How do you/did you choose which languages you learn/ed?

General discussion about learning languages
alaart
Green Belt
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Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
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Re: How do you/did you choose which languages you learn/ed?

Postby alaart » Thu Apr 22, 2021 5:49 pm

Wow, very interesting answers. Here is mine:

German - as a native.
English - in school and through media.

Dutch - by chance. Didn' t manage to get into music university in Germany, heard it is easier in the Netherlands, so I moved and joined University there.

Portuguese - I was studying a lot of Jazz and a lot of Jazz standards are Brazilian songs, I learned it with the idea of singing in Portuguese while I play guitar, but I dropped guitar before I could do that.

Japanese - I had a brief period of intense consumption of Manga and such as a teenager, but what stuck was the love for soundtracks and Japanese music, and even after I stopped being interested in Japanese things I continued listening to composers and analyzed many soundtracks.

So one could say these 3 languages are all music related and Japanese and Portuguese were kind of on my "life bucket list", because I was listening to music in both languages for quite some years before I studied them.

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I then started learning Chinese. This might be the first choice as a language learner or language lover, rather than a music lover. When I studied Japanese I started chatting through all kind of Japanese-looking people I met through town, and accidentally I made some Chinese and Taiwanese friends like that (they were not offended, but rather invited me to Chinese activities and such). +the Chinese courses in University were just next door, I already "knew the characters" (turns out I didn't), and I was looking for creating opportunities for myself and thought Chinese was not so bad. I also had studied Chinese history before, so had some interest all along.

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And the two I am planning to develop further, but I really don't know them that well yet:

Spanish - I rarely met Portuguese or Brazilian people by chance, but I met so many Mexicans and other Latin Americans, and some of them could speak Portuguese and spoke with me in Portuguese. When I took Portuguese classes in Germany, everybody could speak Spanish but me and all my classmates spoke about Bolivia or something all the time. Also some Portuguese history classes were in Spanish and I had a hard time following them :roll: - yeah, I guess the Spanish department kind of dominates Portuguese at my University. I also had 4 Mexican roommates here in Japan for a year. When I went to a Peru-an restaurant here in Japan, nobody could speak Japanese or English, so I spoke in Portunhol. Yeah, Spanish is kind of dominant, and it always dilutes my Portuguese. So I wanted to study it to make it distinct in my brain and keep my Portuguese pure. What else, lots of delicious food, music and travel opportunities. I think it would be a rich culture to invest into, and hope I will find the time again to do so.

Korean - another language I underestimated the difficulty of. :lol: - my German friend has a Korean wife. I went to South Korea for his wedding and traveled there for a week. I'm also exposed to Korea and Korean culture through my classmates in the Japanology or Sinology department, who are just crazy about Korea. Then of course I met some Koreans here and there through my studies in Japanese and Korean culture is present in Japan. Since I life in Asia right now, Korean is just a language that fits in very nicely, a lot of Asians know and love it. Oh, and Korean is my favorite food. Also I am interested in studying more about North Korea. Finally, I like the sound of the language, which just sounds very pleasant.
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sporedandroid
Blue Belt
Posts: 656
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 6:54 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (heritage/intermediate), Hebrew (A2-B1)
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Re: How do you/did you choose which languages you learn/ed?

Postby sporedandroid » Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:33 am

Spanish- It’s my heritage language. I’m very rusty at it. I have a good listening comprehension for my family’s dialect, but other dialects are hit or miss. I’m not too great at reading. I struggle with formal language. I tried to listen to Entiende Tu Mente and it actually seemed slightly harder than listening to podcasts in Hebrew.

English- It’s not the first language I learned, but I’d say it’s my native language.

French- I went to French immersion for a year. I think I ended up understanding it pretty well, but I was too shy to speak a lot. When I listen to French podcasts for learners or something with clear speech and a lot of context I can often get the gist. Same thing with Wikipedia articles. I’m not sure if it’s due to French immersion.

Icelandic- The first language I actually chose to learn. There was several reasons I chose to learn it. One reason was because I watched a documentary about a savant learning Icelandic. They said it was an extremely hard language, so I got curious. It also helped that I enjoyed a lot of music from Iceland. I don’t exactly remember what level I got to, but it was a very intense language to study. I ended up not sticking to it because I didn’t really have a consistent study schedule to begin with. In 2019 I visited Iceland for the second time, that sort of brought back my interest. I think it helps that I’m already into language learning, so I have a better idea of how to approach it. I’m thinking of studying it again in about a year or two.

Other Scandinavian languages- I didn’t really get into any particular Scandinavian language all that seriously. I just find them sort of cool, but it’s hard to decide which one. I mainly studied them to sort of compare them to Icelandic. I think I got the most into Danish. I sort of liked that the simpler grammar made it easier to read articles compared to Icelandic.

Hebrew- I got into Hebrew a few years after I didn’t do any language learning at all. It started with a general interest in Jewish culture rather than a particular country. It didn’t start with music like the Scandinavian languages. I did end up getting into the music anyways. I thought about going with Yiddish, but I decided to go with Modern Hebrew due to more resources and just having more media. I’m also thinking of getting into reading Biblical Hebrew one of these days.
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