Does the time investment in a new language put you off learning it?

General discussion about learning languages
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IronMike
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Re: Does the time investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby IronMike » Sun Apr 18, 2021 1:24 am

rdearman wrote:Having learned one other language does that put you off learning another? If so, why? If not, why?

Nope, not at all. I study languages for fun. Even for Russian, my work language which I have to study seriously annually, it's still fun. I'm picking up German now and the time investment is certainly worth it.
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sfuqua
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Re: Does the time investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby sfuqua » Sun Apr 18, 2021 1:40 am

I have no discipline about stayng with a language when it bores me, so I start new languages all the time.
I'm not trying to get anywhere; if I'm enjoying studying, I'm already where I want to be. :D
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Re: Does the time investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:28 am

I’ve learned to seriously curtail my ambitions. Forget mastery of all four domains! Passive intermediate comprehension is good enough. That’s gives me a lot of Netflix to watch!

I’ve got young kids, traveling the world through TV is plenty rewarding.
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RyanSmallwood
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Re: Does the time investment in a new language put you off learning it?

Postby RyanSmallwood » Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:05 pm

Part of the reason I like Listening-Reading so much, is that it makes it a lot easier to commit to a language because I can start learning alongside doing the things I want to do in the language much earlier. So Mandarin is a huge time investment, but a lot of that time is learning from books I want to read, so it makes it easier to keep it up. Of course it doesn't eliminate the need for more traditional means of study, so there's still a time investment, but being able to learn from interesting native media without sacrificing comprehension or speed in the beginner/intermediate stages makes a big difference.

It also makes it more worthwhile to dabble in languages I may not take to a high level. If there's a certain languages where I don't have enough books I'm interested in, or don't want to commit the time to over other things, I can still get a general idea of how it works and enjoy the audiobooks with the help of translation even if I never get to the level where I can read stuff unassisted.
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