Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

General discussion about learning languages
firewheel
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Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

Postby firewheel » Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:58 am

Hi Friends,

Do you agree that learning a language is a lifetime commitment?

Like there is still something new to learn about a language even if you have been learning it for more than 10 years.

I have been learning my mother tongue Tamil, and English since young until now for almost 30 years. I still learn new vocabulary for both languages till this day.

It makes me feel that learning languages is like a lifelong process.
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bolaobo
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Re: Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

Postby bolaobo » Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:30 pm

Yes, it really is. When someone says they're finished learning a language, I don't know what they mean. Yesterday I learned a new English word!

Even if you get a language to your goal level, you still have to keep using it or it will gradually deteriorate.
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jackb
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Re: Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

Postby jackb » Wed Jan 26, 2022 1:55 pm

When someone says they're finished learning a language, I don't know what they mean.


This is like being finished with the internet. The only way you can really be finished is to stop using it.
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zenmonkey
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Re: Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

Postby zenmonkey » Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:21 pm

firewheel wrote:Do you agree that learning a language is a lifetime commitment?

Languages are infinite, there is always something new. And forgetting is constant.
So while one can commit a lifetime to language learning, I don't feel it is necessarily a lifetime commitment.

My father, a polyglot, has no need or, frankly, the ability, to continue to learn languages. His short-term memory has some issues, he's been fine with English, French, and Spanish which he uses regularly and he can still follow with rusty Yiddish and Portuguese but he's let Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese and Esperanto peel away like old paint. The house of learning was a place he loved, his passions changed or grew smaller, and now that house is just a shack out in the back. We talk about going back to it. Just last week I suggested he reach out to meet people by learning Yiddish again, but he's likely not really interested.

Even without the memory issues, I think he'd be fine not working on language learning anymore - just not his thing for the last 20 years.
It's still a nice shack.

And it's ok. Lifetime commitments can be found elsewhere. Family. Equity. People.

How many people let go of language learning later in life?
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Le Baron
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Re: Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

Postby Le Baron » Wed Jan 26, 2022 3:51 pm

It is indeed, or at any rate long-term. I sometimes think the fad of hyper-polyglottery has redrawn some of the boundaries and that there is some confusion about what several stages long the path of learning actually are. According to the particular individual some feel like they're never really good enough or just 'okay', despite being quite good after many years of plugging away; others are going about calling themselves 'fluent more-or-less' in a slew of languages and designating number/letter distinctions in these 'language collections', after some pre-defined period in which the language is meant to be "learned". Just projects really.

As a lifetime activity (maybe even 'commitment' isn't always the case) it must simply become part of your life and of who you are. Maybe it will ebb and flow and you'll do less of it at some times according to requirements, but some things are so vast that you only ever get part of them. In all languages there's a sort of functional core, so that you don't have to be a linguistic scholar to be a user (just like you don't have to be a professional accountant or an economist to be a user of money). Even that core takes many years to develop to a certain standard. Everyone must be cognisant of this from the example of their native language. It's partly due to how the language reflects cultural experiences (in X language) knowing patterns that everyone else knows which have been passed on culturally. Yet also how flexible they are in usage, which means developing the ability to 'intuit' the ways the basic elements are assembled by different people. This is a lifetime thing, if you really want to be a highly skilled user.
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Re: Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

Postby tungemål » Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:58 pm

Yes, but let's not overemphasise this point, either.
Everyone here knows that it takes time to learn a language, and you'll never know everything, but still, you can learn a language to a good level in merely a year, call it a day and say that you now know the language. You don't have to struggle your whole life studying. After that you use the language (if you're not going to use it, why did you learn it in the first place).
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iguanamon
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Re: Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

Postby iguanamon » Wed Jan 26, 2022 9:18 pm

tungemål wrote:Yes, but let's not overemphasise this point, either.
Everyone here knows that it takes time to learn a language, and you'll never know everything, but still, you can learn a language to a good level in merely a year, call it a day and say that you now know the language. You don't have to struggle your whole life studying. After that you use the language (if you're not going to use it, why did you learn it in the first place).

Exactly!!! I think a lot of newer self-learners think it's all about study. It isn't. After a learner has the basics down, trains listening, speaking and writing. It's about using the language- reading, listening, speaking, writing. I continue to learn new things, but I learn them in context.

I agree that to some extent, a language will be with a dedicated learner for a life time. I wouldn't call it an obligatory commitment, more like, as tungemål said, you just use it over a lifetime. I have a bunch of places I want to visit over the rest of my life, new friends to meet, new books to read, new music to enjoy. Thanks to the languages I've learned, my experiences are and will be enhanced.

Everything starts by learning a language... any language. It's not about hours of study, methods, or techniques. Those are just means to an end.
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sherbert
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Re: Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

Postby sherbert » Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:46 am

Interesting how the verbs "to learn" and "to study" are used interchangeably. I see them as being quite different. I look forward to a time when the "studying" ends and the "learning" begins. "Studying" seems to be much more of a chore, and does not imply mastery. "Learning" suggests more in the realm of personal enrichment, whether it is learning to play the banjo or trying to stack up languages.

Right now I am in a bottleneck of 3 languages (Mandarin, Farsi, Spanish) where I really feel like I am doing a lot of studying but not doing enough actual "learning" sometimes, just sort of staying afloat with podcasts and grammar reviews. It is hard to split limited free time into 3 dissimilar languages.

Maybe 15 minutes on Duolingo a day yields better results over time than copying out a colloquial grammar book by hand.

Also there are cultural implications as to how societies differentiate or don't differentiate between "studying" and "learning". In Spanish there is "estudiar" and "aprender", but in Mandarin there is no distinction. The same verb is used for both.
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Re: Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

Postby zgriptsuroica » Fri Jan 28, 2022 9:35 am

I think it really depends on why you're learning the language. The factory supervisor or constructor foreman that just wants to relay simple instructions to their employees, the academic in a field where German journals still feature heavily but with no intention of publishing in German and the person who decides they're going to learn French and become a published author in French all have different goals and needs. It's important to understand what exactly you want to do with a language and be realistic about it. The academic can get away with drilling some vocab and grammar, but doesn't really need to worry about working on production skills. In a sense, they can "finish" a language, because they only need it for a concrete, rather specific use. Sure, Assyriologists might pick up a couple new words here and there every year, but they probably need a fraction of the vocabulary that someone who wanted to actually live in Germany would need, for example.

Languages are tools, so no shame in admitting it if you already get everything you need out of one or no longer find it useful and decide to set it down for a time.
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Re: Learning a language is a lifetime commitment

Postby IronMike » Sat Feb 19, 2022 11:53 pm

firewheel wrote:Hi Friends,

Do you agree that learning a language is a lifetime commitment?

Like there is still something new to learn about a language even if you have been learning it for more than 10 years.

I have been learning my mother tongue Tamil, and English since young until now for almost 30 years. I still learn new vocabulary for both languages till this day.

It makes me feel that learning languages is like a lifelong process.

I have been "learning" Russian since the bright and beautiful day in early August 1986 when I walked into class in Monterey, CA, and was dumbstruck that the teachers never said a word in English through seven hours of class.

Что это такое? Это кольцо.*

Like you, I learn new words and new turns of phrase in Russian every year. I slowly improve. I suspect I'll be "learning" Russian for yet another 30+ years (prays to God for that many more years on this earth). Long story, long, Yes, learning a language is a lifetime commitment.

*"What is this? This is a ring." The first hour was the instructor pointing to things and saying what they were, then having us repeat it. I was honestly shocked when he would respond to every correct answer: Хорошо (ha-ra-SHOW). I thought I accidentally found myself in a Chinese Mandarin class.
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