Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

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

Postby einzelne » Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:03 pm

tastyonions wrote: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.


It really depends on your goals and personality. For me, languages are means and not the aim in itself. I dabbled with a couple of them out of sheer curiosity, of course, (I love, for instance, the sound of Swedish) but it never lasted than a couple of weeks. The novelty flair wears off rather quickly with the thought: "All right but what are you actually going to do with it?"
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby tastyonions » Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:06 pm

Well, my problem is that once I learn a bit of a language, my ambitions for it grow out of all proportion to what a realistic assessment of my available time and resources would dictate. I want to be C2 in all of them, dangit.

:lol:
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby gsbod » Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:45 pm

I feel a lot more relaxed about things having reached an advanced level in German. It was the third language I'd seriously attempted to study, so took a while to get there... But I think it helps in two ways. Firstly I feel I've proved my worth in general. And secondly, I have a proper understanding of what the costs and benefits are of getting a language to this level, at least as far as my own situation is concerned. In particular, I can see how a few things came together in terms of opportunities and motivations to learn the language at a critical time that I could never have predicted when I started out.

It's unlikely, but not impossible, that I can repeat the same thing with a different language, but rather than finding it depressing I actually find it quite liberating. If I'm in the mood to pick up a language with more modest aims in mind, I can still get something out of it without worrying about what might or might not happen in the future. And I have more than enough books and media in English and German to keep me occupied when I'm in the mood for that kind of culture.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby Le Baron » Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:10 pm

tastyonions wrote: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.

This is essentially what I did. Spanish is the only 'new' language I have pursued and over the last couple of years any novelty or 'wanderlust' for more languages has just disappeared.

We all have different goals and I'd never say anyone's is right or wrong, but personally I lean towards your reply. Maybe also not 'near-native' for everything, but a small group where the languages are completely functional for speaking and I can read and write reasonably if I have to (which I've achieved for a few languages). For that I'm happy even to just be 'tri-lingual' in a smaller world. And that it's based around the notion of a realistic appreciation of time/effort. Because I don't want to 75 or 85 and marking myself as 'beginner' in this or 'intermediate' in that. I want more years of using than learning for those languages.
I doubt it's ever easy to quell the curiosity and in the shadows, at a desk or in moments I keep on nursing some languages, like Latin from as far back as school, but with no great expectations.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby german2k01 » Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:02 pm

Fear is a kind of enemy that does not exist if you take an action. I have a fear of literally doing anything out of my comfort zone. Literally.

However, things turn out really well in reality against what fear is telling you. For example, I was trembling about how would I do well in my weekend job since my level in German was not up to the mark. I was having so many unwanted thoughts before starting I did not know how would my German boss reacted if I did not understand his instructions in German. Things did not turn out terribly bad.

Last year my mind conceived of traveling from Norway all the way to Germany by land. I was traveling there the first time around. My fear was holding me back to do it. However, I went against it and took action. Nothing terrible happened the way my fear was telling me to delay it. I traveled easily from Norway to Sweden to Denmark by train and then the bus from Denmark to Germany. Nothing happened The reality turned out totally different. Taking action is a kind of pill that will work against fear.

Take a leap of faith and DO IT! NOW is the right time to start a new language.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby rdearman » Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:17 pm

german2k01 wrote:Fear is a kind of enemy that does not exist if you take an action. I have a fear of literally doing anything out of my comfort zone. Literally.

See this is why I pointed out the way I feel isn't "fear", I'm not scared of doing it. It is "dread", because I know how long it is going to take, and all the work it is going to involve, and knowing all this the dread of that mountain of work puts me off. Although, knowing this, I did start Korean, which for an English speaker is one of the hardest languages to learn. I'm no spring chicken either, so why? Because after looking at the cost benefit for me personally, and my interest in the language and the culture, I decided to invest the time and effort. Many languages didn't make it through that process, Czech, Polish, Slovakian, and Esperanto. Two others did make it into the "I'm willing to invest time, money and effort into this", e.g. Mandarin and Setswana. Setswana is an issue because I just don't have the resources available to do it, nor anyone to talk to. But should fate send me a Setswana teacher, I'm going to be all over that like white on rice. Mandarin has just been parked away, but it will return one day, probably with a vengeance. :)

So, I'm not scared of learning a language, but most of the time the shine wears off quickly and it doesn't make the cut.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby Le Baron » Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:20 pm

german2k01 wrote:Fear is a kind of enemy that does not exist if you take an action. I have a fear of literally doing anything out of my comfort zone. Literally.

However, things turn out really well in reality against what fear is telling you. For example, I was trembling about how would I do well in my weekend job since my level in German was not up to the mark. I was having so many unwanted thoughts before starting I did not know how would my German boss reacted if I did not understand his instructions in German. Things did not turn out terribly bad.

Last year my mind conceived of traveling from Norway all the way to Germany by land. I was traveling there the first time around. My fear was holding me back to do it. However, I went against it and took action. Nothing terrible happened the way my fear was telling me to delay it. I traveled easily from Norway to Sweden to Denmark by train and then the bus from Denmark to Germany. Nothing happened The reality turned out totally different. Taking action is a kind of pill that will work against fear.

Take a leap of faith and DO IT! NOW is the right time to start a new language.


It's not fear that I have. I've never had fear of making a well-thought-through leap (and some not so well-thought-through!). Note that I put it in 'air quotes' because it's more about a recognition of the time and effort involved which I know so well from previous exploits. Like getting up a Monday morning to a landscape of rain and wind (like today) and knowing how tiresome that journey is going to be, even if there's value at the other end. The question being: 'do I need that particular value?' Do I already have quite enough to be getting on with?

However I'm glad to hear that you pushed and conquered that apprehension. I agree that once you make a move on something you tend to have a better perspective of what is happening and might happen.

edit - rdearman beat me to it with pretty much the same point!
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby lichtrausch » Thu Mar 23, 2023 3:04 am

einzelne wrote:I read like crazy Italian books last spring but then had to drop it. So I decided to return to it now, for nostalgic reasons, and much to my chagrin, I discovered that I need to refresh my grammar and even some basic words.

This is kind of incredible. Did you cut off Italian from your life cold turkey style? No articles, no brief Youtube videos, no nothing? If so, and if you don't mind sharing, why did you take such a drastic measure with a language where you had such advanced reading skills?
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby einzelne » Thu Mar 23, 2023 3:30 am

lichtrausch wrote:If so, and if you don't mind sharing, why did you take such a drastic measure with a language where you had such advanced reading skills?


It's hard to do a thing when the country you are a citizen of bombs the country you were born in, while you're scrambling to finish grad school and trying to find any job so you won't have to get back home after graduation and potentially get drafted. Tutto quello che faccio non ha senso, se la casa brucia.
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Re: Do you ever 'fear' starting a new language?

Postby lichtrausch » Thu Mar 23, 2023 2:12 pm

einzelne wrote:Tutto quello che faccio non ha senso, se la casa brucia.

Rough. I hope better times lie ahead.
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