What languages have you attempted to learn?

[Ug_Caveman]

Japanese ... for 'business' (which, as an eight-year-old, I absolutely knew what I was talking about.)

That phrase "learn it for business" has got to be one of my favourite "sounds good but little substance" nuggets where people haven't really thought what they were saying through. Eight-year-old me heard my brother say it once (my brother is considerably more business/economics interested than I am) and I latched onto this idea that speaking Japanese would suddenly make me better at "business-ing". Of course, I've now worked out that plan doesn't make much sense given that I don't really want to work in Japan and don't have the time to dedicate to a language of such complexity.

Working as a teacher I often hear kids says their life plan is to "own a business... Like Lord Sugar** does!" - of course, when I ask them what Lord Sugar actually does - or even better, what his original business that made his fortune was actually called, they have no answer.


(**For those outside the UK: despite his name Lord Sugar is NOT a character from a children's cartoon he's a very real businessman whose company originally made electronic goods and is a reality TV judge on the UK version of 'The Apprentice')

[Sae]

Japanese ... for 'business' (which, as an eight-year-old, I absolutely knew what I was talking about.)

That phrase "learn it for business" has got to be one of my favourite "sounds good but little substance" nuggets where people haven't really thought what they were saying through. Eight-year-old me heard my brother say it once (my brother is considerably more business/economics interested than I am) and I latched onto this idea that speaking Japanese would suddenly make me better at "business-ing". Of course, I've now worked out that plan doesn't make much sense given that I don't really want to work in Japan and don't have the time to dedicate to a language of such complexity.

Working as a teacher I often hear kids says their life plan is to "own a business... Like Lord Sugar** does!" - of course, when I ask them what Lord Sugar actually does - or even better, what his original business that made his fortune was actually called, they have no answer.


(**For those outside the UK: despite his name Lord Sugar is NOT a character from a children's cartoon he's a very real businessman whose company originally made electronic goods and is a reality TV judge on the UK version of 'The Apprentice')

Although I too am from the UK and know who you're talking about, but "Lord Sugar" seems more like a British version of a sugar daddy than cartoon character to me.

[Le Baron]

Whenever I see the antonomasia (there's a word for you!) 'Lord Sugar', I can only hear Catherine Tate saying it in that Estuary accent as that surly schoolgirl she plays.

[CDR]

In chronological order:

English - My native language. I did "Hooked on Phonetics" as a kid because I had trouble with the letters, and later I had trouble with spelling.

French - I'm Canadian, I started learning at 5 years old in school. I studied in school until I was 12 years old, at which point I moved to the US. When I returned to Canada I was no longer required to take it, since I missed a few years. I never did well in the classes, I would barely pass.

Japanese - The first language I decided to study. I think I was 19 or 20. I stopped Japanese to study Esperanto, but that did not last long. I returned to Japanese again for a few more months, before stopping completely to learn Portuguese. Before stopping for Portuguese, I over learned the Kana, and got ~500 Kanji into RTK. I don't recall doing much else.

Brazilian Portuguese - When I was 20/21, I met a bunch of Brazilian exchange students, and then started dating one of them. Not long after we started dating, I decided to stop Japanese and start Portuguese. This was a good choice, because she later became my wife .

I worked through a bunch of stuff. Duolingo, Clozemaster, Living Language, Teach Yourself, Talking Brazilian, 1/3 of Glossika, Lingua da Gente, NHK Portuguese, etc. I used it in my degree as well, using every paper I had to write to source things in Portuguese and practice reading. So, I was very active in my studies for about 5 years. When I finished University, my reading level drop dramatically, as I was no longer finding reasons to read things.

French v2 - Near the end of University, I realized I needed a language credit. I decided to do a French Listening course. It was considered equivalent to high school level Grade 10 French, something which, back in high school, I was not qualified to take. This invigorated a general interest in French for a semester but, once the course ended, so did my extra studies.

Chinese - In 2021, I was going stir-crazy, I spent most of my time studying IT stuff, but I was aching to do something else. So I decided to learn a language. I did Chinese on Duolingo for 4–5 months, before quitting in 2022 to focus completely on Japanese.

Japanese v2 - So in 2022 I decided it was time to return to Japanese after giving up 8 or 9 years ago. The process is ongoing .