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Feeling alone with your language passion? | ||
Tags: Surroundings | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ZombieKing Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4527 days ago 247 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin* | Message 9 of 49 05 September 2012 at 1:02am | IP Logged | ||
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My dad is really into languages, he majored in linguistics. And also every one of my friends think it's cool that I like learning languages. I have a couple of friends who speak Japanese, one's Viet and the other is Korean. Idk, speaking a foreign language where I live is thought of as really cool. It's too bad not many people actually study them (outside of school), but at least when I talk about my language learning they're interested :) Edited by ZombieKing on 05 September 2012 at 1:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4778 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 10 of 49 05 September 2012 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, being interested or obsessed with foreign languages can be a lonely hobby at times, as it is for unicyclists or tuba players, but even if you have tons of friends who share your passion, how much help can they really be if they aren't interested in the same languages you are? To me, in terms of reaching my goals, one competent native speaker is worth 100 supportive language enthusiasts.
I have 2 friends who are really hard-core, one is fluent in Greek, the other in Arabic, but my fluency in Russian and Armenian is of no use to either of them. I guess I am naive, but it's kind of a shock to me that even in multi-lingual Europe that it's so difficult to find language soulmates. Another illusion shattered. At least in Europe, more people have had the experience of studying a foreign language to fluency, so they can compare notes. The Europeans I have met are so much more sophisticated about languages. Even everyday Europeans seem to know quite a bit, like that Bulgarian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, for example. Edited by tanya b on 05 September 2012 at 2:12am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4847 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 11 of 49 05 September 2012 at 3:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I've never met anyone else in real life who is interested in learning (multiple) languages. My wife learned English to fluency, but that's the only L2 she is interested in.
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| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6125 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 12 of 49 05 September 2012 at 7:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know where you guys hang out, but I take classes, I go to meetups. I'm surrounded by people who are studying Japanese. I see them all the time. Most of us are at various levels of success with this, but we all keep banging away at it in one way or another, as interference from 'real life' allows.
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| nuriayasmin70 Diglot Senior Member Germany languagesandbeyoRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4521 days ago 132 posts - 162 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: SpanishB1, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian | Message 13 of 49 05 September 2012 at 9:00am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't feel sad but for me it's just the same like for most of you who have posted so far: I don't know anyone in real life who's seriously interested in learning multiple languages. Since I live in a city with many university students and work at a hospital, it's not uncommon that we have international patients and I always have to find out where they come from and sometimes there's someone who speaks one of the languages I'm studying or have once studied. My daughter would like to speak Spanish but is unwilling to dedicate any time on studying. Most of my friends speak some English and perhaps also some French but only because they learnt it at school, not because they have a genuine interest in languages. Well, but it's my hobby and people mustn't understand it. I don't understand it, either when someone spends his whole spare time supporting his football club or wachting tv. However, I appreciate the possibility to connect with people who share the same interest on the internet and on this forum in particular.
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| 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 14 of 49 05 September 2012 at 10:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I've known someone who's also been in love with the languages, but unfortunately, we had some bad roommate experiences (parties and money - the best way to divide people living in the same flat), so we kinda "parted ways" - unfortunately.
And the thing that irritates me that it's more probable for me to become interested in, for example, scouting (my friend is a scout and he loves to talk about it, so it's not an invented example ;) ) than I'll make someone interested in languages. Sad but true. If it comes to meeting - there are some language meetings in a place where I study, some occasional couchsurfers too, but here comes the very prosaic issue - these meetings are solely in clubs where it's not very cultural not to take anything to drink, so if I'd like to attend all of them regularly, well, I guess I would eat only bread with butter. Hilarious thing for someone who has money, but not for these who don't ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6125 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 15 of 49 05 September 2012 at 10:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm, maybe Poland is different? For me, in the USA if I don't want to drink they basically don't make me. I can sit and knock back $5 Diet Coke's and I guess they assume I'm the 'designated driver' or something, nobody says anything. The other meetups are in Starbuck's and a restaurant, so there I mostly drink tea. Honestly, if I want to sit around and chat in English with other English speakers about learning Japanese, I feel I have ample opportunities. What's trickier is getting bilingual Japanese to speak Japanese to me.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 16 of 49 05 September 2012 at 11:26am | IP Logged | ||
That's what I mean. Even if not a beer, you're somehow pressed to buy sth to drink. And when you're a poor student... ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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