Are you a language tourist?

General discussion about learning languages
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zenmonkey
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Re: Are you a language tourist?

Postby zenmonkey » Thu Jul 21, 2022 4:52 pm

Henkkles wrote:Tourism is all about exploring and enjoying new places for a short period of time without further commitment. It's all about the experience.


Well, then most certainly I'm a tourist. But call me more of a sojourner or traveler.

A tourist returns home with some pictures and knickknacks - the sojourner stays a while, enjoys the experience, and moves along, sometimes hoping to return. There is, in my mind, more of a checklist mentality to the tourist, while the traveler allows more for serendipity to lead the way.
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Re: Are you a language tourist?

Postby leosmith » Fri Jul 22, 2022 2:39 am

I prefer "language hobbyist", unless I'm going to learn the language specifically to travel.
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Re: Are you a language tourist?

Postby mick33 » Fri Jul 22, 2022 5:40 pm

I really like this idea of "language tourism", and it does sound much better than saying dabbling or dabbler. I already wrote about some of my experiences in the How many languages have you dabbled in? thread. I won't repeat what I wrote there, but I will add that Monday I started "visiting" Catalan. I saw a YouTube video in Catalan and was so intrigued I just had to learn a little more of the language. I don't know how long this trip will be or how much Catalan I'll learn right now, but I plan to be back soon. I recognize some sounds and words from Italian and Spanish but not all of them.
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Re: Are you a language tourist?

Postby sporedandroid » Sat Jul 23, 2022 6:53 am

I find it’s a good way to keep me feeling refreshed and motivated if I’m more serious about another language . Right now I’m studying Hebrew, but I’ve plateaued a bit. I still find it hard to read, but at the same time I’m not really learning all that much vocabulary.

Finnish has been my tourist/casual language for a long time. I’ve listened to Finnish music for a long time, so I naturally picked up some random vocabulary just by reading about Finnish music. At the same time I’ve sort of been indifferent about learning Finnish. I just saw it as an “isolated Nordic language” and didn’t think it was worth the trouble. I could learn other Nordic languages with much less effort. I didn’t really know anything about Finnish culture beyond the music and I didn’t mind not understanding Finnish music.

In 2020, I got more into watching YouTube Finnish videos for beginners/learners. I didn’t make much progress and I wasn’t really trying. Recently I’ve been getting more into Finnish. It’s still sort of a tourist language because I couldn’t care less if I study every day or not. I am starting to see more progress because I’m starting to study more intensely. I just don’t make any Anki cards because I don’t want to feel like I have to study every day. So far Finnish has been fun. It probably helps that I’m not taking it seriously. At the same time I wouldn’t be satisfied if I studied all my languages like that.

I started “studying” Finnish in 2020 and maybe even earlier. I’m still a beginner. Even though Hebrew isn’t always fun for me to study, it does show me what I’m capable of. I like being a beginner at Finnish because I still get excited at understanding the words I know. It does help me feel better about only being able to understand 90% of a Hebrew TV show.

I honestly don’t have any reason to study either language seriously. I sort of pick serious languages arbitrarily. I guess to be able to feel capable of something. Modern Hebrew was pretty arbitrary for me. Even language learning is pretty arbitrary. I needed a hobby. I was interested in Judaism. There’s only so far I could take that as a hobby. I also knew I enjoyed language learning. So I decided to learn a “Jewish” language.

Yiddish could have been a better choice, but I didn’t want the hassle of a minority language. Similar issue with Biblical Hebrew. So I just studied Modern Hebrew out of convenience. I didn’t even like how Modern Hebrew sounded at first. I’m still not sure how much I like Israel as a country. I think one way my motivation to learn Hebrew survived was being able to find music I liked in Hebrew relatively quickly. I haven’t been as lucky with German music. Maybe Finnish will eventually become my main serious language. I’ve never “switched” languages before. I’ve only ever quit.
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Re: Are you a language tourist?

Postby Stephendaedalus » Sat Jul 23, 2022 9:27 am

sporedandroid wrote:In 2020, I got more into watching YouTube Finnish videos for beginners/learners.


Hmmm... that's never been effective for me. I mean, memorizing grammatics and conjugations from beginner videos is such a yawn, unless it's for some isolated feature, such as when I spent years on latin doing almost nothing except ramming in the noun declensions. The way I would learn a new language is putting a video conversation or podcast in the background. Sometimes I would pick up a random word that would interest me or, serendipitously, get stuck in my head, and I would simply google them. (Youtube captions usually tell you how it's written. There are several sources for japanese words. Wiktionary is great for romance languages.) After listening to a video for 100 times, I would be slowly building up some sense of the conversation. I would also recommend reading a novel in this way: Get two copies, one in english or your maternal language, and one in the target language. (Of course, I would check each and every new word on wiktionary when I was learning french when there seemed to be disparaties between the original and the translation, and sometimes redirect to the lemma word. With sophisticated and harmonic word orders that deviate between the original and the translation, such as finnish OSV and participle (See my most recent post in "Languages with exotic and interesting features"), you just need to get used to it.) Wikipedia is also great for topics that interest me.

What kind of finnish music interests you?
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Re: Are you a language tourist?

Postby sporedandroid » Sat Jul 23, 2022 4:27 pm

Stephendaedalus wrote:
sporedandroid wrote:In 2020, I got more into watching YouTube Finnish videos for beginners/learners.


Hmmm... that's never been effective for me. I mean, memorizing grammatics and conjugations from beginner videos is such a yawn, unless it's for some isolated feature, such as when I spent years on latin doing almost nothing except ramming in the noun declensions.

What kind of finnish music interests you?

The videos I was watching were entirely in Finnish. They’re just slower and somewhat simplified. Some of them are close to natural speech and some are obviously very simplified. I’d never expect to make progress on videos in English that talk about another language.

I like a lot of genres in Finnish music. I got into a lot of traditional Finnish folk music. I also like indie and some more mainstream pop-rock. I don’t actually like a whole lot of metal besides some Nightwish songs.
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Re: Are you a language tourist?

Postby zgriptsuroica » Mon Jul 25, 2022 1:05 pm

I find that rather than being a tourist, I'm more of a surveyor/comparison shopper. I'll pick up a handful and play around with them, but I'm ultimately looking for the next one that will stick. Some get discarded because I'm unable to find native media that sounds interesting enough, others because I just don't have the time to invest in them to get to a point where they're even remotely useful quickly enough. Eventually, one clicks for me and the others fall to the side while I get serious on that one for a few years. For those that click, I hit plateaus, get burnt out, etc, but I find myself just cycling back through them.
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Re: Are you a language tourist?

Postby Stephendaedalus » Mon Jul 25, 2022 3:00 pm

sporedandroid wrote:
Stephendaedalus wrote:The videos I was watching were entirely in Finnish. They’re just slower and somewhat simplified. Some of them are close to natural speech and some are obviously very simplified. I’d never expect to make progress on videos in English that talk about another language.

I like a lot of genres in Finnish music. I got into a lot of traditional Finnish folk music. I also like indie and some more mainstream pop-rock. I don’t actually like a whole lot of metal besides some Nightwish songs.


Well, good luck. Once you know how to construct finnish sentences like you would construct english sentences, you'll eventually come to realize that while they are grammatically correct sentences, they're not very pleasant-sounding, hence why we've developed some constructions which seem counterintuitive to english. (Consider, for example, why instead of saying "I bought a car which has a bigger trunk, in order to travel with my family.", you might say "In order to travel with my family, I bought a car which has a bigger trunk." In finnish both word orders would be grammatically correct, but both would sound ugly to me, hence we'll go with the participle "Ostin auton, jossa on isompi takatila, matkustaakseni perheeni kanssa." becomes "Ostin isomman takatilan omaavan auton matkustaakseni perheeni kanssa." When you rephrase any of these, in either language, to a question, it becomes quite clear to see the advantages and disadvantages of each rendition.)

As to music, have you heard these: Muuttohaukka, Syksyn Sävel, Hiljainen Laulu, Kuuran Kukka, Vaikene Sydän, Lauralle ?
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Re: Are you a language tourist?

Postby Xenops » Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:10 am

zgriptsuroica wrote:I find that rather than being a tourist, I'm more of a surveyor/comparison shopper. I'll pick up a handful and play around with them, but I'm ultimately looking for the next one that will stick. Some get discarded because I'm unable to find native media that sounds interesting enough, others because I just don't have the time to invest in them to get to a point where they're even remotely useful quickly enough. Eventually, one clicks for me and the others fall to the side while I get serious on that one for a few years. For those that click, I hit plateaus, get burnt out, etc, but I find myself just cycling back through them.


I can definitely relate to this, as I’ve spent many years trying to figure out my “language calling”, if you will.

Lately, however, I’ve felt a bit more free to explore without making commitments. I can see myself doing more Finnish, and Welsh has been a regular idea in my brain lately. Also like sporeandroid, I find looking at other languages helpful to gain some perspective. I’m often disappointed with my Japanese ability, but starting from scratch with Korean, I feel better about my Japanese. :D

Being a language tourist allows one gateway to peek into a culture, and I also use it for constructing language purposes.
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Re: Are you a language tourist?

Postby Henkkles » Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:45 am

Xenops wrote:
zgriptsuroica wrote:I find that rather than being a tourist, I'm more of a surveyor/comparison shopper. I'll pick up a handful and play around with them, but I'm ultimately looking for the next one that will stick. Some get discarded because I'm unable to find native media that sounds interesting enough, others because I just don't have the time to invest in them to get to a point where they're even remotely useful quickly enough. Eventually, one clicks for me and the others fall to the side while I get serious on that one for a few years. For those that click, I hit plateaus, get burnt out, etc, but I find myself just cycling back through them.


I can definitely relate to this, as I’ve spent many years trying to figure out my “language calling”, if you will.

Lately, however, I’ve felt a bit more free to explore without making commitments. I can see myself doing more Finnish, and Welsh has been a regular idea in my brain lately. Also like sporeandroid, I find looking at other languages helpful to gain some perspective. I’m often disappointed with my Japanese ability, but starting from scratch with Korean, I feel better about my Japanese. :D

Being a language tourist allows one gateway to peek into a culture, and I also use it for constructing language purposes.

I have to say that I'm thoroughly enjoying Welsh at least. Can't comment on Finnish, it's the language I was raised in. Welsh is so damn fun to pronounce, and it's pretty easy to get a decent routine at no cost. Glossika + Duolingo + Memrise is already a decent bunch of stuff that doesn't have to cost anything.
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