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Ex-Languages: reasons for divorce? | ||
Tags: Discouragement from learning | Burn-out | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5696 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 9 of 75 21 February 2011 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a sort of situation like this going on with Esperanto, although certainly not as severe as a divorce – rather just "relationship problems". Logically, I have every reason to like it, it seems like a great language, great concept, etc.... and yet I just can't muster up any passion for it, at least not any lasting passion. I've been struggling with this problem for a few years now, and I refuse to let it conquer me, but at the same time I'm pretty sure I'll never be "in love" with Esperanto.
With French, I also waver between enjoying and hating it. I need to know it, and want to know it, but something about it consistently annoys me, maybe due to the unfortunate cross-section of French people I've had the misfortune to know (most of them were snobby, distant, elitist sorts). I guess that's it, really: the thing which increases or decreases my feelings for a particular language is really the people I know who speak it. If I like the people, it goes a long way toward helping me like the language. And vice versa: if I don't like the people, it's difficult to get past that and enjoy the language for what it is. Not impossible, but difficult. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6375 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 10 of 75 21 February 2011 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that can only happen if you are forced to learn a language in school or if you go
about learning it the wrong way or aren't dedicated enough or if the target language's culture is way different than you thought and not to your tastes. It's never happened to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ilperugino Pentaglot Groupie Portugal Joined 5177 days ago 56 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 11 of 75 21 February 2011 at 9:23pm | IP Logged | ||
Tottaly agree with you Jinx, it happened to me enjoying the language (my secret ex-language) but having enormous dificulties with its natives, and - after a while - you wander: "what for? If it isn´t getting me to comunnicate and I don´t even feel any urge to do it with its speakers, the language is difficult, why bother?" zerothinking: "(...) or if the target language's culture is way different than you thought and not to your tastes." Well, I think this seems pretty much what happens to a wronged love affair, don´t you?: Sort of "It wasn´t the way I pictured..." Edited by ilperugino on 21 February 2011 at 9:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| purplepixie Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5028 days ago 26 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Greek | Message 12 of 75 21 February 2011 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have an A* GCSE in Russian taken 12 years ago at school, and did a Russian exchange at that time......not been near the country since and not used the language at all so now I'd have difficulty in saying anything beyond introducing myself, although obviously I can still read the cyrillic alphabet. And when I learnt holiday-Czech I think the Russian did help me as there seemed to be a few similar words. So lack of need to use it has made it an ex-language, wheras Spanish and French which I also started studying at school, I've had cause to use, and so have kept up.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ilperugino Pentaglot Groupie Portugal Joined 5177 days ago 56 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 13 of 75 21 February 2011 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | ||
Great tipology we´re builting here purplepixie: it´s true a language can become an ex-language for lack of - let´s say - interest; not a real divorce, more a growing apart. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6145 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 14 of 75 22 February 2011 at 1:35am | IP Logged | ||
That is literally, word-for-word exactly how I feel about my relationship with Esperanto. I get obsessed with it for a short period of time and determine that "yes, this time I will learn it" ... and then suddenly the passion disappears and I forget all about it for months. And then I remember it some time later and how awesome it is and decide to resume my studies, but to the same result. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5037 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 15 of 75 22 February 2011 at 2:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Me and Hungarian.
In fact, I got rid of my study book today. It has been a long time since I worked on it, but thanks to my refreshed interest in all the languages I have studied, I realized that I just don't want to know that language any more. Instead of making me happy and feel curious as my other languages do (even seeing something in Cyrillic script makes me have a positive feeling), I only get negative feelings form Hungarian. It wasn't too hard. it was just the in-between language before I found the one that really made me happy (Finnish). Edited by jdmoncada on 22 February 2011 at 2:38am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 75 22 February 2011 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
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I sometimes feel like my relationship with Russian is on the rocks. It's beautiful but I'm just not sure if it's worth putting all the time and work into and, as much as I love it, maybe I'd be better off without it for now. And it doesn't help that from time to time I can't resist the temptation to sneak off and spend an evening with Italian, which I've known for a while but, apart from a passionate few weeks last year, I've only been seeing on a casual basis. If I had more spare time I'd make the effort to agree on a more open setup and happily see both with no bad feelings, but that just doesn't seem realistic.
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