prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4859 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish
| Message 1 of 49 04 September 2012 at 10:10am | IP Logged |
I would like to ask you if you often feel sad that you're the only one amongst your family, friends, even acquaintances, who's REALLY interested in languages?
If it comes to me, I do feel like that. The worst is probably a fact that I have nobody to share my thoughts with. It would be nice to do some multilanguage learning in group ;) It would end my problems with motivation and "I have enough of sitting alone and learning" thing.
What about you, guys?
14 persons have voted this message useful
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Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6620 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish
| Message 2 of 49 04 September 2012 at 10:39am | IP Logged |
I usually find that this forum makes up for that for the most part, though I agree it would be nice to have someone nearby to talk to. I've never had anyone in my life who was a real language-maniac or even language-fan, so I don't know what that would be like. It would probably be fun though.
Usually I keep my language learning to myself, but I do talk to my therapist about it sometimes. Of course, she's paid to listen to me, but she does know some Italian, so she knows something about foreign languages. She also likes to use Italian with her children sometimes, so I think she has an interest in languages even though she's not a maniac.
It would probably be nice to have friends that learned languages even if they weren't the same ones that I study. It would be nice just to talk about the actual process of learning and all the frustrations and successes one experiences.
I suppose one could take out a personal ad...
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Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German
| Message 3 of 49 04 September 2012 at 12:47pm | IP Logged |
I feel exactly like that, in fact sometimes I even feel a bit ashamed (none of my
interests are "normal"), which is why I spend an unhealthy amount of time on this forum.
2 persons have voted this message useful
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5982 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 4 of 49 04 September 2012 at 1:41pm | IP Logged |
Haha yes! Sometimes when speaking to "normal" people about my language interest I swear I have heard the click as they switch off and stop caring! But to be fair, when people start talking to me about something I'm totally uninterested in, like sport or celebrity gossip, I switch off in the same way.
At times of low motivation I have also felt a bit of despair about my studies being just me and my computer again. Meeting and talking to native speakers can be a good antidote to this, but it's not always possible of course.
I'm just really glad this forum provides us with some space to actually discuss our interest!
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SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6659 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian
| Message 5 of 49 04 September 2012 at 9:07pm | IP Logged |
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I've reached the point of telling friends that I'll never seriously date a monoglot ever again.
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numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6783 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin
| Message 6 of 49 04 September 2012 at 9:19pm | IP Logged |
People always say "that's nice", but I never meet anyone interested in learning a
language.
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Oleg Triglot Groupie Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5829 days ago 57 posts - 95 votes Speaks: Russian*, Polish, English Studies: Spanish, French, Italian
| Message 7 of 49 04 September 2012 at 9:21pm | IP Logged |
I definitely don't feel sad about it, because my language obsession is exactly what makes me unique at least inside that small group of people whom I call my friends.
The bottomline being 'God bless HTLAL', though. =)
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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 8 of 49 05 September 2012 at 12:18am | IP Logged |
prz_ wrote:
I would like to ask you if you often feel sad that you're the only one amongst your family, friends, even acquaintances, who's REALLY interested in languages?
If it comes to me, I do feel like that. The worst is probably a fact that I have nobody to share my thoughts with. It would be nice to do some multilanguage learning in group ;) It would end my problems with motivation and "I have enough of sitting alone and learning" thing.
What about you, guys? |
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I don't feel too bad about it since I have this forum as an outlet. Even attending classes or social events where at least one of my target languages is used also alleviates any sense of loneliness caused by being highly interested in a fairly uncommon choice of foreign languages.
However it still would be nice if at least a few of my friends also shared my interest in languages.
2 persons have voted this message useful
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