Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

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Khayyam
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Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

Postby Khayyam » Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:14 pm

I've met heaps of people who had learned or were learning English as a second language mainly for practical/academic/business reasons, but I've never met anyone who got into it primarily because they loved it for its own sake. (Or at least, no one's ever told me that's what they did.) And I've only ever heard English learners complain about the difficulty of the language, not praise it for its positive qualities. So I wonder: are any of you learning English mainly or only because you love it? It would thrill me to meet someone who got into English because they'd read an English-language work translated into their native language and they felt called to learn English so they could read the original.

Edit: I realize that I'm coming from a rather privileged position here as an American citizen and native English speaker, and i don't mean to imply that I think less of you if you're learning English out of economic necessity. But I love my native language for its own sake very much, and it'd be nice to hear from an English learner who has something nice to say about it.
Last edited by Khayyam on Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

Postby Aloyse » Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:25 pm

I think most people never have the opportunity to decide to learn English because they love it.
It's a compulsory subject since primary school in a lot of countries.

People who major in English at university may be the ones who continue learning English because they love it.
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Re: Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

Postby tungemål » Wed Mar 23, 2022 5:02 pm

Since English is not optional and I've learned it since I was 10, I don't really think about this question. I don't study it anymore either, since my level is more than functional and I want to improve in other languages. But I do like the language. A couple of things I like:
- The different dialects, particularily British ones
- The fact that it's closely related to old Norse so there are some interesting etymological connections to Norwegian.
- The flexibility of the grammar is interesting: in contrast to other germanic languages, in English you can often use a noun as a verb and a verb as a noun. Categories are fluid between noun, verb and adjective, which is kind of cool.
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Re: Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

Postby språker » Wed Mar 23, 2022 7:13 pm

Being ubiquitous and a necessity, English has a special place for all us who learned English as a second language. It is a bit like children, who usually don't give much thought to how they love their parents. The moment of initial love is a bit too far away, contrary to those who just started (compare people who just became religious with those who was born into a religion).

I suppose that most non-English natives on this forum are guilty of being busy focusing on our more recent loves, not always seeing the beauty of what we already acquired. We also tend to like things we put a lot of effort into, the harder the more, and if we already know English quite well? Our mother tongue always holds a special place though.
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Re: Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

Postby einzelne » Wed Mar 23, 2022 7:41 pm

Me!
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Re: Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

Postby zenmonkey » Thu Mar 24, 2022 4:01 am

I didn't choose to learn English but I did learn it at 8 or 9.
I love so many aspects of it.

Even if I had learned it later, I'd still love it.
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Re: Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

Postby Le Baron » Fri Mar 25, 2022 3:53 pm

Obviously I'm not learning it, but in the last few years I have been reading more about English. In the past I didn't pay attention to accents and dialects in the U.S, but I now pay more attention and and ask questions.

It's nice to know not everyone has to pursue English as a mere stepping stone to employment and schooling opportunities. That some will do it just for the pleasure of it.
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Re: Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

Postby mrwarper » Thu Apr 28, 2022 7:56 pm

Regarding "economic necessity" and such, I think a lot of people tend to grossly overestimate how necessary it is to learn foreign languages, whether geopolitically privileged or otherwise. That may indeed be the case for immigrants, but you can bet the end of your back that for most people it is not necessary at all -- even in our modern-day, extended mobility world. People who learn English, Spanish, or whatever without ever being to a country where these are spoken may learn them mostly out of seemingly 'practical' reasons (basically going with some hype), but hardly necessity. Still, I agree 'love' is a minority reason.

And I put 'love' in quotes because how can you truly love something for its own sake without having gotten into it in the first place -- that's a bit of a conundrum to me. But maybe it's not that important.

With all the caveats above (i.e. I don't think we're discussing this on really firm grounds) and a couple more, maybe I fit the bill... ;D

I didn't choose to study English, just like I didn't choose to study math, it was all part of the school system syllabus. However, my parents cultivated my love for learning, and that is what I think made all the difference. Unlike most of my co-students, I learned early on that math was not only interesting in itself but it was also 'useful' (i.e. it could be applied to other stuff I was interested in), and that only made me even more interested in it. And it took a few more years, but the same happened with English, and everything else for that matter. It was only in college that I bumped into study matters that I didn't 'love', and in retrospect I would say it was more of a syllabus design problem.

But syllabus and studies only take you so far. At the time here that was a B2 level for languages, and back then I never did anything that was not required -- I had more stuff on my plate, and I was not focused on languages. It was still interesting, though, and useful, so slowly but surely I kept practicing for years and went all the way up to C2, and eventually I became a qualified (read: certified) teacher, if not out of 'love', at least purely out of my own volition. It was no small order, and neither was it a requirement of any kind anywhere, or part of any plan whatsoever.

All of that said, though, I don't think there's anything special about English -- I believe things would have been pretty much the same, had I studied Spanish or French instead ;)
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Re: Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

Postby Le Baron » Thu Apr 28, 2022 8:02 pm

mrwarper wrote:All of that said, though, I don't think there's anything special about English -- I believe things would have been pretty much the same, had I studied Spanish or French instead ;)

Apart from the fact that it would have excluded you from being able to actively post on an English-based forum like this.
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Re: Are any of you learning English purely or mainly as a labor of love?

Postby mrwarper » Thu Apr 28, 2022 8:07 pm

Le Baron wrote:Apart from the fact that it would have excluded you from being able to actively post on an English-based forum like this.
I am as unsure what you mean by 'actively' as I am sure I'd be posting in some non-English-language-based forum like this :)
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