Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

General discussion about learning languages
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Le Baron
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby Le Baron » Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:05 pm

einzelne wrote:Definitely, not just you. I was reading a lot in my native Russian recently and was overjoyed to devour one book after another. And I mean books translated into Russian. You read way faster, can retain more information, can see more conceptual connections since you don't have to spare your valuable mental energy on deciphering the linguistic aspect of the text. No need to check your dictionary, less fatigue etc.

...

Right now my 'fear' is at its highest. Sometimes I look back at the languages I've dabbled with and shudder. But who knows, may be in some distant future the life will be calm and stable again and I would venture into another language journey. But I'm definitely not as enthusiastic as I was 10 or 15 years ago.

I cut some bits out, but the entire post resonated with me. After a three month 'non-learning' period I've been able to see the exact same thing regarding how much pleasure there is in reading natively or in languages where I'm very comfortable. I just recently did the same in Spanish that you did with Italian and it was tiresome above all.

And indeed in reading for information where I want to do the minimum of work and get as much as possible with the best retention, I wonder how much I should farm out to other languages really.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby Iversen » Wed Mar 22, 2023 12:22 am

Reading the messages above it strikes me that the worst fear could be the fear of becoming afraid. I have still the same hunger after reading things in languages I don't really understand and maybe even listening to such things. But when you get the absolute silly idea that you can study the whole Slavic language family plus Greek and (sometimes) Irish and Albanian and Indonesian and Esperanto while keep the Germanic and Romance languages plus Latin alive in parallel then maybe a little bit of fear of the unknown would have been a good thing.

By the way: I intend to resume my painting activity now that I can reserve a room for the turpentine fumes, and I have also just had my piano tuned and plucked a few notes on it for the first time in twenty years - so maybe I ought to be really afraid of my tendency to start far too many projects at any one time.. :cry:
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby lichtrausch » Wed Mar 22, 2023 3:03 am

I had a great deal of apprehension about really committing to Mandarin, and my apprehension turned out to be warranted as the process has taken a ridiculous amount of time. But now I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's really bright, so no regrets.

I also had some apprehension about getting into Russian and the Slavic family in general, but it turned out that with modern tools and resources there is nothing to be afraid about and I've encountered very little friction. Now I'm even dabbling around in Polish and Ukrainian and just generally having a lot of fun (I have no intention of speaking these languages anytime soon so I'm not worried about mixing things up).

I always find enough time to maintain passive skills in my languages, so I've never had this oft mentioned experience of coming back to a language and having forgotten large chunks of it. Perhaps this makes me less trepid about starting new ones.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby leosmith » Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:13 am

I don’t fear the commitment of learning a new language, but I’m leaning towards improving the ones I already speak. I’m maintaining 10 languages now, and I love how simple my routine has become – one language per day. I used to spend more time on my weaker languages, less on my strong ones, and it was a scheduling nightmare. Now my levels are good enough to do a 10 day cycle for each language which gives me great relief. And I use the same procedure for each language: Anki/Writing, Conversation, Reading, Netflix/YouTube.

While doing this new routine, I recently completed a 500 hour spurt to patch the biggest hole in my language knowledge, Chinese reading, and it was a great success, so I’m tempted to continue doing spurts where I see weaknesses.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby Gaoling97 » Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:15 am

To be honest, not really, at least not in the way I think you are describing it.

I fear starting new languages because I personally find the beginning stages to be a lot more time/energy-intensive and difficult than what comes after. I don't really enjoy learning basic grammar and find pronunciation in general to be very difficult and frustrating. Whereas at the intermediate level, it's true that progress won't be nearly as fast...but I know what to do, and I do enjoy it. Even if there is a new word in every single sentence of novels, I am perfectly willing to sit there for hours grinding away studying vocabulary.

It's kind of the reason it's difficult for me to study languages casually. I have a laundry list of languages that I have wanted to study for years now, but I can't because I don't want to have a bad foundation in the language, and don't really have the time to make sure that foundation is good.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby PeterMollenburg » Wed Mar 22, 2023 7:36 am

Anyone with a good deal of language learning under their belt, who's strived to improve and put several hundred if not thousands of hours into language learning will be aware to a large degree what learning a new language to a decent level (let's say B2 or beyond) entails. Perhaps depending on to what extent we are juggling other commitments or pastimes (or sth else that draws on our available time, eg health issues) will equate to whether we experience fear, excitement, trepidation, concern, apprehension, a combination of theses or something else altogether when looking to learn a new language.

Personally, I restarted Norwegian last year with some apprehension, careful consideration of time available and other commitments including other languages. I didn't want to drop it again.

And yet I'm facing a situation where logic tells me I should drop it. Maintenance with my other languages is not as much nor as diverse as I'd like it to be, but I'll keep going with all my languages for now anyway. Getting serious unexpectedly about another activity in my life is taking a lot of time away from Norwegian (and other language maintenance) to the point that I haven't progressed for a several weeks now with any of my learning materials. There is some room for that to change, so fingers crossed my holding pattern turns into a grounding followed by a new take off.

Fear or apprehension when considering learning a new language I feel is quite understandable when one has so little time to study to the point that learning rarely ever takes place at home anymore, while it was once the main location of study.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby språker » Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:20 am

One thing that keeps me off starting new languages is that I really like the idea of knowing a handful languages really well, full stop. For one, starting a new one would mean less hours spent on the others, but I might also have a bout of OCD, in that I dislike the idea of having a list of "half-ways" languages.

Maybe my fear is related to the "sunken-cost fallacy". I studied French between 2003 and 2013 but didn't get to the level where I could just join a group conversation with natives, or read a novel. When someone asks me what languages I know, I feel reluctant of mentioning French, feeling a bit embarrassed that I don't know it as well as I would like to, especially given the time spent.

I thus fear starting another language until I've reached a high level in Lithuanian and maybe also resurrected and continued my French. My fear completely stops my wanderlust! Right now, the only way I'd overcome my fear would be if I suddenly would fall in love with a new language...
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby Sae » Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:10 am

I'm probably the opposite and I have to stop myself because I have to be realistic. There are a lot of languages I find interesting and think would be cool to learn. And the more inaccessible a language is the more interested I am by it but I'm not sure why maybe it's because by being so far removed from my own language, it's more exciting. And I watch videos on different languages and end up going "that's cool" and "wouldn't it be neat to try learning it". Like I ask myself, once I've learned Mongolian to a good level do I want to try Kalmylk or Oirat? Because they're related and I've found stories told in those languages. And if I were to learn Kalmyk I could flex to Star Wars nerds and say "I can speak Ewok" and then do my Chewbacca impression because I'm an idiot. In learning Tuvan, I ask myself could I learn Yakut or Kazakh or Turkish? Then I also wonder about other languages that interest me, hearing Manchu, which sounds like if Mongolian, Mandarin and Korean had a baby and as a language interested me. And I can list more languages I've done this with...

So maybe there is some element of honeymoon delusion sticking with me. I control those urges because if i don't, I won't get good at any language.

However, I think in picking 3 difficult-to-learn languages to learn alongside each other does mean I have gained some perspective where if I learn a 4th* one day, then I have to think about how difficult that language is and how realistically I can manage it and stay practiced in my other languages. Balancing my language learning around a full time job, hobbies and other things has been a challenge and one i don't think I am as on-top-off as I'd like to be and thus progress is slower than I'd like it to be.


*I'm not counting Toki Pona because for me it's an exercise in improving circumlocution, not to comprehensively learn.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby einzelne » Wed Mar 22, 2023 6:56 pm

Le Baron wrote:I just recently did the same in Spanish that you did with Italian and it was tiresome above all.


I guess in our excitement about the idea to read something in the original (or to watch, to listen, to speak) we can easily forget how much time and energy it requires — first, to attain this magical oasis and, second, to retain all the acquired skills at the advanced level.

May be I (and, it seems to me, you as well) represent a specific subset of language learners. I've seen folks who seem to be genuinely happy with their mostly textbook level of languages sprinkled with some language learning podcasts (you can easily recognize this type of people on YouTube for, instead of discussing books or TV shows they enjoy in their target languages, they discuss their notebooks, note taking systems, software etc.) But since "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world' and I just find it depressing as hell to know that I will probably stay for years, if not decades squeezed in a linguistic nutshell the size of an elementary school kid.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby tastyonions » Wed Mar 22, 2023 7:54 pm

einzelne wrote:
Le Baron wrote:I just recently did the same in Spanish that you did with Italian and it was tiresome above all.

I guess in our excitement about the idea to read something in the original (or to watch, to listen, to speak) we can easily forget how much time and energy it requires — first, to attain this magical oasis and, second, to retain all the acquired skills at the advanced level.

May be I (and, it seems to me, you as well) represent a specific subset of language learners. I've seen folks who seem to be genuinely happy with their mostly textbook level of languages sprinkled with some language learning podcasts (you can easily recognize this type of people on YouTube for, instead of discussing books or TV shows they enjoy in their target languages, they discuss their notebooks, note taking systems, software etc.) But since "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world' and I just find it depressing as hell to know that I will probably stay for years, if not decades squeezed in a linguistic nutshell the size of an elementary school kid.

Interesting discussion.

Many times I've played with the idea of ditching all but one or a couple of the languages I've learned and trying to push only those to a really, really high (near-native educated professional) level in every area. But the lure of novelty continues to draw me for the time being.
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