|
 |
The power of language choice motivation | ||
Tags: Motivation | Choosing a Language | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Le dacquois Diglot Groupie France Joined 5649 days ago 54 posts - 69 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, German | Message 1 of 9 29 June 2009 at 10:42am | IP Logged | ||
|
I've recently been spending a great deal of time pondering languages I may want to pursue in the future. I've been bogging myself down with stuff like "Which asian language is the most useful in Asia?" and "Which flavour of Arabic is understood best by the most people in the largest number of countries?", etc.
I've found that I've been asking myself the wrong questions when it comes to my upcoming language choices and that I'm forgetting why my interest in languages began. I learn because I love (certain) languages. That's all. The sounds, the music, the emotions they conjure up. I don't need to study any language to work. I'm not a high flying corporate executive who needs to learn Japanese for business reasons. Neither am I a perennial globe trotter who relies on lingua francas to cover as many countries as possible as I rough it out under a tent in the desert. I'm just an average Joe who in all probability will never leave his continent unless it's for a fortnight's holiday. I like sounds. It might seem a trivial reason for some to embark upon a language learning life, but that's how I started learning French because I loved the sound and I still do. It's easily for me the most beautiful language I've ever heard. Most people will have a different view and have their own personal favourites of course, but I'm merely explaining where my motivation lies. So, I was getting frustrated with "OOh, Mandarin or Japanese...or wait, maybe Hindi?" and "OOer, Russian in ex-Soviet states? Maybe they won't be too keen to converse with me." and so forth. It has recently dawned on me that my motivation, desire and excitement has hit a trough and I know now it's because of this. Deep down I have no desire to learn Mandarin, that's just the way I am. So, no amount of "Is this language really useful?" is going to help me. When I started learning French I was quite clueless about languages in general and the relative importance and unimportance of French was the furthest thing from my mind. I now live in France and so any and all such reasonings for me are pointless since French is as important in France as English is in Britain, i.e, VERY, and if I want to have a normal life here then French is the only language which is truly important. It's all relative. I'm learning Spanish and German for similar reasons. Spanish for me is a lively cheery language and German is really interesting and refreshing. I am also ten times more likely to go to Spain or a German speaking country for a stint than I am to Taiwan or Egypt. So, my future language list has now changed dramatically as I find once again the reason for my language learning. What is it in effect that really makes me tick? In a word, pleasure. My list and motivations have changed from this; Mandarin (So many speakers, possible future work possibilities, etc) Arabic (Huge lingua franca) Russian (Vast territories to visit) to something more like this (in no particular order and not completely decided); Norwegian (I have some Norse DNA thanks to my mother. My uncle speaks it. I like it and I want to explore Norway) Italian (A pretty language. I have Italian friends. I want to explore Italy) Dutch (I'm interested in the Dutch roots of Scots. I have a big respect for the Dutch and their language to me seems so cool) Portuguese (A beautiful sounding language to me. I love the Algarve and want to know more about Portugal in general) Scots Gaelic (I come not far from the Gaelic speaking regions of Scotland. I'd love to get a bit of my heritage back by learning a language that no doubt many of my ancestors spoke. I love the sound which may seem strange to people who find it harsh) Romanian (For me, another very beautiful language which would open up a lesser known world in a country not too far away. It might even be possible for me to learn being a romance language, hehe!) As you can see, my motivations for the previous list were vague and well, not very motivating. The reasons for my new list are more defined, coherent and more entrenched in my enjoyment of languages, culture and so on. Now, I'm not going to be able to make much progress with all of those at the same time so I'll have to decide on some kind of order, but I feel a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I've never ever harboured any real desire to spend any time in Chinese, Arabic or Russian speaking parts of the world and I can't say I particularly enjoy the sounds of the respective languages. It's just a personal preference based on the music of language and the fact that these places are quite far away. I was only considering them before because I felt I "should" be learning them because they are seemingly more important on the world stage. As I say, I have no need of them for work or travel or any other supposedly important reason and since there are many other languages I'd prefer to learn for the pleasure, that's what I'm going to do. In the end it's all about personal motivations and desires and having recompiled my future list I feel a lot better and find my enthusiasm returning. I may not completely disregard Russian for all eternity since I do find it interesting in a puzzling way. I'm just unlikely to ever go to Russia. Sorry, don't go waiting for the punchline of this post, there isn't one! I suppose I'm just saying that it does no harm now and again to remind yourself why you're learning whichever language it may be and to not kid yourself. It's helped me a lot. I still haven't decided what's next though. My Spanish is at conversational level but never fluent. I'm making progress in German thanks to MT. It may be too early for me to take on another language right now but at least I have a very good idea from which list my choice will come :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5911 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 9 29 June 2009 at 11:25am | IP Logged | ||
|
I don't have much to add except a big thumbs up for doing what you want to do, not what you think you should. I'm exactly the same, except I never considered learning languages for their supposed usefulness... What can I say - don't care! I know some find that really weird (people outside this forum, that is - you'll find most people here totally feel you) but that's how it is - and if I'm going to do this for fun, it should actually be fun, right? :-)
Maybe you can dip your toe in each of them before you decide on one... I guess that's sort of what I did, learned a fair bit of a lot of languages before deciding which one I wanted to pursue the most. Enjoy :-) Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6720 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 3 of 9 29 June 2009 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Agree agree AGREE!!! :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| theallstar Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5804 days ago 81 posts - 85 votes Studies: Japanese, Esperanto | Message 4 of 9 29 June 2009 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I couldn't agree more either. So often when thinking about the next language I want to learn I've got really hung up over the usefulness - then I remember that I never started to study Japanese for any such reason. It's almost useless to me infact, besides for personal reasons. I just started to learn it because I've always loved the way it's written and I find the culture of Japan more interesting than that of China.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 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 5 of 9 29 June 2009 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I agree with you an all respects, down to the fact that you really don't like Mandarin (although I do like Russian and Arabic). I find the culture and the writing system fascinating, but really just do NOT like the way it sounds. I much prefer Japanese for some reason. I do often get hung up on the usefulness, but lately, I have been realizing that usefulness really is relative... So who cares if there are few opportunities for me to speak Portuguese in the US? I love the language!
Good for you! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5653 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 9 30 June 2009 at 12:09am | IP Logged | ||
|
There isn't enough discussion about motivation! I totally agree with you that it's the key factor in learning languages. I have finally understood that my own motivations, at least for the time being, have much to do with the look of the language in writing rather than the sounds, and with the great and interesting books that are written in the language. Several years ago I came up with this idea: "I've read plenty of things in English; now I should read other languages." That little formula has gotten me a long way so far. I thought of a more stringent, if quirky, idea just this morning: "I should read something by the Nobel Literature Prize winner each year, after the prizes are announced, in the original language." I don't think I'll actually live up to that one, but it's certainly intriguing.
Other motivations for me: entering the minds of great artists and thinkers who lived hundreds or even thousands of years ago; working each day with wonderful old books, printed in "strange" characters; discovering cross-cultural connections, such as words that travelled from one language into another; finding that the seemingly impossible, such as reading a "difficult" language, is possible after all--when you just keep working at it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5810 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 7 of 9 30 June 2009 at 6:26am | IP Logged | ||
Come down to South Florida, there's almost as much Brazilian Portuguese down here as Spanish, and Brazilians are some of the friendliest people you can meet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6374 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 8 of 9 30 June 2009 at 7:31am | IP Logged | ||
|
I learned French simply because I thought it sounded beautiful. I used to watch late
night SBS in Australia from when I was 13 to 16 which has foreign films on it. I eventually fell in love with the way French sounded and I resolved to learn it just before my 16th birthday. I still love it. When females speak French it's just divine! Swedish and Norwegian are also really cool along with Icelandic. Edited by zerothinking on 30 June 2009 at 7:32am 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
