Would you learn an useless language?

General discussion about learning languages
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Re: Would you learn an useless language?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Thu Feb 11, 2016 3:35 pm

詠春拳 :!: Similar story here, kungfu (especially Wing Chun) brought my interest to Mandarin and Cantonese. However, I haven't been to China yet. Next life...
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Re: Would you learn an useless language?

Postby Obogrew » Thu Feb 11, 2016 10:21 pm

I learned Hebrew up to certain level. It is absolutely useless for a person living in Germany without any Jewish roots.

But then the life turned so that I have been sent to Israel for 2 years. But again, at work i spoke only English. It helped me only a bit when someone tried to cheat me, I haven't used it so much.
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Re: Would you learn an useless language?

Postby garyb » Fri Feb 12, 2016 9:42 am

I've been learning Wing Chun for a few months, and after reading Ari and Jeff's posts I'm worried that it's going to lead to interest in yet another language!
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Re: Would you learn an useless language?

Postby tertrih » Sun Feb 14, 2016 3:34 pm

I suppose it depends on what you mean by useless :D

I have learned both Klingon and High Valyrian and I find both of those languages awesome and I really enjoyed the experience of learning them!
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Re: Would you learn an useless language?

Postby mainearaprado » Mon Mar 07, 2016 12:54 am

I want to learn Greek. Why is it useless to me? Well, because I don't know anyone who hails from Greece. Is that a lame answer? :)
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Re: Would you learn an useless language?

Postby TiglathPileser3 » Mon Mar 07, 2016 5:38 pm

I speak a little Swiss German, but to me it's not useless because I do visit Switzerland sometimes and have relatives there. I wouldn't call Farsi useless for you even if you can't go to Iran. You could conceivably Skype with Iranian people from the comfort of your home. There are sites where you can search for a language partner. Do Iranians ever visit Israel? They do visit the United States despite some of the tensions the two countries have had. If an Iranian visited Israel and met an Israeli who could speak in their language, I'm sure they would be impressed.

I have considered learning Braille even though I'm not blind. When I see Braille on a restroom door or someplace I always run my finger over it just because I think it's cool that it's possible to read something by touching it.
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Re: Would you learn an useless language?

Postby Lampang » Tue Mar 08, 2016 1:29 pm

Do you study any language which is useless for your daily life? Do you study a language just out of passion for its melody, grammar or culture?


Perhaps I'm unusual but I don't see those as standing in opposition. What, after all, would one's daily life be like without passion? I realise that the question obviously assumes a certain kind of instrumental approach to life but, and without wishing to be rude, I find that vision of life pretty depressing. Anyway, in answer to the question, I'm learning Sanskrit because I find it a tremendously interesting puzzle and because it is the key to one of the world's great civilizations, not because there's any realistic hope of my becoming a brahmin.
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Re: Would you learn an useless language?

Postby yong321 » Tue Mar 08, 2016 3:51 pm

When I started to learn a couple of languages a few years ago, I was not sure and did not care about their usefulness, which I consider as an advantage. If you learn a language for a specific reason, such as for business or an academic degre or your daily job, you're under pressure to do so. No doubt you'll make fast progress. But the downside, a very big one for me, is that the study is no fun, or not as much fun as if you're not under any pressure. The usefulness of this uselessness lies in great pleasure in learning, and possibly contributes to a healthy aging.
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Re: Would you learn an useless language?

Postby MCK74 » Tue Mar 08, 2016 7:17 pm

I don't think I'd learn a language I wouldn't use. I would at least want to read in the language and have conversations with people occasionally. I admire people who learn languages out of intellectual or linguistic curiosity, but I don't think I'd ever do that myself.
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Re: Would you learn an useless language?

Postby mostafa » Sun Mar 13, 2016 9:29 pm

jacob_kap wrote:Hi guys,

Like many others on here, I've got this passion to languages, as well. However, the languages I'm interested in are often really useless for me. For instance, I'm interested in Farsi, although as an Israeli, I don't see a way going to Iran in the near future;
Jacob.

Hi :)
At the first let me tell that as an Farsi/Iranian person I've got too excited to see such a topic as my first try at the forum!
Usefulness of a depend on many things and traveling to a country which the language is spoken there is one of them but not the only one!
I'm trying to learn Español, however I'm not sure if I will visit Spain in the future! But I study this to experience Latin calture which I'm interested in by contacting the people around the world!
I'm not sure what have made you interested in Persian, but if you for example interested in Hafiz or Rumi or Khayyam poems and generally Persian literature you would never need to travel to Iran to use the language!

(If you would like to continue learning Persian and I would get happy if could help you :) )
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