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Emotional associations with languages | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | Motivation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5099 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 17 of 26 04 November 2014 at 12:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I absolutely love French. It makes me feel like I have a cup of hot chocolate on a
cold day. It has completely lost the exotic appeal that it once had, but I have traded that for the comfort of genuine and safe familiarity. I detest Spanish. I literally cringe if I accidentally tune to a Spanish station and I quickly flip through Spanish channels on tv. The language still makes me angry because I was forced to study it for so many years in school and because I was punished for that class (unfairly imo) despite the fact that I was still passing it. It makes me remember those feelings of powerlessness and still today I refuse to learn the language simply because I have control over what I study now and I'm not going to spend my time learning a language that other people want me to do. I suppose that Spanish awakens the petulant child in me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| soclydeza85 Senior Member United States Joined 3906 days ago 357 posts - 502 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 18 of 26 04 November 2014 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Though I've only been seriously studying German in the recent years of my life, I've always had a fascination with it since I was a kid, allowing me to hear it in a more pure way. My friends always make fun of me when I say something in German though, saying it sounds angry and aggressive. I assume this is because in America (if you don't have any connection with anyone that speaks German), the majority of German we've heard throughout our lives comes from Hitler's speeches and WW2 movies, so people associate its sound with anger and evil. But I see (hear) it as a very sophisticated language that can sound harsh if it is used in such a way, but also very nice and real.
I've tried to get into Spanish, solely for the reason of knowing how beneficial it would be to know here in the States, but I just can't get into it. I don't really care to go into my negative associations with it. My top 3 languages to learn (and become proficient in) are German, French and Italian, which also happen to be the 3 official languages of Switzerland. My family and I used to go there every year when I was a kid and I always loved the country and have a lot of respect for its culture, which I'm sure has an influence for my liking of those languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3824 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 19 of 26 04 November 2014 at 2:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I confess that, as my first foreign language, Spanish has not remained "my first love". While it is a pretty language, and I can't imagine "Pan's Labyrinth" in English (bleh), I don't have a lot of enthusiasm for it. It didn't help that my intermediate course in college had a very boring teacher. Plus, I don't have a list of books I NEED to read in Spanish.
For Japanese, it's both a love and an alien: I like it, but I don't always get it. My attitude toward Italian is improving: I began learning it because I might need to live in Italy to continue. Now that the hard part is *almost* understood (pronunciation), I am having fun learning it. :) I am really really REALLY looking forward to learning French: but since I started Italian, I felt that I should let that solidify before I start another Romance language. Ancient Greek: if there was a language I equate with wonderful magic, this is the tongue. I also look forward to learning this one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4233 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 20 of 26 04 November 2014 at 3:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In the school my view about English was changing dramatically, depending on conditions. At the beginning it was interesting, but not catching, with a good teacher it was fascinating, and with a bad teacher it was boring as hell. Fortunately, we were finishing the school with a good teacher, plus I started to listen to music, which could only help.
Now English is a thing that is really, really close, but I can't just grasp it. I think in the language a lot, but I still can't follow stuff without subs. I write a lot, but still have a lot of annoying mistakes. Frankly, I feel like Prometheus whereas English is that eagle. And I also feel that I am damned to be tortured forever, hehe. Now about German. I was prejudiced because of historical aspect, because I thought it would be hard for me, because I was scared of all the dialects, I didn't like the language itself. Now I can only laugh at that. And then cry. Because German is that passion, that imminent desire, which I can't neither fight, nor satisfy. It's a shadow hanging over me and most of the time I have no choice but to walk under it with my mind either distracted or reminding me about how I like the language. Well, yeah, life gets me distracted, mostly, but often enough when I am about to read in English or to watch something in English I feel some sort of remorse like: "Du solltest etwas mit Deutsch machen". Und ich mache nichts, gar nichts. Italian is an experiment I am running partially because I can't get down to studying English or German. I don't have time to get bored because of the language, I also don't have time to study it properly - alas! - but I intend to keep going on anyway. I find the whole thing fascinating, even my annoyance doesn't play a big role here (genders? okay, okay, there's always a dictionary). I am intrigued about the possible results for I have no clue what really can come out of that. Swedish and Greek are the shadows of what I feel with German, basically. They bother me not that often, and I can't even think (=say) a single sentence in them, but I am sure that once I get more of free time they will start howling at me. I sincerely hope that it won't be easy to resist them, the beginning of studies should be fascinating just as it is with Italian now. I have no clue why it wasn't before, though. And, finally, Russian. It is pain. I see the language degrading every day and I take it too close. Sometimes I even fail to be good enough myself - and yeah, this becomes some sort of masochism then. It's also pride and love, maybe something else, but firstly it's pain. Fortunately or not, it's that sort of pain that you get used to so it doesn't even feel like pain most of the time. You just know it's there. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5640 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French | Message 21 of 26 04 November 2014 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I go through phases of absolutely loathing the sound of Dutch. It think it happens
whenever I have a cluster of negative experiences while trying to communicate with native speakers. When the gap between my level and that of native speakers seems cavernous, I get the urge to wander off to a remote cabin with only myself for company. But it passes and my usual neutral feeling returns. I used to have something against French because of school and stereotypes about the French. Once I got over the fear of French, I found that it's actually the perfect language for me to learn. It's pleasant sounding, lots of native speakers, resources and media and I don't have to travel far to visit a Francophone country. I now dislike German because it reminds me of my boyfriend's arrogant half-German father. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4252 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 22 of 26 04 November 2014 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I should begin by saying that I don't understand the sentiment of letting a nation's politics affect one's emotional standing towards the language, if only for the fact that nation =/= language. I think every language is inherently beautiful and interesting. There are of course subjective reasons why I can bring myself to like languages such as interesting historical developments, interesting features and interesting phonology (Icelandic is 3/3 on that front) but to detest or hate a language; never.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 23 of 26 04 November 2014 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
On one hand, I scrupulously adhere to the division between language and nation and when possible try to spread this idea to others. I admit though that I look up to the Hungarian nationalist, István Széchenyi, on this point when he perhaps ironically mentioned this division in a debate with his rival, Lajos Kossuth.
On the other hand, I realize that for many people, language is generalized as being an ethnic group's/tribe's marker. There are cases where people want to equate their native tongue with their imagined ethnicity or DNA. If one doesn't speak that language natively, then in this world that person can't be a member of the ethnic group/tribe that's appropriated that language. Even the definition of being Saami in Norway at least partially exploits this ethnolinguistic relationship that you and I oppose. Of course, using language as a political football (which assigns political baggage to language for outsiders) is nothing new. Putin's irredentist appeal to "save" Ukrainians who speak Russian is one example, as is Ari's mentioning of the situation in China regarding the prestige accorded to the Mandarin by the CCP at the expense of every other Sinitic language to reinforce some kind of Chinese identity/unity/homogeneity that's loyal to Peking and the CCP. The choice of language to remind someone who's the "boss" (and purposely traumatize or demean someone else) can also be exploited in jest... 
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| 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 24 of 26 04 November 2014 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I rarely relate languages to emotions in such a way that I detest or hate or love certain
languages. That never happens. Languages are a means of communication and I try to be rational enough to realise this. I don't harbour ill-will against any language, be it French or Russian or English, even though I'm bored of using English all the time. The only language that is an exception to this is Romanian, and that is because in that language I was sent to an orphanage and spoke to the children there in Romanian. Some things happened there that are heartbreaking. I will never forget the looks in their eyes or the way they behaved towards me. There is something that burns inside me everytime I think about them. If you can listen to the stories of orphans in a small village in Romania in their native tongue, you know the language. This language will always have a piece of itself inside me now. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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