A language learners’ forum

Whether it's your native tongue, the first language you learned by hunting on Wikipedia and aging HMTL-coded websites for grammar tables and Flash tutorials, or a new flame, I want to hear it. Why do you love your most favorite language? Show me your passion and appreciation.

Ha, was this thread not a good idea?

To be honest, some days it feels like my languages have sent me a Dear John letter

Honestly I feel more like I'm in some kind of polyamorous harem...

eido wrote:Ha, was this thread not a good idea?

It’s all innocent fun I guess but I just can’t anthropomorphise languages! My brain doesn’t work that way.

PS: I have never been a prolific writer of love letters to actual people now that I think of it!

Well it's hard to put this into English or into any love letter format. Maybe writing some poem in the language itself that features all the essential sounds and grammatical features that made me like it, would be more adequate. But that would take time...

Anyway from another post I wrote today:

I sometimes went as far to say (to myself) that although my love life isn't working out at all, I have at least Finnish (and it cannot run away)*.

*You know you're a language nerd, when you write with more people learning Finnish and Finns on a (German) dating site, than you have actual dates.

Dear Japanese,

I have never written a love letter to anyone, let alone anything. But Japanese, you are worth it.

I don't remember when I met you, Japanese. It feels like you have just been here all along. My mom told me that at the age of three, I would watch Godzilla films, dubbed or subtitled, over and over again. Obviously I couldn't read the subtitled ones, but apparently I would watch Godzilla destroy Tokyo, even with no comprehension of the story. Was this the seed of this lifelong love?

I remember the first word I ever read in Japanese. Perhaps fittingly, that word was あなた. I had just learned hiragana, and I flipped to the back of my textbook looking for any word which I might recognize. Reading this word filled me with both pride and joy.

Now here, however many years later, you are still every day a source of joy, even if you may or may not have humbled me more often than made me feel proud of myself There is just so much I love about you. First and foremost, you are incredibly beautiful, from your phonology to your writing system. I would love to take shodo classes and get even deeper into the beauty of your writing system. However, your beauty is not the only reason I love you. I love the way you seemingly fuse simplicity and complexity in nearly every aspect. The simplicity of hiragana juxtaposed with the complexity of kanji; your grammar which is so simple, so regular, and so logical, yet nevertheless constantly surprises and challenges me due to its alienness compared to Indo-European languages. Even your phonology, which seems to contain only simple sounds, a binary pitch system, and a very basic syllable structure, still contains deep complexities.

Since we got together, you have impacted my life in so many ways. I got to live in Japan for two years! I've met so many people, and just been exposed to so many things which English couldn't give me.

And we have so much more to do together. As my skill level improves, you just offer me more and more. I'm excited to one day become an advanced speaker. I'm not entirely sure that I could quit studying you even if I wanted to at this point.

Sincerely,
devilyoudont

Dear German,
It has always been you. No one else has ever touched me so deeply. No one else has driven me so wild with passion. Yes, there have been others (Dutch, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish) but these were never more than the expression of a physical urge. You were always the one!

Dear Dutch,
It has always been you. No one else has ever touched me so deeply. No one else has driven me so wild with passion. Yes, there have been others (German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish) but these were never more than the expression of a physical urge. You were always the one!

Dear Italian,
It has always been you. No one else has ever touched me so deeply. No one else has driven me so wild with passion. Yes, there have been others (Dutch, German, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish) but these were never more than the expression of a physical urge. You were always the one!

Dear Polish,
It has always been you. No one else has ever touched me so deeply. No one else has driven me so wild with passion. Yes, there have been others (Dutch, German, Italian, , Portuguese, Russian, Spanish) but these were never more than the expression of a physical urge. You were always the one!

Dear Portuguese,
It has always been you. No one else has ever touched me so deeply. No one else has driven me so wild with passion. Yes, there have been others (Dutch, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish) but these were never more than the expression of a physical urge. You were always the one!

Dear Russian,
It has always been you. No one else has ever touched me so deeply. No one else has driven me so wild with passion. Yes, there have been others (Dutch, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish) but these were never more than the expression of a physical urge. You were always the one!

Dear Swedish,
Yes, we’ve only just met. Still, no one else has ever touched me so deeply. No one else has driven me so wild with passion. Yes, there have been others, but these were never more than the expression of a physical urge. You will always be the one!

Dear Dutch,

As you know, you were not my childhood sweetheart. But when I first met you in later life in the Netherlands, you captured my heart. But you were never that interested in me. You seem to have a thing going with English, and don't seem to believe anyone would have an interest in you. In fact, you seem to find it incredulous that anyone would be at all interested in you, let along spend thousands of hours pursuing you. You could almost say it is unrequited love. So if you run off with English, many of your suitors will be left waiting at the church door. You seem to look more and more like English every day. You are not interested in your own computers, your own movies, your own songs, your own sports, except possibly for fietsen and honkbal. With global warming and sea level rising, I fear that you are not building your dikes high enough. Amsterdam and Rotterdam may become Amsterpond and Rotterlake, and you won't care because you will have emigrated to England.

Met vriendelijke groeten,

... tommus

Speakeasy! What a flirt!