Chove's Log

[AroAro]

I don't "need" to know all of German, and do I even want to?

These are exactly my thoughts too! I'm absolutely happy with my intermediate German as it allows me to read books and online articles without much problem and listen to the podcasts I'm interested in. I don't need to take it to C1-C2 level because I'm not going to relocate to Germany or study at a German university or whatever. Polishing my German skills would take me years and it would prevent me from having fun with other languages! It's MY hobby and I learn the language because of the joy it brings ME and I don't really care if someone is not happy with my dabbling in many languages.

[chove]

It's MY hobby and I learn the language because of the joy it brings ME and I don't really care if someone is not happy with my dabbling in many languages.

This is the attitude I should aim for! I feel weirdly guilty for not trying to learn a small number of things very well, but why is that? It's not like it really matters, is it? Maybe it's just my anxiety trying to ruin things again!

[iguanamon]

... So that is where I am at the moment, torn between feeling like I should do the sensible things and wanting to look at and learn "a bit of" various languages that I don't need for any practical reasons. I should probably just do whatever I prefer, but it's so looked down on around the internet that I feel guilty for even wanting to just know enough to be a tourist (and even though I'm unlikely to be a tourist anyway).

Whatever outcome you want, whatever you want to do with languages, is valid... as long as it makes you happy. It only becomes an issue if you are not being truthful or realistic with yourself. You have been honest with yourself as to what you want and shared it here. You're not some new member who thinks they can learn four or five languages at the same time and reach a high level in all of them. You know what you're doing, and why. I see nothing to worry about here, chove. Do what makes you happy with languages!

[Cavesa]

I ask myself this because I know that the sensible thing is to study as few languages as possible until I get "good" at one or another of them, but is that what would make me *happy*? I don't really want to give up on Dutch for years if I might get hit by a bus next week and then I'd never have got to explore it like I want to.
...
Advice is welcome

My piece of advice:

go for it. You've already done all that could be "demanded" from you in the sense of being an educated person in languages and open minded. You are not the stereotypical anglophone monolingual just profiting from the privilege. You've gotten two languages to an intermediate level, that's a solid achievement and more than even many non anglophones retain after many years of classes. You are making a choice based on passion, curiosity, and open mindedness. That's the best use of the privilege, that I can think of.

Be curious, explore, enjoy. No need to feel bad. No reason to take the people criticising your approach too seriously. You've already checked more points, than was strictly "required" from you, so don't mind them.

[gsbod]

I think as far as hobbies go, being really interested in languages in general, as opposed to being really interested in one specific language, is perfectly ok and actually rather interesting in its own right. Life is indeed too short not to learn a bit of Dutch, especially if you already know English and German.

Getting to C1 in a language is a good thing to do, but it's not the be all and end all either. I love the fact that I managed to get my German to around C1, because of all the things that I can do with it - but on the other hand, I never would have reached C1 were it not for all the things I can do with it, which is very specific to me, my situation, and my preferences. But the other thing that getting to C1 has done is give me a bit more perspective on what it means to know a language. I can hold my own in German, but not as well as I can in my native English. How I feel about that depends on whether I'm having a glass half full or glass half empty kind of day.

The other thing is, German is actually the third language I tried to get to an advanced level in. So maybe you will get to C1 some day, but you just need to try a few more languages to find the right one? And in the mean time, every new language you explore will give you new sounds, crazy new grammar features and maybe even new scripts to get your head around, which will in the long term make you a better language learner in general.

[chove]

Thanks for the advice, everyone I'll let myself explore languages a bit then

[Caromarlyse]

You might like The Loom of Language, which is a bit dated but gives a bird's eye view of the romance and "teutonic" languages. It seems to be widely available second hand at a decent price, and there are loads of reviews of it on the big online bookseller site if you want an idea of its contents.

[chove]

You might like The Loom of Language, which is a bit dated but gives a bird's eye view of the romance and "teutonic" languages. It seems to be widely available second hand at a decent price, and there are loads of reviews of it on the big online bookseller site if you want an idea of its contents.

Thanks, I'll have a look at it!

[chove]

Linguriosa is an interesting channel about the Spanish language, here is the most recent video, which is about the pronunciation of Mexico:



(There are Spanish subtitles on most of their videos, which I find very helpful.)

And I've bought secondhand copies of 'Loom of Language' and 'Lingo: A language spotter's guide to Europe' from ebay, I'll let you know how I get on with those.

[chove]

You know, it's only just occurred to me that I don't need to finish books if I'm using them to try to learn a language? Which is a bit ridiculous, because it seems like that would be obvious to anyone. Partly it's "I read a book" seems to imply that I read the entire book, beginning to end, but if I read half the book that's not nothing, especially if I'm mostly/entirely using them to pick up the words rather than necessarily the story those words are telling. This is good, because I've been making myself read things that I'm no longer interested in, rather than letting myself stop and move on when I feel like I've hit my limit. And even in English I should be allowed to skip bits of content that I don't especially care about without thinking of that as "a failure." There are so many books and they take so long to read! So it's fine if I'm partway through three different books and end up finishing none of them, I should relax about that.