Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

General discussion about learning languages
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Re: Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

Postby -JM- » Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:28 pm

None of the languages except English, because why would I have. I am learning French now because I have to.
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Re: Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

Postby Tillumadoguenirurm » Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:46 pm

Any Sami language, they all look and sound horrible. Finnish for the same reason.
I've never had any interest in Chinese languages, Japanese or any language made because of movies/books/whatever.

I might learn German someday, but it's only because of the amount of literature written in it. Absolutely zero interest in the language or the culture, so it's sort of on the list too.
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Re: Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

Postby schlaraffenland » Sat Jun 24, 2017 11:38 pm

Cavesa wrote:Had you asked my 10 years younger self, she would have answered "German" immediately, with a list of reasons. :-D


:lol: Me too! How things change (thank goodness, I'd say). Who knows what'll be interesting in another decade.

I have zero interest in Mandarin, but a lot of interest in Hokkien and Teochew.
Also little to no interest in Italian, Russian, or Arabic at present. Nothing against any of them, either; I just don't feel anything spark in me when I think about learning them.
If a wealthy benefactor were to show up and say, "You WILL learn _____, because I am sending you to a course for the next two years," then I guess I'd sort of shrug and sigh and deal with it. But I would probably keep doing "my" languages in secret on the side. ;)
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Re: Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

Postby Mooby » Sun Jun 25, 2017 12:37 am

I'm just too fickle to say 'never'.
I know that every time I try to categorically rule a language out, my interest in it will be rekindled by the most random of things. I'll watch a film in Arabic or stop to help a Spanish tourist or try to thank the Bengali chef in my local restaurant etc. The desire for inter-cultural engagement can overcome my reservations about pretty much any language, at least temporarily (Esperanto being the exception :lol: ).
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Re: Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

Postby aravinda » Sun Jun 25, 2017 1:20 am

I know I sound silly :oops: but I am interested in learning ALL the languages I know of (including Esperanto, dead and endangered languages) IF I have the time, energey/health and resources. I have dabbled with some fifteen or so langauges and plan to learn them all someday if suitable conditions prevail. Though not realistic, I am sure I would be interested in learning ALL the languages I come across only exception being the languages specifically made for movies, fiction etc.
Reminds me of the words of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo of Alexandre Dumas:
Je n’ai que deux adversaires ; je ne dirai pas deux vainqueurs, car avec la persistance je les soumets : c’est la distance et le temps. Le troisième, et le plus terrible, c’est ma condition d’homme mortel.
(I have only two adversaries -- I will not say two conquerors, for with perseverance I subdue even them, -- they are time and distance. There is a third, and the most terrible -- that is my condition as a mortal being)
And I can add resources (=money) as a fourth because no one is rich like him :lol:
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Re: Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

Postby Ani » Sun Jun 25, 2017 1:50 am

Mooby wrote: I'll watch a film in Arabic or stop to help a Spanish tourist or try to thank the Bengali chef in my local restaurant etc. The desire for inter-cultural engagement can overcome my reservations about pretty much any language, at least temporarily (Esperanto being the exception :lol: ).


This happens to me too. We had a server who was from Macedonia a couple weeks ago and I though maybe I should learn Macedonian :lol:

I don't have interest in learning Spanish. Too many negative associations. I would learn Portuguese. Also I don't have interest I learning a entire family of languages. I might change my mind in 15 or 20 years but at this point the idea of spending more time trying to keep languages separate than acquiring them in the first place seems pretty awful.
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Re: Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

Postby Chung » Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:06 am

I'd say that there are 6400+ languages which I've never had any interest in learning.

Maybe it's more interesting to list what I've been interested in learning as well as those which I didn't have any interest but learned anyway because they were a means to an end. In summary, there are 9 languages that interest me. I'm studying 6 of them already, and I want to start studying the 3 others before too long.

1) Interested and still studying
- Finnish
- German
- Hungarian
- Korean
- Polish
- Slovak

2) Interested and (obviously) want to study
- Indonesian or Malay (whichever one I can scrounge enough learning material. I've belatedly got into Malayo-Indonesian cuisine and if nothing more would like to know what the name of the dishes mean, and if necessary understand native recipes/instructions)
- Italian (*gasp!* I want to start studying one of FIGS on my own! It does sound a bit like Finnish as Serpent noted, and that's a plus for me. Its being SAE is a blessing and a curse in that it seems relatively easy to figure out based on knowledge of English, French and German, but a little boring since it doesn't tickle my intellect like Slavonic, Uralic, or Turkic languages, to say nothing of Korean.)
- Tajiki (an Iranian language that uses a familiar alphabet is a plus for me as I'm not keen on learning an abjad or quasi-abjad)

3) Interested and studied/dabbled/indulged
- Azeri
- Bashkir
- BCMS/SC
- Chuvash
- Crimean Tatar
- Czech
- Estonian
- Kazakh
- Kyrgyz
- Mari, Meadow
- Mongolian
- Saami, Inari
- Saami, Northern
- Tatar
- Turkish
- Turkmen
- Tuvan
- Ukrainian
- Uzbek

4) Not interested but studied
- French (I stuck with it because of my classmates although I was more diligent studying Hungarian outside class :mrgreen:)
- Latin (Roman history was interesting for me so I didn't mind putting up with the occasional class focused on grammar)
- Latvian (travel)
- Lithuanian (travel)
- Romanian (travel)
- Russian (Turkic Challenge)
- Slovenian (travel)

See The last language you would want to learn on HTLAL for related discussion. As it was 10 years ago, Mandarin (among many others) just holds no interest for me. At best, it could become like Russian whereby if the need arises, I'll hold my nose and do what I need to do.

---
...you know what grinds my gears? (and you probably all know how much I champion Uralic, Turkic and lesser-known Slavonic languages) ;)

YtownPolyglot wrote:[...]Other than those, I'd say Basque, Finnish, and to a lesser extent Korean.


sillygoose1 wrote:Turkish, Cantonese, Korean, Basque come to mind. Also, all Slavic languages outside of Russian, Polish, and Czech


blaurebell wrote:[...]
All Asian languages apart from Japanese
Arabic
Finnish
Esperanto[...]


:? *grumble*

Tillumadoguenirurm wrote:Any Sami language, they all look and sound horrible. Finnish for the same reason.[...]


:shock: Oro jaska! / Ole hiljaa! :P ;)
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Re: Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

Postby tarvos » Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:50 pm

They don't exist, period.
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Re: Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

Postby Spoonary » Sun Jun 25, 2017 3:05 pm

French is the first language which sprang to mind when I saw the thread title. As much as I think French is beautiful to listen to, I just have no interest in putting any effort into learning it. :?
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Re: Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

Postby galaxyrocker » Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:56 am

Conlangs for me. I have trouble enough staying focused without a need on studying natural languages; conlangs would just be even worse as there isn't the literature/media/culture to interest me.
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