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Useful language vs. language you like | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | Usefulness | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 57 of 69 14 May 2013 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | ||
When I first started studying German, I didn't particularly like the sound of it, but I found it interesting and challenging. (I actually preferred the sound of Dutch, especially Flemish Dutch). But the more I got into it (over many years), the more I began to appreciate beauty in it. So in that case, the beauty (or appreciation thereof) followed the interest, rather than the other way round. ... Another point that crossed my mind: Perhaps we need to examine our own personal reasons for learning any language, and provided we are clear about that, we don't have to justify to anybody else, or to ourselves, the effort we put into it. Edited by montmorency on 15 May 2013 at 8:40pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4848 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 58 of 69 15 May 2013 at 2:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I struggle with this very question with my Portuguese studies. I was first attracted to the language because of its beauty: the cadence and pronunciation sounds very cool, for lack of a better word. The Brazilian variety in particular sounds almost musical (although I've come to appreciate the European and African variety as well).
But is it useful for me? Now, it certainly could be useful. It is the seventh most spoken language on the planet, if I recall correctly. Not only that, but there is a sizeable Brazilian expat community here in Japan. If you go to an ATM in the country, you can use most of them in one of four languages besides Japanese: English, Chinese, Korean, ... and Portuguese. A lot of public services have some information available in Portuguese. So I'm sure that Portuguese could be useful to me. The "problem" (and I use that word loosely, because I don't really see it as a problem) is that it is not useful to me right now, other than when using online media. I haven't yet made any Brazilian friends here. Not that I don't want to, but for me it is not as easy as going out and meeting Brazilians that I met online. If I were single, sure, but that is not the case. Travel? I'm sure that I will go to Portugal and Brazil someday, but when? With few work holidays available, and with a pet rabbit (trust me on this; I don't want to ruin this post with details about why it is difficult to travel when you have a rabbit for a pet), our vacations are short, and it takes less time to get to places like France, Germany, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc., than it is to go to a Portuguese-speaking country. Yes, I'm going to Spain in December, but we don't have enough time to go to Madrid AND Barcelona AND hop over to Portugal (we're going to London, too), and who knows when we will have the opportunity to go to Portugal again? As for Brazil? No country is farther away from Japan than Brazil, and just getting to Brazil takes a considerable amount of time. When you have only six days of vacation time, more than half of that time would be spent just getting to and from Brazil! So any trip to Brazil will be far into the future... perhaps when I become a self-employed translator and I can take long holidays! :) But do I really need to justify the usefulness of Portuguese to me? Not really. The only L2 I need to learn is Japanese; everything else is for fun. Besides, if I learn something like French or German, that might seem more useful to me now because there are more opportunities for me to travel to France or Germany than Brazil. But how much would I use French or German to speak to people? A few days every few years when I'm traveling, at the most? But if I meet and befriend a Brazilian expat here in Japan, I could spend countless days hanging out with that person and speaking Portuguese. Wait a minute, I just justified studying Portuguese without even trying, didn't I? Uh... gotta get back to studying Portuguese. Tchau. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 59 of 69 15 May 2013 at 4:26am | IP Logged | ||
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There are many Brazilians / Brazilian Japanese / Japanese Brazilian in Japan, most of whom are more fluent in Portuguese than in Japanese: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilians_in_Japan
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5167 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 60 of 69 15 May 2013 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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kuji, what you wrote about Portuguese is so inspiring! It made me feel pride somehow for my lnaguage and culture, despite all the problems in the Portuguese-speaking countries. I never got into justifying to others why I was learning this or that language, I would rather have to justify to myself why I was learning, for example, Norwegian and not German, but I usually feel the same for those cultures that you descibre about Brazil.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4848 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 61 of 69 16 May 2013 at 1:59am | IP Logged | ||
Wow, thank you for the comment! I'm glad that I wrote something inspirational! I've heard about certain problems in Brazil, some of which I, as an American, cannot imagine. But from what I see from the outside, the culture in Brazil is lively, and the people are friendly and seem to enjoy their lives and the company of others. That is a generalization, of course, but that is something appealing to me. I'm sure that your experience with Norwegian (and Georgian!) is similar to mine with Portuguese. But you probably have already learned the languages you need to learn, so enjoy those languages! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4848 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 62 of 69 16 May 2013 at 2:00am | IP Logged | ||
Medulin, that is what I said in my post, but thank you for the link! It is quite amazing to see that. I will try to contact and befriend some of them, if possible and when the time is right. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 63 of 69 16 May 2013 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Great post, and very well written, Kuji! I think you may be surprised at how far your Portuguese will carry you in Spain. Once you get used to the rhythms and differences, you'll understand a lot of Spanish at no cost. Also as well, it will make the other Romance languages significantly easier for you to acquire, when your Portuguese is more advanced. So, this so-called "useless" language has uses beyond just being able to speak the 7th most spoken language in the world.
Like Kuji, I only really need to know English and Spanish. Still, Portuguese is a lot of fun and I have several online Brazilian friends. I live about 900 miles north of the northernmost border of Brazil, but- you can't get there from here. The last time I went, I had to go to Miami, Panamá and then São Paulo. There's only one Brazilian on-island that I know of right now. You have more of an opportunity in Japão to engage Portuguese on a regular basis, in-person, than I do living in the Caribbean. Once you feel fairly conversational, I know you'll get out there and meet some folks! I wonder what a Japanese-Brazilian churrasco would be like! You'll have to let us know. You've really kicked up your language learning considerably in the past year, Kuji. It seems to me a lot of that is because you are having so much fun! Keep up the good work! Edited by iguanamon on 16 May 2013 at 5:21am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5167 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 64 of 69 16 May 2013 at 6:51pm | IP Logged | ||
Not in the least! In fact, I try to find a compromise between usefulness and cultural interest, as well as between languages I want to start from scratch and languages I want to brush up. So, after I improved my French up to a post-textbook stage, I picked Norwegian which I already knew a bit, and after Norwegian I'm going to work on improving my Spanish, then Italian, then German. I study Chinese and Russian due to their importance overall, and Norwegian and Georgian because I like the culture behind them. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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