|
 |
Answers to "Why do you learn L xxx" | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | Usefulness | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ilcommunication Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6492 days ago 115 posts - 162 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 25 of 49 03 December 2011 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I see your point, but at the same time, if I meet someone who likes jogging, the first thing out of my mouth would never be "why do you jog?". It just sounds a bit patronizing to me for whatever reason. But yeah, I usually respond by going over what I like about xxx language and everything associated with it, especially the people. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Humdereel Octoglot Groupie United States Joined 4778 days ago 90 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written), Turkish, Persian, Urdu Studies: Russian | Message 26 of 49 03 December 2011 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Usually, when people ask me why I'm learning a certain language, it's out of simple and/or positive curiosity.
Although language learning is a hobby to me, it's not seen as such where I live in the U.S., and I don't worry about it. Here in the U.S., you go any distance in any direction and English is dominant, and even though it's a very diverse country, people don't tend to think and delve into that diversity as much as they recognize it. Therefore, it doesn't surprise me when one is not familiar with that Arabic and Persian have a rich literature and history as well as cultures that interest me. Again, it's usually out of positive curiosity, so I give them my honest answers: It's music to my ears. I love to experience the cultures through the language, etc. That's usually enough for them to understand and they'll often leave with no negative impressions. Indeed, 95% of the questions I get are out of curiosity. The other 5% are more like "Why not this other language?" or sometimes even discrimination comments, but I tend to answer in the same way, and there are again not many negative results. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5566 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 27 of 49 03 December 2011 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Last time somebody asked me why I was learning Japanese I was quite truthful and replied:
"Because I wanted to see if I could." But that person was my English teacher, so I wanted to give the impression that I am very ambitious. (It's true, it isn't the entire picture and it helps me when my teachers think of me as ambitious and a good student - either they offer me some additional challenges or they just let me do my own thing.) Usually, people don't ask me why I learn other languages; it seems to be quite acceptable for a young German female to learn any of the major European languages and probably even some of the minor ones. In the same vein, I am under the impression that learning Chinese or Russian would just be filed under 'probably for economic reasons'. So most of the time somebody asks me why I learn a certain language it's about Japanese or Korean; and they seem to be satisfied with my replies: Because I want to, because I'm interested in the cultures, because I can, because it's a challenge. When people ask my why I don't learn a certain other language, telling them 'oh, I'm studying that one too/oh, that's gonna be the next one' shuts them up very effectively. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5134 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 28 of 49 04 December 2011 at 9:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||
For some reason there are people who cannot resist commenting on a thread expressing how tired they are of the topic, and I never understand why, since it is so quick and easy to just skip that topic, and go to something which interests them more. I do not know if I do no pick up on those recurring themes because I am also too new,or because I have Altzheimer in an advanced degree without knowing it, or simply because I enjoy having new views to previously discussed topics. Probably a combination of all three. You are not derailing the thread at all, on the contrary. I value your contributions. And I think most people around us think we are nerds and geeks, and I for one take absolutely no offence whether we use it affectionately among each other, or whether it is used by someone less interested in languages. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kwai-Chang Tetraglot Newbie Switzerland Joined 4545 days ago 8 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English*, French, German, Spanish Studies: Mandarin | Message 29 of 49 04 December 2011 at 10:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Serious enquiries get serious answers, 'It's about the culture, my career etc.'
The problem is that a lot of people, (and the British are big offenders) do consider voluntarily trying to learn a language to be sado-masochistic in the extreme, and very uncool (cool = shopping and watching TV). These people often feel that you're trying to be superior, and can come out with snarky, incredulous questions. They get the sarcastic / deliberately dumb answers. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4809 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 30 of 49 04 December 2011 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
This question is nothing new that came with the languages for me. No idea how many times in my life have I been asked things like :"Why do you play the piano instead of doing some sport? Why do you read books instead of doing some sport? Why do you read such crap (instead of reading only school-required-high-quality literature and doing more sport)?"
I don't agree that sport is the only valuable way to spend your time (curiously noone seems to ever wonder why is a friend spending that much time running in circles), I like to read various things and I don't consider a book to be crap just because it doesn't pretend to be high philosophy. So my usual answer is "because I like it". Another one is "Why not?" And the same goes to languages. Sure, I answer honestly sometimes but it depends on who I am speaking with. Funny is that often it's me who asks "Why do you learn ...?" because I am excited to hear their reasons, especially at languages I don't know much about. But the people often suppose I am asking in the negative manner no matter how much I try to look excited. I think it is matter of being used to it. And a bit of irony is, that the only moment when I think something like "Why would anyone want to learn that" is when someone is learning Czech. I know it is not right to not be proud of one's own nation but I just can't help myself sometimes. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6503 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 49 04 December 2011 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
When people ask me I just tell them. And for good or worse I have a tendency to explain things fairly thoroughly, so the curious people may get more than they asked for. It is not really my problem whether they listen or not.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| starrye Senior Member United States Joined 4894 days ago 172 posts - 280 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 32 of 49 05 December 2011 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
If it's an American asking, you can almost never go wrong suggesting it has something to do with your job or job marketability. Many Americans see business as one of the few practical reasons to learn a foreign language. It might then lead into a discussion about which languages are more marketable or economical (why not "x" instead of "y"?), and which ones might have more job opportunities... but to many monolingual English speaking Americans, it's enough to say you just want to make your résumé stand out. Saying you are learning a foreign language for fun or cultural reasons is generally seen as eccentric, unless you need to learn the language in order to communicate with relatives, or travel, then it becomes practical again. It's also generally accepted if you happen to be learning a heritage language (say, if you are Chinese-American learning Chinese, or Italian-American learning Italian, etc). I think you can probably see a pattern here, where Americans are concerned, it's always about practicality and productivity, so if you can creatively frame your answer in those terms, you'll generally get a positive response no matter which language it happens to be. :)
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. |
