Feeling alone with your language passion? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Feeling alone with your language passion?
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49 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next >>

Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4847 days ago
2266 posts - 3992 votes

Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

Message 41 of 49

21 November 2012 at 8:55pm | IP Logged

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm really not into Esperanto or other conlangs. By the way, I have started to explore the language learning community and already found sites like Lang-8, Livemocha, Mixxer etc. They look very promising.
1 person has voted this message useful

Marikki
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Finland
Joined 5498 days ago
130 posts - 210 votes

Speaks: Finnish*, English, Spanish, Swedish
Studies: German

Message 42 of 49

24 November 2012 at 2:51pm | IP Logged

beano wrote:

bela_lugosi wrote:

Same here. Most Finns know at least two languages and many of
them study more languages in their free time. The languages everybody knows are Finnish and English.
Many people also speak Swedish, German, Russian, Spanish, or French. We like to travel a lot, so it is quite
common to be able to speak 3-4 languages but more than that IS a little unusual. That's why I usually don't
talk about my passion for languages, unless I am explicitly asked to do so.

I've often wondered about countries like Finland, where the vast majority of the population know at least 2
languages, often 3 or 4. Obviously there is a greater culture of language learning than in the larger countries
with strong economies, where the people can rely more on their native tongue for professional purposes, but
is there actually more language passion in Finland?

In the UK, people view mathematics as a bedrock qualification and children are encouraged to take their
maths as far as they can. Therefore many kids work hard at maths because they know it is an important thing
to achieve, but they might not enjoy it, they might be good at it but it doesn't excite them, more a means to an
end.

I guess a typical Finnish kid will see the value in learning English, Swedish and Russian, and to a lesser
extent German and French. Knowledge of these languages helps people get jobs and travel to neighbouring
lands (where nobody speaks Finnish). But are there more instances of passion?

For sure not all those who learn languages in Finland are passionate about it, while for native English
speakers some passion might be a requirement. But wherever more individuals put more effort into any
pursuit it is more likely that some of them develop a passion for it. Compared to most other Europeans Finns
(or Estonians, Hungarians..) especially need to put some extra effort in order to learn other European
languages. I even doubt it is possible to learn any language really well without some passion towards
learning it.

Rationally thinking learning just English would be enough to grant our nation the possibility to compete
internationally. We are very aware of how widely and willingly English is spoken also in our neighboring
countries, so for those adults who really want to learn other languages than English the reason is a genuine
cultural or linguistic interest, I think.

Edited by Marikki on 24 November 2012 at 8:23pm
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abSeiter_
Diglot
Newbie
Czech Republic
Joined 4485 days ago
19 posts - 25 votes
Speaks: Czech*, Slovak
Studies: French, English, German, Norwegian, Mandarin, Polish

Message 43 of 49

24 November 2012 at 7:40pm | IP Logged

,,I hate people that know many languages" That are the words i hear very often. Why? Because most of them just dont know how to learn them. And its typical we hate things we are not able to manage.

I dont consider myself a linguist or someone who knows languages. I speak only broken English and German, but I enjoy every single word I learn and it doesn´t matter if its in Italian, Russian, Chinese or Swahili. There is no ugly language, there are just people that cannot accept some aspect of the language (pronunciation, diacritics, history etc). But the harder language the bigger success. And they will just envy.

So dont be swayed by someone and go on! Its worth it.
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William Camden
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6275 days ago
1936 posts - 2333 votes

Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French

Message 44 of 49

26 November 2012 at 11:41am | IP Logged

Most definitely. People sometimes admire my multilingualism but there is also sometimes a reaction against its symptoms, ie. "Can you watch satellite channels once in a while in languages that the rest of us understand?"
3 persons have voted this message useful

Azhaar
Triglot
Newbie
Poland
Joined 4385 days ago
2 posts - 5 votes
Speaks: Polish*, French, English^C2
Studies: Arabic (Written)

Message 45 of 49

26 November 2012 at 9:47pm | IP Logged

Yes, I know this feeling too. That's why I decided to join this forum after reading it for a long time : )
Most people I know learn foreign languages because they have to. Also they stick to the most popular ones. Finding someone in real life to motivate each other would be great!
People are particularly shocked when I tell them that I kind of like grammar, it's something really unacceptable for them.

4 persons have voted this message useful

stifa
Triglot
Senior Member
Norway
lang-8.com/448715
Joined 4876 days ago
629 posts - 813 votes

Speaks: Norwegian*, English^C2, German
Studies: Japanese, Spanish

Message 46 of 49

26 November 2012 at 11:34pm | IP Logged

One of my flatmates speak French and English and he's taking Chinese and Spanish
classes at the nui, so I hardly feel alone about my interest for languages. :p
1 person has voted this message useful

JJ-JUNIOR
Triglot
Newbie
Brazil
nideck.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5630 days ago
13 posts - 14 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*, English^C1, English^C2, Spanish
Studies: French, German

Message 47 of 49

29 November 2012 at 4:30pm | IP Logged

That's a very good thread.

I've always been sort of alone with my language passion and I think I'm not the only
polyglot to be so. Learning languages is not easy so people don't get much of it,
because it's hard.

Here in Rio de Janeiro very few people are able to speak English fluently... what can I
say about any other languages? This is typical from big countries, you're isolated so
you don't really interact much with other people that speak different languages.

I read something in this thread about people that would only date girls that could
speak more than one language. The same for me. I can only date girls that speak at
least English and some other language(that's my way to feel that they're not stupid).

Now I'm dating a girl that speaks Portuguese, English and German, Naturally, she can
get around with Spanish as well... because it's such a close related language to
Portuguese.

My last girlfriend would be a polylglot herself and would speak Portuguese, English,
Spanish and French.
Of course, I fell for this one big time.

I don't know about you guys, how your profession related to your languages skills but I
work with this so it's also a big motivation and I LOVE this thing.

I'm back to this forum because on Facebook people just say tons of BS.
Sick of it.
1 person has voted this message useful

reineke
Senior Member
United States
https://learnalangua
Joined 6450 days ago
851 posts - 1008 votes

Studies: German

Message 48 of 49

30 November 2012 at 8:14am | IP Logged

Yes :( Hold me! Hold me!

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