Emotional language learners

[lingzz_langzz]

Hello everyone,

I've been recently having lots of discoveries about my learning styles and preferences. There's particulary one that I haven't seen people talking about out there on the internet and I'm almost sure I'm not the only one feeling the same way so I wanted to share this reflection with you.

I call it being an emotional language learner because that's what I feel like reflects in the best way how I feel and what it actually is. Let me explain. As I'm sure many of you, I learn languages for fun, I do not have any exams or certificates coming, no deadlines and so on. Even though, for a very long time, I always wanted to set a goal and achieve it - I guess that's what we all were taught to do, without really exploring any other way. What I've noticed recently though is that I actually have to feel like learning something if I am really gonna do it.

Let me give you a few examples: a few months ago, I was obsessed with Arabic and I studied only this language for like a week or two. Right now, I'm going for Galician and Occitan because they always kind of come back to me and so I always take a chance to study a bit more of those languages. Last year, I was studying Turkish like crazy (I had a long trip coming so that served as a good, grounding motivation) but right now I'm doing the bare minimum.

I know those things will change at some point, I just never know how and to what configuration. But I noticed that what I was trying to achieve this whole time (setting a goal - spending time on it - achieving it) is just counterintuitive for me in a way. As long as I set a goal especially with a deadline, I'm already stressed, I feel pressured and I just don't want to do it anymore.

That's why I now work on projects only - they have a starting point and are very specific (like watch 10 videos in Turkish, read one chapter of a book) and have no end date. This works nicely!

I have many thoughts on this topic and I guess I will be elaborating more on that as people respond but right now, what I can say is that it seems like I cannot basically guarantee my interests are going to be the same tomorrow or in a week. Which basically blocks me from planning long-term projects, buying courses that are done for the masses, etc. So I can essentially only plan my projects on the short-term and just wait for a change in my emotions...

Even though, I am really starting to appreciate the emotional part of language learning because I feel like it's something unique but sometimes I still wish I wasn't like that so I wanted to basically ask you, if you're like me, how did you find your way to interact with this part of yourself? What's helpful, what's useless for you?

Oh and also, I even thought about this being on the neurodivergent spectrum of things but I don't have any diagnosis so I would be interested in knowing how that fact also relates to everything I described in your personal experiences.

Thanks a lot!

[leosmith]

sometimes I still wish I wasn't like that so I wanted to basically ask you, if you're like me, how did you find your way to interact with this part of yourself? What's helpful, what's useless for you?

Oh and also, I even thought about this being on the neurodivergent spectrum of things but I don't have any diagnosis so I would be interested in knowing how that fact also relates to everything I described in your personal experiences.

You might find some posts in this thread to be helpful.

[rdearman]

Or Teango logs. He does a similar thing doing 3 day projects

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19819

[Iversen]

You can be emotional about language learning in two ways, either by being totally in love with one language over many years ... or by suddenly becoming intensely attached to some random language during a short period, after which the fire dies down again and leaves you with just the icecold cinders. In Danish we call this last pattern "en raptus", a borrowing from the Latin word for a passing case of madness. On ther other hand, the first pattern will cause you to become a something-phile, which may or may not keep you away from learning other languages. I don't bite that bait.

Actually I prefer not to get too emotional about my language learning, and in fact I spent my time on other things from 1981 (where I got my university degree and realized that it wouldn't bring me immediate fame and a fixed job) to 2006 where I accidentally discovered HTLAL and got hooked again - though not to a specific language, more to the learning process in itself. I have a degree in French, but that didn't transform me into a gallophile. And I may read a grammar of some exotic language or read a language guide, but I know that this just is like visiting a museum - you enter.. and then you leave the place again with nothing in your pockets. There is a list of languages which you take seriously, and you stick to that. That's my receipt for keeping up longtime language learning.

[Sonjaconjota]

Maybe my kind of "emotionality" is different, but precisely because I love the languages I'm studying and feel personally connected to them, I would feel really bad if I just dropped them forever, as if I would abandon a dear friend.

[lingzz_langzz]

You might find some posts in this thread to be helpful.

Thanks a lot! Just to clarify though, I do not struggle with motivation, I suffer from interest in too many languages

It's basically like comparing the logical part of me with my emotional part. An example would be:
Logically, I should be studying Italian right now for my upcoming trip in May but my emotional part tells me go through your Occitan book instead.

So for example I'm just unable to commit to a one-year long course from a language because I know I will want to switch earlier than the course actually finishes.

Actually I prefer not to get too emotional about my language learning

Oh wait, can you chose not to be actually?
And yes, exactly as you say, with some languages I'm not looking for an actual skill (or at least not always, and definitely not immediately), I just crave some contact with it so it's also usually like a thing of at least a week, sometimes even a month. It's almost never an evening or something like that.

There is a list of languages which you take seriously, and you stick to that. That's my receipt for keeping up longtime language learning.

I do have a list like that as well but I still need this other kind of stimulation. I need variety in life in general.

[lingzz_langzz]

Maybe my kind of "emotionality" is different, but precisely because I love the languages I'm studying and feel personally connected to them, I would feel really bad if I just dropped them forever, as if I would abandon a dear friend.

Ohhh I see! Meaning... you are so emotionally attached that it's impossible for you to move on from one language to another? That's super interesting if that's the case!

At what point do you "free" yourself from this feeling though? Like when you want to study a new language?

[Dragon27]

Thanks a lot! Just to clarify though, I do not struggle with motivation, I suffer from interest in too many languages

That's what struggling with motivation often is - having other things that your brain feels more motivated to do instead of this thing you 'rationally' believe you should be doing. Whether it's studying other, more "shiny" languages, or doing some mindless entertainment (like videogames), your brain feels more hyped to do the other thing.

Struggling with motivation is not necessarily lacking motivation - it's not being able to control where your motivation goes. Instead of you controlling your motivation, your motivation controls you.

[leosmith]

I do not struggle with motivation, I suffer from interest in too many languages

Still a motivation problem, imo. But I wasn't talking about my OP - later on in the thread other posters made some comments that you might find useful, or maybe just somewhat interesting.

[Khayyam]

Hello everyone,

I've been recently having lots of discoveries about my learning styles and preferences. There's particulary one that I haven't seen people talking about out there on the internet and I'm almost sure I'm not the only one feeling the same way so I wanted to share this reflection with you.

I call it being an emotional language learner because that's what I feel like reflects in the best way how I feel and what it actually is. Let me explain. As I'm sure many of you, I learn languages for fun, I do not have any exams or certificates coming, no deadlines and so on. Even though, for a very long time, I always wanted to set a goal and achieve it - I guess that's what we all were taught to do, without really exploring any other way. What I've noticed recently though is that I actually have to feel like learning something if I am really gonna do it.

Let me give you a few examples: a few months ago, I was obsessed with Arabic and I studied only this language for like a week or two. Right now, I'm going for Galician and Occitan because they always kind of come back to me and so I always take a chance to study a bit more of those languages. Last year, I was studying Turkish like crazy (I had a long trip coming so that served as a good, grounding motivation) but right now I'm doing the bare minimum.

I know those things will change at some point, I just never know how and to what configuration. But I noticed that what I was trying to achieve this whole time (setting a goal - spending time on it - achieving it) is just counterintuitive for me in a way. As long as I set a goal especially with a deadline, I'm already stressed, I feel pressured and I just don't want to do it anymore.

That's why I now work on projects only - they have a starting point and are very specific (like watch 10 videos in Turkish, read one chapter of a book) and have no end date. This works nicely!

I have many thoughts on this topic and I guess I will be elaborating more on that as people respond but right now, what I can say is that it seems like I cannot basically guarantee my interests are going to be the same tomorrow or in a week. Which basically blocks me from planning long-term projects, buying courses that are done for the masses, etc. So I can essentially only plan my projects on the short-term and just wait for a change in my emotions...

Even though, I am really starting to appreciate the emotional part of language learning because I feel like it's something unique but sometimes I still wish I wasn't like that so I wanted to basically ask you, if you're like me, how did you find your way to interact with this part of yourself? What's helpful, what's useless for you?

Oh and also, I even thought about this being on the neurodivergent spectrum of things but I don't have any diagnosis so I would be interested in knowing how that fact also relates to everything I described in your personal experiences.

Thanks a lot!

I'm also driven by emotion (namely, curiosity so insatiable that it's really a kind of piggish greed) and if I had ten thousand years to live, I would want to learn a hundred or more languages. In fact, I do want to learn a hundred--I just recognize that it's likely not in the cards (fingers crossed for radical life-extension technology).

But I never get a strong urge to hop from one language to another--or at least, so far that urge has not manifested until I was really advanced in the one I was already working on. Every language is so vast that there's enough in it to gratify even my appetite for years at a time. I do my hopping-around within one language and become essentially blind to others for long stretches.

But maybe i should ask you: what are these emotions that cause you to drop one and pick up another? Is it curiosity, or FOMO, or...?