Lisa wrote:I'm far from an expert on language learning in general, so while this all seems logical after having thought a lot about my own learning decisions, I could be wrong in general...
To clarify, though, I wasn't really thinking about what might lead to success, just things that seem very likely to end in failure. Success requires also (I think) the personal characteristic of determination; to keep going rather than giving up.
Also... if you actually don't like your needed language it must be very difficult to learn. This is hard for me to imagine myself, although I suspect it's not uncommon.
Earlier comments don't take into account the relative difficulty of learning different languages (which is very specific to your own NL, the specific TL, and other languages you know). A less useful but easy-for-you language that you really want to learn might be more likely to end in success, than a difficult-for-you language that you need, but are not excited by.
We are all discussing this mainly based on our experience and observations. I find that to be more valuable for use of the information than any biased research made on a totally different population than us.
Yes, success definitely requires personal characteristics, but those can get improved by training, and they are also affected by motivation.
If you don't like the needed language, it is very difficult to learn, I confirm. But nevertheless, liking is not the number one criterion (the most common example are the English learners. Nobody asks, whether you like English. If you do, good for you. If you don't, your problem).
You're absolutely right about the difficulty factor and the NL-TL combination. Nevertheless, this is true only to some extent. Anglophones rely on some official difficulty judgement, usually based on the famous FSI list. The rest of us has nothing like that. Apart from very obvious comparisons (yep, Polish is likely to be much much easier for me than Mandarin), the rest are just myths, and clichés. Everybody says how "French is harder than German for a Czech", but I have yet to see any sort of official research based or at least recent arguments. Or at least anything logical. The sort of "well, we used a lot of German words" argument was true for my grandmother, not for me.
So, I wonder whether "this is harder/easier language" isn't actually more affected by how much we like it, than vice versa.
Learning a language for pleasure certainly counts as a hobby, and certainly hobbies are important! It's still a decision on what hobbies you have and how much time you spend on them, since we all are limited to 24 hours in a day. And probably there is a limit on the number of hours your brain wants to study languages. If you study one language for pleasure you won't be spending those hours on a language you need to learn.
Well, it is still no lost opportunity. If you choose to learn a language as a hobby, there is no reason to regret not having time for knitting. And if you choose to knit, no reason to regret not learning language. If you do both, you are clearly ok with slower progress both in your Greek studies and in the length of your newest scarf. I don't think we should think about it as a lost opportunity, or our whole society will soon spin even deeper into madness.
Yeah 24h in a day, so hobbies are after jobs, eating, etc. But "limit on hours your brain wants to study languages" doesn't seem language specific either. If you need the language (and it is not just a hobby), than your likes are sort of secondary. If you have it as a hobby, you simply do what feels good at the given moment.
How to split those three hours between a language I need and the one I want (in my case right now: German vs Italian), that is always a tough question. Not sure how others do it (we have many good examples on the forum, but not sure we can generalize), but I do it very simply. German time counts as a sort of unpaid work time for me. Italian is my hobby time.
Are your four foreign languages more hobby or need languages? I need to read your log, it looks great!