Where does one find other people with our same passion?

[sillygoose1]

One thought that hasn't crossed my mind in the past 4-5 years is where to meet other people who love learning languages. This hobby of ours is in fact viewed oddly by a decent amount of people so I've never really bothered trying to meet other people who learn languages. I don't think I've ever met anyone in real life who spoke more than two languages.

Has anyone taken any language or linguistic classes in college or something where you've met other people who aspire to speak multiple languages? I was thinking about minoring in a language for fun + social aspect but I figured that French/Spanish/German/Italian classes would be full of people just trying to fulfill their language requirement and that languages like Russian/Arabic/Mandarin would be mainly heritage speakers looking for an easy grade. I wouldn't be sure what to expect from a linguistics course.

What do you guys think?

[Luso]

What do you guys think?

From what you write, you don't seem too sure of whether that's the case or not.

Why don't you go there and talk to the teachers ? And, if possible, some of the students?

What have you got to lose? A few hours?

[aokoye]

It's funny because my first thought was, "college language classes" (specifically the higher level ones) and then I read your second paragraph I took Turkish for a quarter and I'd say or the 20ish people in the class at least 6 of us were German majors and then there was at least one person who was learning Persian and Arabic.

So yeah, really my suggestion would be to take third year or higher language courses. Most non major language requirements only require through the second year so third year is when you get people who are majoring or minoring in a language and/or who are just taking it for fun. For what it's worth I find that true for most university courses. It looks like skill wise you could probably place into higher levels of French, Spanish, and Italian so minoring might not be a bad idea. I also wouldn't worry about lower levels of classes being primarily made up of heritage speakers for a few reasons. A. learning from heritage speakers in your class can be very useful and B. a lot of schools don't allow heritage speakers in lower level courses that aren't specifically for heritage speakers.

[sillygoose1]

@Luso I have before. When I took a beginner's French & German class during my second semester, hardly anyone showed up to either halfway through the course. The professors I spoke to said that they only know the language they teach + rudiments of another. Besides they didn't seem too interested in the idea of buddying up with a student. There was an Italian club that caught my eye but it was just to talk about Italian-American heritage and culture.


@aokoye Oh wow that's awesome about the Turkish class.

I never even thought about the higher level courses. Like I said, I only took French and German at a 101 level. I might actually take a few placement exams and see where I end up. If nothing else I'm sure it'll give me a solid boost in German also!

[Cavesa]

Dance classes. Really, the guy most interested in learning a ton of langauges I ever met in person went to the same dance classes.

People trully interested in "just" a few langauges: anywhere. At university, for example among medicine students (they are like shiny jewels among all the crowds, I've met a few already), while travelling (but that is less common than one would guess), in the public transport or bookshops (books are great conversation starters, especially those in foreign langauges)...

[Meramarina]

Come to a Polyglot event! I was at the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin earlier this year, and I met a lot of really nice people. I hope to go again next year if I can. You can see the lectures from last years on YouTube, and this year's talks will be available soon.

http://polyglotberlin.com/

The next event is in New York this October. I am going, and I can't wait!

http://polyglotconference.com/

[aokoye]

Just based on own experiences, usually in non-Anglophone countries. I have lived in them lifetime so far, and learning even just one foreign language seems to be that generally on average, Americans, Anglophone Canadians, Britons, Australians, and New Zealanders either find it 1) strange, 2) silly, 3) a waste of time, or 4) all of the above. If they do not even want to do a mandatory few years of one foreign language, I bet on hell that they would not do it for fun.

Considering how unhappy I am that I have to take a hard science or math class as part of my BA requirement I can understand why some people wouldn't want to take a few years of a language. That said in the US, the vast majority of colleges that have language requirements for non language degrees cap the classes at the end of the second year level if not the end of first year. Once you get past second year classes then you end up with people who actually want to be there because they like learning languages.

Given how far most people in the above countries live from another country/part of the country that speaks anything other than English it really makes a ton of sense why most people from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and England are monolingual (England is an exception in that it's not hard to get to mainland Europe and Canada is an exception because of the language politics going on there which I won't go into here, but even then BC is far away from Quebec). Yes much of the US Southwest borders mexico and part of the US borders French speaking Canada, but the US is huge and it's expensive to travel. It also makes sense why university students in all of those countries save for England wouldn't want to learn another language - the ability to use it just isn't there. I mean at least with England you have the ability to work in other EU countries, but getting a employment visa as a to most other countries (if and when you need one) is daunting, even if you're a Canadian wanting to work in the US.

[aokoye]

Oh another option (which costs money but could be useful) would be going to an intensive domestic immersion program like the ones at Middlebury. There are a handful of them in German (Deutsche Sommerschule am Pazifik, Deutsche Sommerschule am Atlantik, and German Summer School, Taos New Mexico) and I know there are options other than Middlebury for various "critical languages". Indiana University offers 2 month immersion courses in a bunch of languages, the University of Virginia overs 8 week courses in the same languages that Middlebury does, and Cornell has a 9 week Chinese immersion course. Those three universities primarily cater to beginners whereas Middlebury had courses for learners of all levels, Deutsche Sommerschule for people who are at or past third year German (B1 and above), and I think the program at Taos is the same.

I'm hopefully going to be doing Deutsche Sommerschule am Pazifik next Summer.

[basica]

American universities operate quite differently from the Australian system (which I believe is similar to the UK one) in that our degrees generally go for 3 years, and all subjects are focused on the degree in question. In the US, people tend to have arts degrees and generally have some required components (a language being one of them for example) and they tend not to specialize in a field till their second half of their degree (from what I understand). In saying that, I know a few countries do operate like the Americans do, but I am unsure which system is more common.

Anyways, back on topic. I think there's a lot of hobbies and interests where it's hard to find likeminded people, and when you do find a group for example it might not exactly be in a convenient location. I was looking at being involved in some groups a few years ago but they were all generally during the week and about an hour away which really made it extremely unlikely for me to attend. In the town I live now, it's not really big enough for interests groups which is a real shame as everything is so close here and I'd be more likely to attend (or to give it a try).

I think more than likely for most of us, online communities will be the only way to really meat most of our needs in terms of interacting with others concerning our interests. It really depends on where you live though, certain places do have more opportunities than others, but you gotta be living in a real bustling sorta place for that to happen I think. Best of luck though, hope you find something that works out for you.

[aokoye]

Well actually this is weird because in most countries, like the UK, in university you only take classes for your degree. If you want a degree in accounting for example, in a semester you take 5 or so classes, all accounting, and nothing else for the entirety of your degree. Likewise for basically all degrees, whether they be undergraduate or postgraduate, unless you are in a multidisciplinary field like chemical engineering with Spanish or something. This is essentially the system for Continental Europe as well, as far as I know. No one takes, for example, tensor calculus if they are a Literature student.

But I was referring mostly to primary or secondary school. In quite a few European countries, starting English at age 5 is common and then adding another one at age 10 or 12 is customary. Adding another one at 14 is not unusual either. I am an anomaly because I chose to take Spanish, German, Mandarin, and French in my school days, when most would just take the mandatory years of just one language and complain about it. This is what I mean that in Anglophone countries it just is not valued as much (although it seems that French, Spanish, Mandarin, and Italian are interesting more Briton school leavers nowadays). In general, yes, I have not insofar met in person some native Anglophone from Vancouver or Portland who wants to be like a Belgian girl that I met in university that was 21 at the time and already knew 5 languages and wanted to add in a 6. She was on Erasmus and spoke English with the Britons and the other 4 with other Erasmus students, depending on their languages. Another Norwegian girl that I met at the time was 23 and knew German and Dutch, having done her undergraduate in Groningen.

So I think that these countries are where the high volume of passion for language learning is, based on experiences:

Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Romania, Singapore, Lebanon

and just about every medium to large-sized reknowned university with Erasmus/exchange/study abroad programmes or large amounts of foreign students in the degree programmes.

You're right, at least in terms of universities in Europe. I was specifically talking about college in the US (which is the same thing as university) in part because that's what I default to (which I should do something about...) and also because based on Sillygoose1's HTLAL.com's profile, that's where Sillygoose1 is from. Most colleges in the US do have study abroad programs but they are incredibly expensive compared to Erasmus programs (and yet still sometimes cheaper than school in the US), the credits don't seem to transfer as smoothly as Erasmus programs seem to (from what I've seen - I could be totally wrong though) and unless you're going for three months or less, you have to deal with getting a visa. Then of course there's the fact that airfare is more expensive than if one were doing an Erasmus program.

When it comes down to it I think a lot of the reasons why so few people in the US speak more than one language has to do with the cost of going to a place where that language is spoken, even just on vacation/holiday. Of course there's also the issue of languages not being taught in schools at young ages as well (though that's slowly changing...slowly). I only have one friend who learned a foreign language in school before the age of 10 but that was Latin and it was because she went to a Catholic school.