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Language Loneliness | ||
Tags: Distance Learning | Rare Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4867 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 1 of 21 20 October 2014 at 8:53pm | IP Logged |
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I'm not sure if we had a topic on this before, but recently I've been noticing something which I think keeps me from intensifying my studies and I was wondering if any of you share this experience. It's really a feeling of not being able to express myself fully to the people around me, because I gained a lot from Korean which I have to translate if I want the people around me to understand. It shouldn't be an issue, it's 'only' a language, but it feels a little lonely sometimes.
Now that I would deem myself a passive B2, active B1+ at Korean immersion seems to become ever more important for using my language skills to their full potential. But when I virtually immerse myself in Korean here in Germany, I start to want to express myself in the language and I only have one friend who can understand me when I do. The result is that immersion makes me think in Korean, but when I want to communicate my thoughts I have to switch to German because the people closest to me don't understand any Korean. I think that hinders me from getting and staying immersed to some degree and therefore slows my progress. Does anyone get that feeling of isolation, of not being able to express a part of themselves with people who don't speak all the same languages? How do you handle that? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 21 20 October 2014 at 11:17pm | IP Logged |
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Something like that. I feel that I alienate people around me when I don't hide that kind of knowledge or when I have to explain all those small details. Also, when I don't have anybody to share language related experiences with I easily lose interest in them. (Or, why I keep adding languages instead of concentrating on working towards real proficiency in one language.)
2 persons have 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 3 of 21 21 October 2014 at 9:48am | IP Logged |
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I need to have input in my target languages, otherwise I can't activate them. But most of my target languages aren't used by people around me, and I have learnt to live with the fact that I have to activate them through thinking (mostly silent) and writing plus maybe a voyage once in a blue moon.
4 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 4 of 21 21 October 2014 at 1:03pm | IP Logged |
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There are certain conversations an English speaker just can't have without sounding like they're trying for extreme cultural one-upmanship:
1. Charles Baudelaire: An overrated hack as a poet, but his prose is sometimes OK in an angsty teenage sort of way. 2. Alexis de Tocqueville: Why can't somebody translate him well? 3. Voltaire and Dumas: Actually pretty awesome, even by cynical modern standards. 4. Amélie: Fun in English, but far better in French. 5. Montaigne: Actually kind of fun, if you can read pre-modern French and you're amused by theology. Other topics which will be considered more bizarre than arrogant: 6. French science fiction: Strongest in BDs, but there are a few novels that would win major prizes if translated to English. 7. Low-brow French pop culture: Frequently hilarious. So the more time that I pass with Fench media, the more I have cultural experiences that are annoyingly hard to share, at least without moving a francophone country. Similarly, I want to speak a lot better than I do, but I've hit a point of diminishing returns: My spoken French is good enough to work as a programmer who follows orders, but not good enough to be a consultant who finds solutions and convinces people to implement them. But the price for reaching that next level is pretty steep (at least for me, so far), and it's hard for me to justify in an anglophone country. I totally understand why Khatzumoto moved to Japan—after 18 months of AJATT, he had more to talk about in Japan than in the US. Edited by emk on 21 October 2014 at 1:05pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 21 21 October 2014 at 3:01pm | IP Logged |
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Emk's post about cultural experiences made me laugh and I can definitely identify with it! Plus there's the complementary effect that since almost all my media consumption is in other languages, I don't have much to say in conversations with fellow English speakers about films and TV series. I've still never seen Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones or whatever everyone talks about these days; I'm sure they're great shows but I'd rather spend my limited time watching original things in the languages I'm learning.
I do socialise with people from Italy and Spain (that's a big part of my motivation for learning the languages!), and occasionally even France, and it's nice talking about these cultural things with them when I can. But it's certainly not the same thing as being in the country. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 6 of 21 21 October 2014 at 3:51pm | IP Logged |
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Good posts, emk and garyb, and I can relate to a lot of that. Although I must say that here in France I find that most natives would not be comfortable discussing Beaudelaire or Montaigne, even though they learnt about them in school. On the other hand you would easily find someone to discuss Amélie and low-brow pop culture with. Actually, what strikes me is that many culturally interested language learners seem more open to popular culture in their target language(s) than in their native tongue. For example, I've never been a fan of hip hop and rap music, and would hardly ever listen to the stuff, until I came across a CD by a Romansh-speaking rapper called Giganto. I really enjoy the songs and listen to one or two almost every day. However, nobody knows about this (except people on this forum), not even my closest family, because I don't want them to believe that I have gone completely nutters.
In fact, having a passion for a small, in many ways obscure minority language like Romansh is a very lonely pursuit. I really cannot discuss Romansh literature or music with anyone, I only express myself about it in my log here on HTLAL, and most of my friends don't even know that I have this hobby. If I were more extrovert, I could perhaps try to engage with Romansh-speakers on Facebook, but I do not want to be seen as an intruder, so I refrain from sending friends requests to Romansh people just because they are that. Paradoxically, languages are primarily about communication, but as a language learner you can end up having less to communicate about with your friends and neighbours, because you end up in a parallel universe, culturally speaking. Edited by Ogrim on 21 October 2014 at 3:52pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 21 21 October 2014 at 7:35pm | IP Logged |
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Oh, Ogrim: You are so lucky in that you can still pull off the "not a nutter" image. Everyone around me
knows I am a nutter. They thought so when I was into gardening, and got up at 5.30 and put on woolen leotards and mittens to go out and do some weeding, when I washed every leaf of my rhododendron with a brush or when I managed to get hit on the head by my own wheelbarrow. They think so now, when I tell them that my daily routine starts with dancing around for half an hour in my bikini to Russian pop music, or that we speak Spanish at home and watch series in French. Being a language lover at our level almost by necessity includes not being able to share half your life with your closest ones. But that is precisely why I love all you guys, who help me remain moderately sane. Now and then I even feel almost normal :-) Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 21 October 2014 at 7:58pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| 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 8 of 21 22 October 2014 at 2:23am | IP Logged |
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I wish that I knew more French speakers so I could practice, but I don't mind not being
able to share language learning with the people that I know. There's a part of me that really enjoys it when people have no idea what I'm reading or writing. And I like having a knowledge that is downright arcane where I live. I try to keep my languages a secret for as long as I can (that is, until a native speaker crosses my path) not because I'm afraid of people's reactions, but just because I like keeping it to myself. Edited by Darklight1216 on 22 October 2014 at 2:25am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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