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What Motivates the "Super-Posters"? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5375 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 1 of 11 25 April 2014 at 1:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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There are a number of posters on this forum who regularly write thorough and detailed responses to people's questions. They post links, options, personal stories and many other extremely insights. They post in people's logs also where their responses are likely only seen by a few people. I sometimes try to offer suggestions and advice to people, but I simply do not have the time (or knowledge) to be one of these "Super-Posters." It is quite incredible when I think about the amount of time these people put into giving total strangers advice. What motivates them? Why do they go so out of their way to offer such amazing posts?
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| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5262 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 11 25 April 2014 at 2:35am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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James, I don't know if I qualify or not. I guess I do. I do it because I was once where a lot of people who are asking these questions are and I want to help them. I want to help people get the benefits I have by being able to speak and understand a language or two. My life is definitely better off for having learned Spanish and Portuguese to a high level and being able to converse in Haitian Creole at a lower level. If I had this resource, HTLAL, available years ago when I first started learning Spanish... wow!
Other people's advice and logs have been a big help to me. If no one gave back, there would be no forum. No advice, no inspiration to use BD's (comics) from emk. No super challenge from Christina. No advice to read "El asesino de la vía láctea" from dbag [bought it for $1.50 as a kindle ebook on Amazon :)]. No Ari's Chinesepod method. No inspiration from emk's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" series watching, etc. In short, the membership on HTLAL has given me so much help, inspiration and motivation. I am happy to give back what I can to help others. Pay it forward! If I can help someone, even in a small way, to learn a language that's enough reward for me. So thanks to everyone here who has helped me along the way- Gracias, Obrigado, Mesi anpil, Mersi muncho. Edited by iguanamon on 25 April 2014 at 4:30am 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 11 25 April 2014 at 5:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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This isn't directly related to the original question but it probably explains in a roundabout way why there's a rotating core of "super-posters"
(For the benefit of those without access, here're the relevant sections)
See also Why do you help other language learners? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4253 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 11 25 April 2014 at 9:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Languages are our passion and when we get to yap about them at length we will take any chance given. That's how I feel it, having made a few long/extensive posts.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 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 6 of 11 25 April 2014 at 9:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I use HTLAL instead of having a personal homepage or blog.
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 11 25 April 2014 at 10:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I don't belong, but ...
Apart from the things others mentioned, I think that the idea that you are dealing with "total strangers" is misleading. The internet is only a medium, and while people may be physically apart (or even sitting next door), it's your choice whether to interact with other people (and possibly get to know them to some degree, in a way that works with the medium). I mean, if random strangers ask you for information on the street, or when sharing a train compartment, or new members of a class/course - do you reply? Do you try to reply in a way that is helpful for them? If you invest that time and effort, you still don't get any guarantee that your investment will lead to the other person becoming an acquaintance, or even a friend. While dealing with information exchange in such situations might be relatively superficial, because you don't have a relationship to motivate you to invest a lot of effort (and it might make the other person feel uncomfortable if you did), I think when the result is visible in written form that is a strong motivator to make a bit more of an effort, especially when you keep in mind that while one person might ask a certain question, there are probably a number who want to ask that question and didn't dare to (or who want to know and didn't realize you could ask someone.) Of course, that's when the other person is still a complete stranger. And not even thinking about the things that you might gain personally from putting a narrative around your experiences in front of someone who's likely to listen, well, read. About interaction and wanting to influence the group culture. About status within the group and cred. Edited by Bao on 26 April 2014 at 3:01am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7205 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 8 of 11 25 April 2014 at 11:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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We have community here. My wife does Facebook, I do HTLAL. For me, language learning is an interesting diversion. It's enjoyable to share that experience and lessons learned. I've learned more here than I've shared, but using the word "share" in the sense of a two-way street.
There's also reading the ideas of language learners, some professional, many accomplished, as well as those at any point on the path. I think the quality and candor in the posts here is top notch. We try to have fun and yet are serious about our goals. Many of us have invested thousands of hours in this endeavor. It would be silly not to discuss it at length. We have various forms of language learning experimentation. If you go way back in the history, the inclinations of the members were similar, but many more accomplished polyglots have joined and made this place attractive. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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