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Ex-Languages: reasons for divorce? | ||
Tags: Discouragement from learning | Burn-out | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5924 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 33 of 75 02 March 2011 at 12:54am | IP Logged | ||
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My relationships with languages are often very complicated, just like my relationships in real life.
English is a faithful dog. He follows me everywhere and always has. We can't be apart for long, and though our constant togetherness may border on unhealthy codependence neither of us care at all. We understand each other very well and are quite comfortable most of the time. Spanish is a charming single woman who lives around the corner from me. She is intelligent, passionate and stunningly beautiful. We genuinely care for each other, and everyone we know says "You two would be so perfect together". We agree with our friends and have dated before, but our relationship is platonic now and we prefer it that way. I wish she wasn't so particular about the subjunctive mood. Afrikaans was an unexpected surprise. She is as beautiful as Spanish but easier to live with. She has become a dear friend with romantic benefits. She was very easy to get acquainted with, and we could have fallen hopelessly in love if only I had not met her slightly older cousin Dutch. The three of us get along well most of the time though there can be miscommunication every once in a while. I believe we have proven that long distance threesomes can work, and even be occasionally magical, so long as we don't expect too much of each other. Swedish is mysterious, sensitive, and initially somewhat reserved; yet once you get to know her profoundly passionate and humorous so we have much in common. We didn't have a good start to our relationship but after a few months we couldn't stay away from each other. Now we are madly in love and sometimes we understand each other perfectly. We often finish each other's sentences and she even adores my dog. We could definitely get married and have a long and fulfilling relationship. She is one of three not quite identical triplets with the others being Danish and Norwegian. I don't know them quite as well, but we could easily become close friends. Danish is slightly more outgoing, and loves to tell jokes. At first I thought he was hard to understand but I find that as I get closer to Swedish I understand Danish more as well. Norwegian is a little more mischievous. She loves the outdoors and is great fun to spend time with. She is a little harder to get to know well due to her use of a bewildering array of dialects that I can't quite understand. Finnish seems like he could be my best friend, if only we communicated better. He lives across the street from Swedish and they have had quite a history. We are a lot alike and maybe that's we argue sometimes. We don't stay angry for long and eventually we will be inseparable. While I have never divorced any language and hope to never do so, there are a few that I have been unable to get close to such as Polish and French. The problem with both languages is listening comprehension and communication, that is I simply can't understand what they're saying or figure out how they make such beguiling sounds. Edited by mick33 on 02 March 2011 at 8:52pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6868 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 34 of 75 02 March 2011 at 2:10am | IP Logged | ||
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I think there is another criteria we could add:
4) How do you enjoy the language for the language's sake? (ie grammar, sounds, idioms - which may actually be more of culture, vocabulary, relative uniqueness, etc) This is more a criteria for language nerds instead of just practical reasons, but this is many of us! :-) It's not enough to learn a language, but it's enough to at least flirt with it. Call it flirting, dating, making friends, or simply networking. Edited by Journeyer on 02 March 2011 at 2:12am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5818 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 35 of 75 02 March 2011 at 6:21am | IP Logged | ||
One night stands! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6868 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 36 of 75 02 March 2011 at 6:39am | IP Logged | ||
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HA!
And this is off the subject, but I cannot resist. What is a Bikol language? How many are your native language? I looked up the article at Wiki and it indicated a whole group of languages. Surely not all speakers know the whole family? EDIT: question and typos Edited by Journeyer on 02 March 2011 at 6:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5818 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 37 of 75 02 March 2011 at 8:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I've had this feeling with both Korean and Spanish.
Originally when I was learning Spanish (this was before I was a teacher) I didn't understand the grammar rules so I got frustrated with key things like indirect objects and sometimes even adjectives (though Spanish can sometimes be inconsistent with the adjectives). Since I became a language teacher and have some experience teaching English, it's much easier for me to understand Spanish grammar due to it's equivalents in English. Korean on the other hand is a foul mistress. It took me a very long time to realise why my Korean wasn't very good (passively I'm alright though). Lack of confidence, time, good material, vocabulary/grammar are well and good but really it was because I didn't really care about the Korean language. I have the same problem some of my students do with English: it wasn't my choice to learn it. I started learning Korean because I live in Korea but I never really chose to learn Korean. Or at least I did initially because I was curious about the language/thought it would help me become a better teacher, but now it's stopped being fun. It wasn't until I did an exam in Korean that I realised how much of a drag it had been. I passed and my Korean is a lot better than many Westerners I've met in Korea (this isn't saying much) but I'm still only low-intermediate despite the mountains of books and time I've put into it. I even (dramatically speaking) have conflicts with the key parts of the language; I hate hierarchies and Korean is a hierarchical language. I have one or two friends back home who are a good 20 years older than me but I don't care because they're good people. In Korea this doesn't happen because age is so important to the culture/language. I constantly forget about this when speaking Korean because I don't care about age. There's so much repetition as well. I know 8 different ways of saying 'because' and I know of many more. I know 4 different ways of translating '!' depending on the circumstances. It's maddening. The people who learn Korean to an extremely high-level tend to thrive on this kind of thing but tend to only learn Korean in their lives (the Professor being an obvious exception). I remember seeing the profile of a person who had learnt Korean to a respectable level in an admirably short time. I remember reading why he learnt the language. He loved TaeKwonDo, Starcraft, Korean women, Korean food, Korean dramas, music etc. He was in love with Korea (and in turn Korean) itself. Many high-level learners tend to be. I'm not in love with Korea. I like Korea, good people and a good place, and I do prefer many things in Korea to my home country (hence why I live here) but I'm not a Koreaphile (I was a Japanophile for a while though so I'm not judging). I don't necessarily love Spanish but I definitely enjoy it and when I finally decided to reactivate my Spanish a few months ago (probably after coming across 'because' for the 9th time in Korean), I realised I'd forgotten how fun language learning could be. So at the moment, me and Korean are on a break. Not a break up but definitely a break while I go back to my first love, Spanish. (Although I recently ordered a bilingual text in both Spanish and Korean so I might be two-timing my first love any day now) [Sorry everybody, I had to get that out of my system] Edited by crafedog on 02 March 2011 at 8:29am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5282 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes Studies: Italian | Message 38 of 75 02 March 2011 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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FRENCH is the older woman who first taught me to conjugate copulative verbs when I was an adolescent. I was forced to date her by my parents, and to begin with things were quite difficult between us. In time I did grow to appreciate her undoubted charms, but it was never going to be a permanent relationship. We still see each other occasionally as friends. GERMAN is a blond bombshell whom I first met at university. I've been highly intimate with her for more than 10 years now - indeed I lived in her apartment for a while, before changing circumstances meant that I had to move further away. The odd thing is, I'm not sure that we actually like each other that much. But when we are alone together...wow! I think it's her brains rather than her beauty which I find so addictive. I know I could never be without her. However there is definitely room in my life for at least 2 more partners. AFRIKAANS is a distant and younger cousin of German. She is much less complicated than her cousin, and a whole lot easier to get along with. I see her occasionally behind German's back - which is always an oddly guilt-free pleasure for me. However I would never consider leaving German for her. Afrikaans is a great companion for one or two nights, but I find her slightly boring if I spend too much time with her. ITALIAN is a hot passionate prima donna whom I regularly see whenever I'm not with German. She is almost painfully elegant, and strikingly beautiful in a dark latin kind of way. In many ways she is much less complicated than German - which I find to be either a good thing or a bad thing according to my mood. ARABIC is fascinating woman - darkly beautiful and very mysterious. I've dated her a couple of times, but alas we are just too different in almost every way. There are also issues with some of her family. We could never be together. RUSSIAN is a foxy lady whom I see sometimes on the street. She always catches my eye, and I have reason to think that we would be extremely good together. Up to now I have always held back, because I know she is simply not the kind who would tolerate idle flirtation: I know that if I start seeing her things will be very serious right from the start. She is not willing to reveal too much of herself too quickly - I'm told that her suitors have to work very hard and take their time. However when the moment of truth arrives, when she takes them by the hand and leads them to her private inner rooms, it is said to be well worth the wait! Do I want to be her suitor? Well, I still haven't decided for sure. But my pulse definitely steps up a beat every time that I see her walk by! Edited by Romanist on 03 March 2011 at 2:26pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tmp011007 Diglot Senior Member Congo Joined 6069 days ago 199 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese | Message 39 of 75 02 March 2011 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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somehow this entire thread makes me horny (linguistically, of course -I guess :P)
6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| PonyGirl Groupie United States Joined 5019 days ago 54 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 40 of 75 02 March 2011 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Spanish and I broke up long ago. I wouldn't say we got divorced, it was more of breaking off the engagement, or maybe we weren't even engaged yet. We just were not a good couple. Not enough attraction and too much conflict. Besides, I had found another woman. I mean man. I mean... German. German walked back into my life after many years apart, and I knew that Spanish could never mean as much to me as German did or does.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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