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Learning a language but not using it? | ||
Tags: Motivation | Usefulness | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| DNB Bilingual Triglot Groupie Finland Joined 4708 days ago 47 posts - 80 votes  Speaks: Finnish*, Estonian*, English | Message 17 of 32 29 October 2011 at 1:17am | IP Logged | ||
I'm more curious to as how you can speak 50 different languages like a native, if I'm not blind. ;P Edited by DNB on 29 October 2011 at 3:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4652 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 18 of 32 29 October 2011 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't go to a country because I want to learn the language; for me, I want to learn a language to go to the country. French can be practical as well in my area, where it is spoken like a "secret" language among elder people (they are surprised to meet kids who know it!). Some of the most beautiful cities on earth, at least from the point of view of someone who is not well-traveled, are, among others, Quebec, Lyon, and Paris, and I would like to see many more Francophone cities.
Edit: My post didn't answer the question; there's nothing wrong with learning a language for no reason.I considered learning Modern Greek because I find latin/greek roots sound cool, or Luxembourgish just because, or Icelandic because Iceland seems like a cool country. Edited by rivere123 on 29 October 2011 at 2:39am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| MarcusOdim Groupie Brazil Joined 4669 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes | Message 19 of 32 30 October 2011 at 12:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Man, my plans are learning
1. English (done and improving) 2. Spanish (done and improving) 3. German (doing) 4. Russian 5. French 6. Italian (7. Swedish, Danish and Norwegian) I don`t expect to use any of them other than English for speaking, ever. Look at my Spanish, it`s quite advanced but I don`t do anything with it other than listening to music, watching movies and reading (books and news), the same is gonna happen with all the other languages I feel interest for. I really don`t care much about speaking, to tell you the truth hehehe, my reasons for learning these languages are: (besides literature, movies and music) German: this languages makes me feel like a god when reading a news aloud (whoever does it :O ?) Russian: not as powerful as German but there`s that feeling of "if you mess with me you `ll be sorry" French: Chiqué, good soundingé, I'm goodé Italian: Sounds poetic and the country is sooo cooolll (Norwegian is just the cuttest language in the world) I only expect and actually WANT to speak English Edited by MarcusOdim on 30 October 2011 at 12:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dr. POW Groupie Canada Joined 4787 days ago 48 posts - 58 votes Studies: German, English* Studies: French | Message 20 of 32 30 October 2011 at 1:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think that I'll ever use my French with too many native speakers, but I'll
definitely run into some in Canada. And other than with mom and dad, I'll never speak German. :P I can freely use both of these languages on the Internet, however. I know a browser game community (among many others) where people the world over, who speak different languages, interact in one game through mainly writing. It's a pretty great place to use a language without ever speaking it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PaulLambeth Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5195 days ago 244 posts - 315 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Hindi, Irish | Message 21 of 32 30 October 2011 at 2:00am | IP Logged | ||
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There's definitely nothing wrong with learning a language without the intention of using it. I suppose, perhaps, I get intimidated by places in which I'm not sure what language I could get by with, beit because of a lack of knowledge of the linguistic situation there - the word 'dialect' can scare me - or because of having absolutely no resources to learn any of the local languages. Though this is mainly a tourism issue, and little to do with my interest for the region. As I get more interested I'll no doubt end up finding something more out about the linguistic situation anyway.
Personally, I'm learning my languages mainly with the desire to travel to these places. Linguistic aspects do sneak into it - Xhosa's clicks would be a challenge, and Finnish grammar is lovely - but it's pretty much always coupled with a desire to GO to the place it's spoken. Icelandic I picked because I'd been there a couple of times and wanted to feel less like a tourist when returning. That's handy, as now I'm living here for the year. However, English is still the main vehicle of conversation; Reykjavík's definitely a bilingual city, and it feels great nonetheless to know that I can speak some Icelandic if chance arises. Hindi I picked because I want to learn more about India, and it's the largest contestor for a lingua-franca there (along with a useful cognate with Urdu). When, a little over a year ago, I thought I'd spend my summer volunteering in Tanzania instead of holidaying with dad again, I started looking at Swahili. I'll pick it up if I do make concrete plans to go there. Finnish started, but stopped shortly after, when I wanted a language to concentrate on alongside Icelandic, and it's a beautiful country that I'd love to go to, alongside being non-Indo European and having an appealingly logical grammar. I love Ireland - particularly the Gaeltacht - and learning some Irish when I feel like it makes me feel like I'm supporting the now unfortunately minority languages in Britain. Tok Pisin is probably the least likely to get used, but I find its situation and development fascinating, and I know it's highly valuable if I ever go to Melanesia. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6404 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 22 of 32 30 October 2011 at 9:50am | IP Logged | ||
C'mon, you're not getting away with just mentioning it without telling us what it's called. It sounds great! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5048 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 23 of 32 01 November 2011 at 12:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Digression deleted -- conclusion:
If I come along something that is objectively useful --others and I won't argue about its usefulness-- I'll try and learn it because learning is just so much fun for me, and I'll have something to show for it. OTOH if it's something that is so amazing and pleasurable to learn on its own, just for the hell of it, wouldn't it be almost sinful not to put it to some use, even if you have to create the opportunity to do so? :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5084 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 24 of 32 01 November 2011 at 2:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Learning a language but not using it? That depends on how you define using it. My contention is that it would be pretty hard not to be able to use any non-endangered language today anywhere where there is at least a halfway decent internet connection. We live in an amazing age today. Not too long ago an international phone call cost well over a dollar a minute. Now voip has reduced that cost to be included with your internet service. Now anyone with an internet connection, a microphone and a voip program like skype can talk to anyone else with the same thing for nothing extra.
Not too long ago, before the blossoming of the internet, the only foreign languages I could hear came via shortwave radio. It faded. It crackled in thunderstorms. It was susceptible to various forms of interference. Now, I can sit here and listen to Radio Nacional de España in total clarity. It wasn't that long ago that foreign films were extremely hard to find for people who lived outside of major metropolitan areas. Now they are quite easy to locate for almost any language, just do a search. Television in other languages simply didn't exist for large swaths of people and now, if you search for it- you will find it online. The other day a member asked about Tok Pisin. I was curious so I did a rudimentary search. It is an English based creole and a national language of Papua New Guinea. If you learned it in the Americas or Europe what use would you get out of it? You could listen on-line to Radio Australia's daily broadcasts in the language, watch videos on youtube and even read books- not a lot but that's something. What's more, you could travel there and visit for a couple of weeks, leave on a Friday morning and be back home 24 hours later. And you just never know, one day you may be on the tube in London and hear a conversation in Tok Pisin and you just might make two new friends. One of our members who lives in Japan is learning Georgian. I love following his log even though I have no interest in learning the language. He had a Georgian language instructor in Japan and studied with a group of Georgian learners there in a class! He's also traveled to Georgia. Who would've guessed that he could learn and speak Georgian in Japan? Amazing! Another of our members is learning ancient Akkadian, probably the world's first written language. He won't find a podcast in the language (at least I don't know of any) but there is literature in the language and scholars who spend a lifetime studying it for the clues that it gives to the modern world about the beginnings of human civilization- cuneiform lives! I'd say that's using the language. One day some archaeologist may unearth a new treasure trove of ancient Akkadian writing, you never know. I hope there are plenty of people who can read Akkadian so that they can tell me more about what those ancient people were up to. Fifty years ago, people who traveled internationally were super-rich and were considered to be part of the "jet set". International travel has since been greatly democratized. I live on a tiny island in the Caribbean. In addition to the big three languages here of English, Spanish and the French Creoles, You'd be amazed at the languages I have heard spoken here: Polish, Japanese, Hungarian, Russian, Chinese- Cantonese and Mandarin, lots of Arabic, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Xhosa, Amharic, French, Portuguese, German, lots of Danish, Czech, Slovak, Papiamento, Dutch, Hindi and Ukranian. That's a lot of languages and I don't live in a major metropolitan area folks. Now we're not talking about large immigrant communities but If I wanted to learn Lithuanian, I know at least three people I could talk to personally, right here, who could help me. Two of my good friends speak native German. Now I'm not saying that every small town in America will have that kind of a mix but look what you can do on-line with all these languages, and if you ask around (remember when people used to ask around) you may be surprised at what languages may exist even in your own small town. So if you want to use that language, make just a little bit of effort. It just depends on how much you really want to use the language. Edited by iguanamon on 01 November 2011 at 12:38pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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