an expert or take a class (funded by their company). They would probably look down on self-study methods, because they rightly know that most people fail at them. But even if they are happy with self-study, that's not all HTLAL is about. Most of us who post regularly are clearly people who like talking about languages. For us, reading and posting on HTLAL is a chance to discuss interesting issues with people who share an interest (that's what I mean by the nature of most discussion forums). Spending a lot of time posting isn't efficient language learning, but most regular posters aren't just interested in efficiency (not exclusively anyway). We also enjoy discussing languages, debating about methods, learning about new courses, etc. Simply put, most people on HTLAL have fun with languages because someone who doesn't have fun with languages isn't likely to be a regular on HTLAL. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4251 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 45 of 51 12 October 2014 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A brief skimming didn't reveal this thing being mentioned, so think about this:
I'm not learning the languages I have to use, I'm learning the languages that I want to use. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4097 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 46 of 51 12 October 2014 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is probably true of a number of people, but it also assumes that a certain type of person with a certain type of job are the only ones who need to learn for professional reasons. There are a huge number of people who need a language for work to whom that does not apply. A couple of examples: Pretty much every Classical Archaeologist I have ever worked with who needed to understand German or Italian for their PhD or speak Italian, Greek, Georgian or Arabic to get the job done in the field. Archaeologists/PhD students are simply not paid enough for intensive courses. Immigrants are another group who often cannot afford courses, unless the government makes them take them, but need to throw themselves into the learning process. That applies to us white immigrants in predominantly white countries too, by the way. People in the tourist sector, or who need to communicate a lot with tourists, rarely make enough to take courses but knowing the language of the tourists may make or break their business. I'm not saying there aren't people who belong to the section of society you're mentioning (I am related to a couple of them) or that those people would be generally disinterested in a forum like this (they probably would be)... I'm just saying that there is a huge number of people who need a language who in no way resemble your description. They too might be unlikely to spend time in a forum like this, though, for various reasons. I had a hard time not being turned off, myself, the first few months, for reasons relating to reasons for learning languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4097 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 47 of 51 12 October 2014 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I love languages. I love playing with words. I love weird grammar. I love guessing etymologies and checking online to see if I am right.
That said, I do not need to learn any more languages to love languages (although it helps in the etymology game). I often enjoy the learning experience, but if languages were mostly "for fun" then I could come up with five dozen things that would be more fun and probably a lot more useful in the end. Thus far I've learnt languages because it's important to me for other reasons. That I don't hate it is just an excellent perk. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4947 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 48 of 51 13 October 2014 at 4:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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I enjoy languages so to me it comes quite easy. Like the poster above, I love deconstructing grammar, learning new "strange" grammar, new words, and how words between languages have drifted to different meanings (my favorite is the "pregnant" / "embarrassed", which has drifted into multiple meanings in my target languages).
However, my goals are quite high in French/German/Portuguese, and so that is a bit stressful because I must dedicate most of my waking time to the task, not having the advantage of being in the countries, I have to create a virtual immersion by surfing the net in the L2s, setting my cell phone to the languages according to day (or even the ATM, as some banks now allow) ,watching the news everyday in that language, reading a book every day, and attending at least one conversational group a week. That all takes a lot of planning and conscious effort, and the gains from B2 to C1 are painfully slow at times. With Chinese it is the same thing, but I am letting myself a little slack given the difficulty of the language (the reading / writing mainly which is what I have been focusing on this summer, so I can finally have at my command such an invaluable input tool: being able to read!) Beyond those four languages (and down the line Italian, a language I learned to some level as a child, and still remember bits and pieces. That plus the fact I speak 3 other Romance languages should make it cakewalk compared to the others), whatever other languages I plan to learn merely for fun. Which brings me to the point, and that is today I "officially" began learning Russian. This will be my first 100% "just for fun" language, which I will dedicate 30 minutes a day for the time being as I am still way too full with the other languages. But it is a nice "decompress" session, I am finding. So I am learning the Russian alphabet in a leisurely manner. I have a friend who speaks Russian, and is a teacher, so I will enlist her to help me learn the proper pronunciation. I have already watched a video on vowel and consonant pairs hard/soft, and last night read the Wikipedia article on Russian grammar. My goal right now is to learn the alphabet, learn the sounds so I can practice them during otherwise dead time, and read and watch Russian grammar videos so that it all slowly begins to din in my head. That way, one day when I decide to step it up a few notches, I should have the reading, sounds, and basic grammar notions internalized, which will make the learning process far easier. So right now, I do have fun with my original L2 languages, but I also have goals and expectations to meet. With Russian though, it is and will be 100% fun! edit - I don't read ONE WHOLE book every day in my target languages, I just read "a book" (from a book, whatever I can read in the time allotted). Just making sure ther is no ambiguity! Edited by outcast on 13 October 2014 at 4:53am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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