Languages You Lost Interest In

General discussion about learning languages
vonPeterhof
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Re: Languages You Lost Interest In

Postby vonPeterhof » Sun Jun 25, 2017 8:45 am

Frankly, pretty much all of the ones that I've ever taken up. It's very easy to spark my interest in a language, but it's just as easy for me to start losing interest after the novelty factor of whatever attracted me to the language wears off. That's not to say that the interest can't be reignited, but I've found that in order to get to that stage I have to have a sustained interest in things outside of the language itself (culture, media, politics, connections to specific native speakers, etc.). So far this has worked to the full extent only with English and Japanese (although I do occasionally get very short term boosts of renewed interest in German, Kazakh, French, Abkhaz and other languages). All the other languages I'm doing at the moment are either those that I'm still having my "honeymoon" with, or those that I'm sticking with out of a sense of duty and/or sunk cost fallacy.
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Re: Languages You Lost Interest In

Postby zenmonkey » Sun Jun 25, 2017 1:50 pm

Chinese - My parents were living in Shanghai and I gave it a poor attempt. I've studied it a few times for a few months, a few weeks and a few days. Now, I don't think I'll approach it again. It may happen but I'm busy with many other language projects. My dance card is full.

There are a bunch of languages I've studied for travel where I learn a dozen functional phrases and that's about it. I go there, I use them (at A0), get a few smiles and promptly drop the language on leaving. These include Polish, Czech, Italian, Croatian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Ladakhi and Nepalese. Except for a few of these they remain a nagging itch and then projects. Italian and Ladahki are minor loves that's I'll get back to - the others? Probably not, or as opportunity calls.
Last edited by zenmonkey on Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Languages You Lost Interest In

Postby tarvos » Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:13 pm

I've never really lost interest in languages, but I've found that my mind is too occupied with other ones to give them their due time and love.
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Re: Languages You Lost Interest In

Postby galaxyrocker » Sun Jun 25, 2017 10:42 pm

aaleks wrote:I haven't really lost an interest in these languages, I just don't have a time and probably a very strong interest in them right now.



I'm like this as well. I've never completely lost interest in any language, but my interest wanes. And I'd pretty much be willing to learn any language, though I do guess a conlang would be pushing it. But any natural language, certainly would interest me, even if just a little.
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Re: Languages You Lost Interest In

Postby Spoonary » Tue Jun 27, 2017 11:14 pm

Portuguese and Galician. Well, I really stopped learning these two languages in order to have more brain space for Spanish and Italian (which I feel a real emotional connection to) and to limit the overlap between all of these similar languages. However, although I enjoy listening to these two languages when I get the chance, I don't really mind that I stopped actively learning them...
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Re: Languages You Lost Interest In

Postby trui » Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:45 am

French, Spanish, ASL, Japanese, German, Afrikaans, Chinese? (In no particular order)

French was the only one of the above that I got to a A1-A2 level due to my mother helping me with it plus learning it at school as a kid. But as I grew older, I lost interest in it and started to resent it. I now wish that I had learned some German instead of learning French, as many members in my mom's side of the family speak it or a dialect of it, including her when she was younger. French I had no use for. I liked learning it as a kid but if it didn't feel like the only option, I probably would have picked German or something else.

Now I have absolutely no motivation to learn any other language but Dutch at the moment because I'm so close yet so far away from fluency and so whenever I think, 'Hey, I want to learn Chinese' or something, I soon stop as it just feels like another distraction, slowing my progress towards my goal. Maybe this will change once I'm fluent in Dutch, or maybe not. I hope it'll change sometime though as learning a third language would be neat, but I wouldn't mind just focusing on my Dutch and English for the rest of my life.
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