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Dating a Language | ||
Tags: Dabbling | Wanderlust | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7138 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 1 of 28 18 January 2010 at 6:15am | IP Logged |
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I have a feeling that Barry Farber coined the phrase. I am talking about just doing a couple of introductory lessons in a language to see how it is pronounced and how the grammar works. So, it is like dating the language to see if you are compatible.
I have done this with a few languages and then decided not to continue. I guess it is more than just seeing if I want to continue. I just want to get to know a bit about the language. I complete a few elementary lessons and I feel that was all I wanted. I just wanted to get acquainted with the language with no intention of continuing. Sometimes I will do this when a language I am studying becomes stale. I might do it to have a break from my serious language. Or sometimes I am just curious because of a feature of the language I have heard about and I want to look at it for myself. Does anyone else do this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| goosefrabbas Triglot Pro Member United States Joined 6360 days ago 393 posts - 475 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German, Italian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 28 18 January 2010 at 7:19am | IP Logged |
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I do it all the time - perhaps too much. Many times I'll read about the linguistics aspects of the language followed by listening to some audio in or reading a text about the language, usually from Assimil because I have a pretty good-sized collection. Sometimes it gets me "refreshed" so I can look at my main languages again, and sometimes I get immersed in the new language for hours or days and forget about my others. ^_^
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| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5521 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 3 of 28 18 January 2010 at 8:36pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, absolutely! At first I felt a bit guilty about it because I thought dabbling in lots of languages would mean I wouldn't make much real progress in any of them. In particular, I really want to learn Polish as quickly as possible, as I have a Polish girlfriend and her family mostly don't speak English.
What I found though is that dabbling helps to keep my enthusiasm for language learning topped up, and keeps me motivated when all those mad consonant clusters and perfective verbs start getting me down a bit. I think it's just a matter of deciding what your goals are, and of getting the right balance for yourself between breadth and depth. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 28 19 January 2010 at 1:09am | IP Logged |
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Every now and then. I've dated Finnish, Cornish, Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Latin, Cantonese, Japanese, Portuguese...(hey, even Quenya and Sindarin!) for anything from just a couple of lessons to a few months. I flirted with Esperanto for six weeks during the first challenge in April 2007, and now I'm ready for a long-lasting relationship. Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 19 January 2010 at 6:16pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6695 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 28 19 January 2010 at 1:43am | IP Logged |
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I also do this, but I normally read through a grammar or language guide rather than a text book, and I don't do any exercises. Instead I have in some cases made fairly thorough studies in the grammar (or at least in certain parts of it). For instance I became interested in the verbal system of Tagalog/Filipino, but stopped my activities with this language because I realised that my dictionaries simply weren't sufficient, and an allegedly much better dictionary which I ordered from the Philippines never came. Later I have read through grammars of Finnish, Georgian and Albanian, and right now I'm working on Irish Gaelic - though this times I have actually made some bilingual texts which I study assidously, so maybe this flirt will become something more.
I do think that knowing some basic facts about other languages is helpful even in learning your chosen target languages - but it is first and foremost intriguing to learn something about the vagaries of more exotic languages, even if you don't have time actually to learn to speak them. Edited by Iversen on 19 January 2010 at 1:44am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5439 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 6 of 28 19 January 2010 at 8:01am | IP Logged |
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When I was younger, I "dated" languages a lot. At one point or another, I learned some key words and phrases and some basics of grammar for over 25 languages. Most of it's gone now, of course, because I didn't stick with them. But "dating" languages did give me a fuller picture of what was out there.
However, having "dated" so many languages, I've come into a new place: I very rarely "date" new languages, but I often return to languages I've studied before, sometimes for a short "fling," sometimes for a more extended period when I just don't feel like working at my three main languages (French, Spanish and Italian) for the moment. In particular, I find myself coming back to Breton, Uzbek and Uighur at least four or five times a year when I need a break, even though I have no plans to master any of them. I notice that the tag for this is "dabbling." I think it would be nice if we could add a category for "Dabbles in" to follow "Speaks" and "Studies" in our profiles because in the case of Breton, Uzbek and Uighur it feels like I'm exaggerating the intensity of my studies if I include them, yet it somehow feels wrong to leave them out. Does anybody else have languages that they love and love to fuss with but don't have actual plans to master? 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Guido Super Polyglot Senior Member ArgentinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6520 days ago 286 posts - 582 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian, Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Danish Studies: Russian, Indonesian, Romanian, Polish, Icelandic | Message 7 of 28 20 January 2010 at 2:44pm | IP Logged |
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I dated Dutch for the first time 3 months ago. Now we're married :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5803 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 8 of 28 20 January 2010 at 3:00pm | IP Logged |
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Arabic and I are about to have our second kid.
I'm curious as to what constitutes dating. Is it purely defined by intent or does amount of time spent matter as well? At a certain point it's not just dabbling, even if you have no intention to become fluent. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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