A language learners’ forum

Another thing my target languages have in common is that your comprehension really suffers if you’re not familiar with grammar, but maybe that’s true for all languages.

They all have alphabets, and they don't have an insane spelling like the one of English. (Ok the Greek one is probably the worst among them, but still. Even though English is the language I'm the most confident with, I can't pronounce correctly even simple high frequency words like wood. Hand, and, and end all sounds the same when they come out from my mouth.

Of the ones I am currently actively pursuing (Chinese, Malay, Tamil), all are official languages in Singapore.

I rarely speak them.
I barely meet native speakers.
I have little intention of travelling to countries where they are spoken.
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I generally enjoy listening, reading, and watching TV.
I'm generally proud of what I can do, instead of worrying (too much) about what I can't do.
Methods don't matter. Sometimes I reach my mini-goals no matter the method. Sometimes I don't.

I learn languages which are helpful in my academic work. English, Hebrew, Arabic, French and Russian have one conflict in common - Suez Crisis. The Soviet Union did not participate directly but was active on a political field.
Mandarin is mostly for fun, but this can be joined with the former ones to the category of languages of countries which took part in military conflicts after the second world war.

I associate both French and Swedish with the color blue.
They're both Indo-European languages that are both similar to English (although in different ways).
They sort of have a shared history, that being the vikings of Normandy.
Both France and Sweden have their own coffee cultures.