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What is it that gives us pleasure? | ||
Tags: Motivation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5168 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes  Speaks: Spanish* | Message 1 of 14 25 November 2011 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are concrete, objective reasons that I could enunciate to explain why I study foreign languages, but even if I were to discard them all, an intangible remainder would persist.
What is it about understanding and speaking a foreign language that is so intrinsically pleasurable? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| On_the_road Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 4579 days ago 23 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 2 of 14 25 November 2011 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have thought about this too, and I definitely agree with you that there is some sort of inner desire to learn It is not easy to explain exactly what it is that makes learning languages so pleasurable for me. In part, it has to do with the challenging fact that you always can improve your skills and it is also easy to notice your progress. I also think that every language has its own personality in a way, and to discover the structure and feeling of a new language is exiting.
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| ikinaridango Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5948 days ago 61 posts - 80 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, Italian Studies: German, Polish | Message 3 of 14 26 November 2011 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree with this, and I do love that feeling of going from knowing absolutely nothing in a language to being able to recognise and even produce the patterns of coherent speech. Even when the language is quite close to your own, it's a bit like deciphering a personal Rosetta Stone. I do though feel that the satisfaction derived from being able to mark your progress belongs much more to the earlier stages of learning a language. Once you've reached a certain degree of proficiency, the gains become much harder to measure and it can be very easy to feel yourself stranded on the vast plateau which separates the land of the good speaker from that of the very good speaker. At this point I often find a degree of frustration begins to set in. For me the single biggest joy of learning other languages may be being able to talk to people in their own language. I enjoy doing so when I am here in the UK, but even more so when in a country where the language is spoken, because your access to the people and their culture increases exponentially, even if you are capable of only the most rudimentary of conversations. It's those moments when people are starting to warm to me because they are beiginning to understand that I'm not just another (Anglophone) tourist that count amongst my most satisfying. Edited by ikinaridango on 26 November 2011 at 12:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| WentworthsGal Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4711 days ago 191 posts - 246 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Spanish | Message 4 of 14 26 November 2011 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've thought about this sometimes too... I often think I like learning languages because I'm somewhat nosey and a little paranoid... I like to know what people are talking about if they're close by and also if they were talking about me! But mainly it's because I feel like I've discovered something for the first time and almost as if I'm the first to discover it, especially as my friends and relatives don't enjoy languages as I do. It also feels like I'm part of a secret group if I can understand what's being said in a language other than English.
The anthropology side of me loves that it connects me to other cultures and ways of life. It gives me a nudge in the direction of foriegn films and literature which I may not have come accross had I not been involved in that particular language. It makes me feel more connected to the world too. The main thing, I think, that keeps me interested in languages is that I love to learn and as you can never really reach the end of learning a language then you can just keep going and going and improving every day. Which in some respect is quite annoying as there are so many languages which could be learnt lol. I also get pleasure from seeing the similarities in language and thinking about how words could be related to English, if a current word in a language is like an old word in English which isn't used much anymore but means the same thing or similar. It's nice to be taken back in time to when the language could have split into two to form another language or been adopted into another language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Vos Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5389 days ago 766 posts - 1020 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 5 of 14 26 November 2011 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that the process of learning a foreign language (and using it) is simply an inherently mentally satisfying
activity in itself, you can feel your brain working hard, being challenged and stretched, learning something on a deep level. It's like chess in a way, as I'd much rather play a stimulating game with a good player and lose than a boring one and win, which implies something within the game itself (or what it does to you) and not simply the act of winning which is satisfying. Again like language, where although fluency is the goal in most cases, it's the process which is the most enjoyable aspect as it's those constant challenges of learning say a new grammar rule or a new conjugation, learning a new word and using it correctly, these little things which are noticeable signs of progress which satisfy and encourage, and those feelings of achievement after coming to terms with and understanding a grammatical point, rule, conjugation etc which come with that feed our motivation. I'd imagine that reaching fluency in a language quickly without those continual intermediate moments of achievement and satisfaction would be a rather hollow experience, as you wouldn't particularly feel much for the language as you wouldn't have that sense of having earnt it. So at the most fundamental level, I believe what we derive pleasure from in learning a language once all those tangible reasons are taking away, is simply the act of learning itself. Learning and understanding are innately gratifying and rewarding pursuits to our species, which is why we are here now communicating through pulses of electricity over vast distances via waves of energy, as our intrinsic love of and desire for knowledge and understanding has made all this possible. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| On_the_road Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 4579 days ago 23 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 6 of 14 26 November 2011 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree with you on this. The better you get at a language, the harder it is to notice your improvements and I also think that you become more critical the more you know as this is connected with a realisation of how much it is that you do not know at all. This becomes obvious when you start comparing yourself with native speakers of the language and start reading more advanced books, texts etc. Another thing which can frustrate me is the restraints of not living in a country where the languge you are learning is spoken, which I think becomes more and more obvious the more you learn. (It's good that we have the internet though, which is a bit of a compensation at least!) Edited by On_the_road on 26 November 2011 at 3:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6606 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 14 26 November 2011 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's kinda easy to explain for me. When I witness something happening in a language I
can't understand I often feel like I'm missing out on something. It's not every language and every culture that I'm interested in, so I don't have to know them all, but the ability to follow the events in certain languages gives me a feeling of empowerment, of connectedness. What I choose to do from that point on, whether I want to join in, is kind of secondary even. The main thing is just to be able to appease that feeling of missing out, which you do when you're able to follow what's happening. And that gives me a lot of pleasure. Another thing that is coming across very strongly lately is that studying languages seems to expand my ability for language in general. It's hard to measure this, but I have a very strong sense that any of my "new" languages (ie. not the native ones) now feels quite easy, even though my knowledge across them varies a lot. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4832 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 8 of 14 26 November 2011 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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1. The pleasure of removing the borders between myself and something I want access to.
2. The joy of knowing I have made progress. Sure, that is much harder at higher level but for that, I can always start a new language :-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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