Different Kinds of Motivation in Learning (Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies) Language Learning Forum

Different Kinds of Motivation in Learning
Tags: Motivation \| Learning Strategy
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Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies

33 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 Next >>

Kary
Groupie
Canada
Joined 6141 days ago
85 posts - 113 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: French, Spanish, German

Message 9 of 33

29 June 2010 at 6:41pm | IP Logged

dolly wrote:

[...]One thing's for sure: being put off by the sound of your target language makes learning it more difficult.

French! It's not that I dislike the sounds so much as I find them really hard to reproduce - especially the nasal vowels. I have trouble with most so-called "r" sounds, but that doesn't bother me nearly as much as vowels. Spanish was a real joy after years of studying French. Those beautiful, simple vowels!
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johntm93
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5319 days ago
587 posts - 746 votes

2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

Message 10 of 33

29 June 2010 at 8:32pm | IP Logged

I'm learning Spanish because I know a ton of Hispanophones (all but a few are bilingual), and I'd like to speak to them in Spanish, even though I could use English with them. I started looking into learning Spanish and figured out how interesting languages could be.
And I think it's just cool to be able to say stuff in a language that you wouldn't have understood just a short while ago.

Edited by johntm93 on 29 June 2010 at 8:32pm
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soatesuk
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5352 days ago
2 posts - 3 votes
Studies: German

Message 11 of 33

03 August 2010 at 7:41pm | IP Logged

Hi,

My reason for learning German is to obtain a European sales role. Also, The UK is going to the dogs and Germany is look good!.

Edited by soatesuk on 03 August 2010 at 7:42pm
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QiuJP
Triglot
Senior Member
Singapore
Joined 5847 days ago
428 posts - 597 votes

Speaks: Mandarin*, English^C2, French
Studies: Czech, German^B1, Russian, Japanese

Message 12 of 33

04 August 2010 at 1:22pm | IP Logged

I don't know the reason why, but I am fond of learning slavic languages since young (as early as 7!)

Maybe I am a Slav in my previous life.
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JimC
Senior Member
United Kingdom
tinyurl.com/aberdeen
Joined 5539 days ago
199 posts - 317 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 13 of 33

04 August 2010 at 8:41pm | IP Logged

Romanist wrote:

5. Short trips overseas

This is quite often cited as a perfectly valid and serious reason for learning a
foreign language, but it seems like a complete no-brainer to me! If a person were
going to spend a week sitting on a beach in (let's say) Greece, would that person
really be sufficiently motivated to spend hundreds of hours reaching basic competence
in Modern Greek!? For me there would have to be a somewhat more profound motivation
than this!

That's my reason. Perhaps slightly more profound to say that I like to visit Spain, and
as a mark of respect to Spanish speakers that I meet, I felt that I should try to
converse in their language, rather than just expecting to speak English likes most
English speakers abroad!
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slymie
Tetraglot
Groupie
China
Joined 5220 days ago
81 posts - 154 votes

Speaks: English, Macedonian
Studies: French, Mandarin, Greek
Studies: Shanghainese, Uyghur, Russian

Message 14 of 33

05 August 2010 at 2:24am | IP Logged

For the love of languages and power that comes with being able to communicate with millions more people, read hundreds of thousands of new books, and watch tens of thousands of new movies just by learning a new language. And of course the mystique. Once on a date I unintentionally had conversations in 4 different languages in earshot of my date. It went well.
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loveroflanguage
Groupie
United States
Joined 5358 days ago
57 posts - 83 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Arabic (Egyptian)

Message 15 of 33

29 August 2010 at 1:20am | IP Logged

Romanist wrote:

5. Personal family heritage

I have to confess, this is something which I personally don’t quite get. Nevertheless, I do know that there are people who genuinely feel extremely passionate about their family’s linguistic and cultural heritage. Maybe their grandparents were immigrants to the USA from Germany or Italy or Greece? And now these folks really feel that the language is part of their family history, part of who they are. Obviously if a person feels like this, then it must be very potent motivation to learn the language in question!

In this category one could probably also include people such as Diaspora Jews who learn Hebrew, and Muslims who learn Arabic to read the Koran (although in these cases the motivation is arguably more to do with religion rather than family heritage per se.)

Motivations which (for me personally) would have to be considered phoney

3. Spontaneous attraction to the phonetic quality of a language

This is a situation where a person has heard a particular language (maybe in a film) and thought it sounded exotic, chic, beautiful, etc. I guess it’s just possible this might be the beginning of an ongoing love affair with the language, but it’s more likely to be a passing whim which will quickly fade.

To the first part, I don't know why you would include Muslims in that category for learning Arabic, even as a side note; as you were saying, that was about pride in ones' family and culture. Muslims who are not native speakers learn Arabic as you said, to read Quran and religious aspects that go along with that; not because of culture and family pride.

To the second part, I can see your point on that and its valid but I haven't found that much. As an American born and bred Muslim, I had never ever come into contact with the Arabic language in my life until I once heard the call to prayer. It was the most hauntingly beautiful sound I had ever heard, which led me to investigate further. Sorry, I fell in love with Arabic in just this way and it was NOT a passing fancy that faded over time, whether religion is the other motivator to learn or not. If I had never become Muslim, I would have still tried to learn Arabic because I just loved the sounds and the script. I had that desire before I became Muslim, from just that short 5 minute exposure. I didn't romanticize it to myself in the way that you were describing; it just...happened. It happened again when, believe it or not, I heard Hindi...and again this month when I heard Russian! LOL And these are not passing fancies for me; I intend to fully jump on those as soon as I can grasp enough Arabic and understand how I can try learning more than one language at a time without going bonkers!
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LatinoBoy84
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5567 days ago
443 posts - 603 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French
Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian

Message 16 of 33

29 August 2010 at 5:34am | IP Logged

pobere wrote:

sydneycarton wrote:

I fell in love with a German girl.

Best reason I've ever heard.

Story of many of our lives...but I get to keep the languages :)

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