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Being single and learning languages | ||
Tags: Relationship | Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| LinguaMan Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5076 days ago 20 posts - 34 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 1 of 43 02 April 2011 at 8:02pm | IP Logged |
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This has been something that has been on my mind for a while. So now I'm spilling it. Does anyone feel that being in a relationship interferes with your language learning? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for being in a relationship and I'm not knocking it in anyway. It's just that it seems you can really get into it when you're single. I remember in my last relationship, times where I wanted to just work on vocabulary, do some listening and reading I was spending time with her. Also she didn't have a passion for learning languages. So I'm curious to know if others have experienced this or feel the same way.
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| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 2 of 43 02 April 2011 at 8:22pm | IP Logged |
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Being single allows you to spend more time on your own hobbies and preferred activities (provided you don't have
children to take care of as a single parent). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 43 02 April 2011 at 8:56pm | IP Logged |
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Being single without kids definitely gives you more opportunities for language learning, both in terms of available time and opportunity to travel, not to speak of the excellent dating possibilities in your TL.
On the other hand, family has a tendency to keep your feet on the ground, so I wouldn't want to be without it for a thousand available hours for language studies. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Leurre Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5426 days ago 219 posts - 372 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Korean, Haitian Creole, SpanishC2 Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 43 02 April 2011 at 9:04pm | IP Logged |
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Say, on the other hand that your target language is German, and you start a relationship
with a very charming German man/woman... In those cases I imagine it would help more than hinder, yes? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 5 of 43 02 April 2011 at 9:23pm | IP Logged |
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Being single definitely gives you more time to practise - and as Solfrid Cristin said, not having kids probably helps as well. Having said that, if your partner happens to share this particular interest, then relationships can really help enhance language learning. My girlfriend is going on her year abroad soon, and will be spending 6 months in Austria among other places in France and Russia. A few months back, we were speaking German to each other all the time, but that habit slipped, unfortunately, and we'll have to begin that again soon to prepare her for her stint in Austria - about which she is very nervous. She helps me with my French (she's half Belgian) and now that I'm beginning to come out of my speaking-shell, she'll help me with that, too. No doubt people here who are in relationships have tried to encourage their partners to look at languages, though? I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I'm interested as to whether people have tried this?
Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 43 02 April 2011 at 9:55pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I met my husband in a Polish course, so we definitely shared an interest in that, and we have spoken a lot of English together over the years. German is also a common interest, though for him it is more of a utility language (he needs to speak to German railway enthousiasts) while for me is more of a general interest.
I have however been totally unable to make him at all interested in Russian, French, Spanish and Italian. In fact he is actively uninterested in those. I am working on my girls for these languages though :-) I did a Russian quiz for them during dinner to show my husband what they had learned over the past two weeks, and even if it was only some twenty odd words, he was still duly impressed. We are going to Ukraine in two weeks, so they must learn 100 words before we go. We have planned trips to Belgium and Spain in May and June, and they must learn 100 words in French and Spanish before we go too. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 03 April 2011 at 8:04am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5283 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes Studies: Italian | Message 7 of 43 03 April 2011 at 1:01pm | IP Logged |
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Your husband is a lucky guy, I think ;-)
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| nuriayasmin Senior Member Germany Joined 5244 days ago 155 posts - 210 votes | Message 8 of 43 03 April 2011 at 1:47pm | IP Logged |
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My days are simply too short ... my boy-friend distracts me, my children distract me, my job distracts me, my friends distract me .... but I'm afraid I'm just not the kind of person to spend hours a day on language learning - I like to be distracted and I'm content with progressing slowly. Learning languages is just a hobby and just a small part of my life, so for me it's okay the way it is ... though I really hope to speak Spanish and Czech/Slovak as good as English one day :-)
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