Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

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Re: Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

Postby rdearman » Mon Oct 24, 2016 9:08 pm

Sigh...

I had a go at learning Esperanto because some guy who worked for me knew it. I struggled for a couple of months and didn't become fluent so I dropped it. (Fluency only takes 3 months right?)

I decided to learn Italian, because I went to Italy for a holiday and really struggled to travel without any knowledge of the language, and contrary to popular belief, everyone does not speak English. I love Italy and Italians, and I still love practising the language.

I decided to learn French because I worked for a French company and wanted to see what they were saying about me.

I decided to learn Mandarin for no good reason other than it was difficult, it was a toss up between that and Japanese.

I got roped into learning Finnish by the people on this forum, they know who they are, and they will not be forgiven (unless I get my cookies)
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Re: Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

Postby cathrynm » Mon Oct 24, 2016 10:33 pm

Finnish and Japanese because I'm Finnish and Japanese heritage. Spent more time in FInland as a child, though I've been working on Japanese longer now.

Tempted by Chinese because right now I'm in China for work though I'm forcing myself to study for the JLPT N2 instead.
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Re: Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

Postby neilfox007 » Mon Oct 24, 2016 11:42 pm

I chose Vietnamese because my work took me there. I am in the US again now after 7 years in Vietnam. I feel like a fish out of water. It was strange talking in my native language at first but now I miss speaking in my TL. I am afraid of losing it! I am trying to find some native speakers near the Seattle area for practice.
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Re: Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

Postby leosmith » Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:07 am

neilfox007 wrote:I chose Vietnamese because my work took me there. I am in the US again now after 7 years in Vietnam. I feel like a fish out of water. It was strange talking in my native language at first but now I miss speaking in my TL. I am afraid of losing it! I am trying to find some native speakers near the Seattle area for practice.

I live in the Seattle area, but don't speak Vietnamese unfortunately. what do you think of this polyglot's vietnamese?
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Re: Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

Postby asterion » Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:38 am

RUSSIAN

As is the case with many( I guess) Russian classical literature first sparked my desire to learn the language. Of course, there is a translation, but it just does not compare with being able to read it in original without intermediary and nuances, the subtle use of the language, expressions...inevitably getting lost in translation. I have heard many people( Russians included) say: " Well...why do you want to read classical literature? No one talks or writes like that anymore! ". That is the wrong order...I' m not reading classical literature to learn Russian, but I' m learning Russian to read classical literature( though not only). I often say that even if I could not talk to any Russian alive, I would be satisfied with gaining access into the treasure trove of literature. Like Norwegian writer Erland Loe once said: " One day, people will maybe throw away their smart-phones and literature, real literature, that probes into human psyche and is capable of making everlasting impression and changing the way of thinking, will be waiting for them".
Then, gradually, my interest expanded to everything Russian...Russian classical music, Russian football, food, cinematography, politics( with language now being key to public sphere).

FRENCH

I once heard an old woman, who lived in times when you just married whoever your parents chose for you, say about her husband: " I saw him only once...but the longer I lived with him, the more I loved him". That can explain my relationship with French...I started learning it in school, but I grew to like it, even though I know my love is unrequited for now..

SPANISH

Literature again led me to Spanish...or better said, one writer in particular, Julio Cortazar. I listened to a number of his interviews given in Argentinian Spanish with a nice tint of French ( he lived in Paris), and I wanted to emulate him, his talk was like a music to my ears. Still have not reached that level of pronunciation, but I' m still holding out hope.
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Re: Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

Postby Ari » Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:19 am

English: Never had a choice.
French: Had to pick one in school.
Spanish: Don't remember. Seemed easy, I guess?
Mandarin: Because kung fu.
Cantonese: Because the northern Chinese people in Foshan didn't bother to learn it, which pissed me off.
Portuguese: Because my mom invited me to Cape Verde for a week.
German: It seemed about time.
Italian: Might as well.
Japanese: A coworker went to Japan and asked if I'd been there. I replied "No, I don't speak Japanese ... yet." So now I'm studying Japanese.
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Re: Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

Postby Mooby » Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:46 am

I'm primarily attracted to languages for social reasons, and over the years I've tried to connect with people from all parts of the world with whom I randomly encounter. I learnt a few phrases in Turkish, Tamil and Japanese because I briefly worked with native speakers of these languages.
So it was only natural to learn a few Polish phrases when hundreds of thousands of Poles emigrated to the UK. At some point I decided to take learning this language seriously (little knowing what I was getting myself into). Now I'm past the point of no return, tempted as I am to ease off sometimes. The motivation is still strong, buoyed by the opportunities to use it socially - I have very patient Polish friends!
In this respect I am an opportunist; so if thousands of Greeks had settled in my area, I'd probably have gone for Greek.

I'm also attracted to a plethora of other languages because of how they sound (e.g German, Latvian) and others because of their culture (e.g Turkish, Persian, Hindi), but I haven't decided yet if I'll learn a second foreign language or which one.
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Re: Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

Postby zenmonkey » Tue Oct 25, 2016 9:18 pm

Spanish - my parents' tongue.
French - was born there, parents' secret language. Had to learn it :twisted: Later in life migrated to France.
English - migrated at 10.
Chinese - my parents moved there, without me. :shock: (currently dropped)
German - migrated again.
Italian - love the country and language. Similarities with other languages that I speak make it both easy and hard.
Portuguese - projects and work and literature. (currently on hold)
Ladino, Hebrew, Yiddish - family background.
Arabic - literature and travel. (currently dropped)
Ladakhi - stumbled across it for a trip, gathered material and thought it was a useful challenge (on hold)
Icelandic - travel, love the sounds and history, probably a link to the literature and the fact that the language has a very slow rate of change.
Nahuatl, Zapotec and Huichol - early exposure and fascination. (complete lost)

And phrases for travel in a 5-6 others but that's mostly a parlour trick.
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Re: Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

Postby neilfox007 » Tue Oct 25, 2016 10:22 pm

leosmith wrote:
neilfox007 wrote:I chose Vietnamese because my work took me there. I am in the US again now after 7 years in Vietnam. I feel like a fish out of water. It was strange talking in my native language at first but now I miss speaking in my TL. I am afraid of losing it! I am trying to find some native speakers near the Seattle area for practice.

I live in the Seattle area, but don't speak Vietnamese unfortunately. what do you think of this polyglot's vietnamese?


Hi leosmith, Seattle should be a good place to learn Korean. The lady is the video was ok but when she was speaking with a Southern dialect I was having a hard time understanding her. Norther dialect is universally understood, she sounded like she was trying to speak with a Mien Tay accent from the Mekong Delta.
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Re: Reasons for choosing the foreign language you have picked

Postby PeterMollenburg » Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:10 pm

I hated French in school, really despised it, because I had learned some German at my previous high school and for me it was German all the way...

But then after high school I decided I wanted to learn Spanish, because my father had always spoken very fondly of the Spanish country, culture and people from his time there in the early 80s as part of the first and 2nd Australian marathon canoe/kayak representative teams sent to tour Europe to compete at the world cup and world championships from Australia (he was Australian champion at the time). I was always fascinated with these journeys he took. I was proud of him and fascinated with far off places he visited, particularly Spain.

So after high school I chose to try my hand at Spanish and German. The course stream I was choosing did not offer German at that time of year, so I opted to openly attempt to try French out of open-mindedness and feeling it wouldn't do many any harm to approach it on my own terms as opposed to feeling forced by the educational system at school. Turns out although I really enjoyed Spanish I came to love French, ironic as I hated it so much in high school.

For subsequent medium term voyages into new languages I decided to stick with languages that were geographically close to one another -Dutch, German again, French and Spanish. And the adventure continues with French, hoping soon to reintroduced Dutch next
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