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Which is a greater source of motivation? | ||
Tags: Poll | Reasons for study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6316 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 1 of 23 08 March 2013 at 6:39am | IP Logged |
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Of course this will vary from person to person, so I'm asking individually. Which to
you is a more powerful source of motivation for studying a language: an interest in the culture and and country whose language you are learning, or an interest in the language itself and how it works from a linguistic standpoint? Which do you think is more likely to guarantee success? Myself, I'm truly undecided, as always, being the neurotic nut that I am. Korean fascinates the hell out of me in terms of how it works and how alien it is to me as a native English speaker, but Russia and Russian culture are deeply interesting to me and I get excited whenever there I read something about it or see something about it on TV. What to do? Edited by ChristopherB on 08 March 2013 at 6:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 23 08 March 2013 at 7:22am | IP Logged |
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Linguistic motivation for me, no doubt. Culture will not do it. I love both Spanish and Latin American culture and I love the music, but it's still taking me ages to learn Spanish. I get bored easily when studying it, because it's not that exciting to me, linguistically. With Mandarin and Cantonese it's been a whole different thing, because I'm fascinated by them (especially Cantonese) and keep wanting to learn more.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4358 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 3 of 23 08 March 2013 at 7:22am | IP Logged |
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A cultural interest for me. But I think it can be both with some languages.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mani Diglot Senior Member Germany imsprachendickicht.b Joined 4905 days ago 258 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish | Message 4 of 23 08 March 2013 at 8:20am | IP Logged |
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Linguistic motivation for me first, cultural motivation usually comes along while studying a language (though not always), especially when I start using native materials (which I do at an relatively early stage) and find something (in it) I really enjoy.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6105 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 5 of 23 08 March 2013 at 9:45am | IP Logged |
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For me the primary motivation is social interaction.
If we consider social interaction a cultural activity, then I vote for culture. I need to know that, after all the hours of slog, I will be able to use the language as fully as possible, including speaking it with someone. Culturally and linguisticly I find Polish interesting enough, but without real (not virtual) contact with Polish speaking people my motivation would probably have faded. Edited by Mooby on 08 March 2013 at 10:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4639 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 6 of 23 08 March 2013 at 10:01am | IP Logged |
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For me it is a difficult choice, but I finally voted for cultural interest. Difficult, because when I first started learning languages my interest was much more linguistic than cultural. I was only vaguely interested in German culture when I was 16, but I found the language fascinating. However, when I decided to go for Spanish and other Romance languages at university, culture was indeed a decisive factor, I just loved the Mediterranean and was very interested in Spanish and Italian literature, music and general lifestyle.
Today I study Russian and Greek first and foremost because I want to be able to communicate in these languages and be able to read literature and newspapers in the original. However, that does not mean that I do not enjoy studying them very much also from a linguistic point of view. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5207 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 23 08 March 2013 at 10:45am | IP Logged |
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Culture/social interaction for me, although I find that an interest in the language itself does follow and that's part of what keeps me interested.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| PinkCordelia Diglot Newbie Wales Joined 4811 days ago 31 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Welsh | Message 8 of 23 08 March 2013 at 1:06pm | IP Logged |
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I voted for cultural reasons without hesitation. However I do want to tackle a language
other than the Romance ones purely for being 'different' which counts as a linguistic reason. I guess though that I'll make the choice based on culture in some way - probably because I can think of some literature I'd like to read in the original. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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