Struggles to choose and stick with languages

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epistemophile
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Struggles to choose and stick with languages

Postby epistemophile » Mon Sep 06, 2021 8:59 am

Hello! I hope I chose the right place to post this topic. Thanks for having me here! I'm a fellow language learner with experience dabbling in Germanic as well as, to a lesser degree, Romance and Uralic languages. However, I stopped dabbling two years ago and have been focusing on Russian for 18 months with a lot of success, albeit declining progress lately due to boredom and a lack of motivation (I still use and get exposed to the language on a daily basis, though). I found out it's mostly due to a lack of challenge and a willingness to explore other languages alongside my beloved Russian. However, this is where the issues start.

As silly as it sounds, I somehow forgot how to start learning a language. But I also have a very inconsistent motivation. I tried Turkish, Serbo-Croatian, and Finnish within the span of just two weeks (one by one) and I gave up each time after a few days. I keep making lists but I can't get myself to make clear choices and, above all, get to work. I even struggle to figure out if I truly want to learn X language or not. I keep finding excuses. Here are some examples:

Persian. I fell in love with it and I really want to learn it. However, my motivation just died when I found out about the script (not writing vowels really doesn't help, I already have some reading issues even in languages using the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets) and the diglossic situation which would basically require twice or thrice as many efforts as Russian. I keep thinking about it because I want to learn it but I'm just too scared. And resources seem to be lacking, so this isn't encouraging. The only alternative would be Tajik since it uses Cyrillic but there are so few resources.

Bengali. Same love story and almost the same issues minus the script which seems quite approachable. That said, it's very diglossic and there's a paradoxical lack of resources, it seems.

Slavic languages. The easiest language family to me given my Russian knowledge. Yet I can't get myself to choose one to start (and stick) with. I'm thinking about Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovak, and Ukrainian. The first one I tried twice and gave up mostly due to a lack of resources and practice opportunities. Slovak I really like and this would seem the best choice but I'm still unsure. Ukrainian is also a good choice but my motivation is just like with Turkish: today it's on, tomorrow it's off, and so on. Bulgarian seems interesting but I'm not sure either.

Turkic languages. Well actually I made my choice: Kazakh. But I can't stop thinking about how Turkish would be better to start with even though I like it much less and I'm rarely motivated to learn it. I have a project encompassing Turkic languages closer to Kazakh anyway (Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Uyghur). Nonetheless, I'm truly intimidated by Turkic grammar. Actually, it's the main reason I gave up on Turkish: not being able to create correct sentences, so in essence express myself, killed off the motivation. That said, I give up too easily and in retrospect I know what I could have done to tackle this issue.

Vietnamese. I recently fell in love with. Like really strongly. There's a sizeable Vietnamese community in my country and I'm very interested in Vietnam. However, I'm very intimidated. The script, albeit Latin, is a bit scary. Above all, tones and phonology really scare me. Also, grammar and the dialect variety.

Last personal issue is I'm very self-demanding and perfectionistic, so this does play its role as well.

Anyway, I'm overthinking and just can't let my heart act more instead of my head. Moreover, I was always used to Western European languages (except for Russian and Finnish), so I'm unsure about how to go about learning other languages, especially non-Indo-European ones.

Would you guys have any advice? Any experiences to share regarding similar issues? How do you make up your mind about languages to learn? How do you actually get started instead of procrastinating like me? Thanks a lot :)
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Re: Struggles to choose and stick with languages

Postby Xenops » Mon Sep 06, 2021 12:21 pm

Welcome to the forum, epistemophile! :D

Perhaps more experienced members would give suggestions for reviving your Russian interest, but I give suggestions for "wanderlust" (as we call it): my impression from my own life is that when I can't decide which language to pick, it probably means I don't have a strong motivation to learn any of them. In contrast, I feel like if I wasn't allowed to study Japanese, I would be heartbroken. I have such a desire to be fluent in this language that it's an obvious choice for me. Norwegian is a more of a practical choice, as learning it might give me opportunities I would not otherwise have--but I still really want those opportunities.

Regarding perfectionism, I have struggled with that for years: actually, my upbringing encouraged it. To break free I have been using my faith, and I have read self-help books. Talking to someone is also a great idea. It's a process, but I've seen great improvements.

Lastly, having a local community to talk to is strangely motivating. :D I say this somewhat jokingly, as I am an introvert, but during this time of COVID, we have come to really appreciate communicating to people face-to-face. This could be motivation enough to start learning a language.
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Re: Struggles to choose and stick with languages

Postby einzelne » Mon Sep 06, 2021 1:22 pm

So, you ask how to stay motivated but the only thing you discuss in your post is linguistic challenges and you say nothing about your extra-linguistic interests in these languages. I'll be frank. If your motivation dies out after just 2 weeks, for me it's a clear sign that you don't need a language. And it's nothing wrong with you, it has nothing to do with 'finding excuses' so you shouldn't feel ashamed of yourself. You cannot learn all the languages in the world.

As for your progress in Russian, it's a pretty common thing at the intermediate stage of language learning. Depending on how you feel you can either preserver or, if you're completely burnt out, give yourself a break. Regular language 'vacations' are actually beneficial for your progress in the long run.

Actually, I've got an impression that your desire to jump from one exotic language to another might be a response to the intermediate plateau in Russian. I cannot know for sure but it speaks to my own experience: when your progress is so slow that you barely notice it anymore, it seems natural to get your dopamine pumped by picking up a textbook of a new language. But, again, I can only hypothesize here on the basis of my own past experience, so I might be wrong.
Last edited by einzelne on Mon Sep 06, 2021 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Struggles to choose and stick with languages

Postby Vordhosbn » Mon Sep 06, 2021 1:39 pm

I wrote about this very problem a few years back in Paralysis by Analysis. Some good advice in there.
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Re: Struggles to choose and stick with languages

Postby german2k01 » Mon Sep 06, 2021 5:37 pm

You need to find deeper reasons to learn a particular language. Otherwise, there are so many useful things you can keep yourself busy with.
Technical skills, online courses, and yadda yadda yadda.
Write it down on a piece of paper and ponder over it. You said Persian you chickened out just looking at the script now you should pick it up as a challenge and make it a point that nothing is harder in front of human will. I took up German because it enjoys being the toughest language. I would like to witness who is going to win either the German language or Human will.
Now I have turned in my heartbeat with the German language. I breathe it 24/7 so there is no question of losing motivation.
It has just been 17 months and people around me have started giving me respect like I am a prime minister of Germany.
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Re: Struggles to choose and stick with languages

Postby Blue Saka » Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:36 pm

There's nothing much I can add, other than what others have already said here. It seems like, deep down, you are similar to me. I desire to learn many languages, but I always reel myself in and focus on one or two at a time, max. I start slow and easy. Right now, it's Iron Ossetic, but I will start learning Georgian in the next few months (one part of Ossetia is in Georgia, so I will travel there some day). As for reeling it in, I try to be practical, so focusing on what's most important comes first. Sometimes that means giving language learning a rest for a while.

Every. Little. Step.
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Re: Struggles to choose and stick with languages

Postby Iversen » Tue Sep 07, 2021 10:15 am

Vordhosbn wrote:I wrote about this very problem a few years back in Paralysis by Analysis. Some good advice in there.


It was interesting to read that old thread - and see the names of some contributors from the old days, including some that have become silent in the meantime.

The central point seems to be whether Wanderlust just shows that you really aren't deeply interested in any single language. OK, I have never been fanatic about learning one specific language so that would apply to me - except that I actually have stuck with my languages. Hardcore 'butterfly' learners leave them for new projects before they have got anywhere..

An alternative could be that you are interested in the phenomenon 'language' as such, and you can definitely learn more about that if you study a variety of languages. I suppose that's one of my reasons for learning more than one foreign language. But I could learn more if I had learnt several non-Indoeuropean languages instead of some of the smaller European ones (where it even can be a problem to find suitable materials). So if the scientific interest in languages had been the overriding motive then my language collection would have been different.

Instead there is the aspect of 'covering the ground' - and my ground happens to be Europe. I simply find it irritating that there are languages in my vicinity which I can't understand, and therefore they must be learnt. During my school years and later study years we had the Iron curtain dividing the continent, and I somehow never felt that I needed to deal with those on the other side of the curtain, and therefore I started Greek and the Slavic languages far too late - actually I only bought the relevant books when I was at the point of leaving the university, and because I stopped studying languages for irrelevant reasons soon after that I never got around to use the books I had bought. And the result is that I have more trouble today learning those languages than I would have had if I had made a breakaway start with them in the early 80s - even if I then had let them rest for 25 years they would still have been simmering somewhere in the back of my head. A lesson to be learnt there ...

But now I'm trying to make a clean board, and I'm well underway to do so - and therefore it would be inconceivable to stop now. It would be like climbing Mount Everest and then deciding one hundred meter from the summit that this walk wasn't worth finishing. I have more or less pushed the Germanic and Romance languages (plus Latin) to the level where I'm satisfied with them, and Greek and at least some of the Slavic languages are well underway (Irish is waiting on the shelf right now, and by golly it's looking reproachfully down at me!). This means that I only lack two Baltic languages (Lithuanian, Latvian) plus three Finnish-Ugrian languages plus (maybe) Basque and some languages in the Caucasus region. It would be idiotic to stop now where the goal line is within sight ...
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Re: Struggles to choose and stick with languages

Postby lichtrausch » Tue Sep 07, 2021 7:04 pm

Iversen wrote:But now I'm trying to make a clean board, and I'm well underway to do so - and therefore it would be inconceivable to stop now. It would be like climbing Mount Everest and then deciding one hundred meter from the summit that this walk wasn't worth finishing. I have more or less pushed the Germanic and Romance languages (plus Latin) to the level where I'm satisfied with them, and Greek and at least some of the Slavic languages are well underway (Irish is waiting on the shelf right now, and by golly it's looking reproachfully down at me!). This means that I only lack two Baltic languages (Lithuanian, Latvian) plus three Finnish-Ugrian languages plus (maybe) Basque and some languages in the Caucasus region. It would be idiotic to stop now where the goal line is within sight ...

Are you tempted to attempt to "complete" Indo-European? :)
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Re: Struggles to choose and stick with languages

Postby Iversen » Tue Sep 07, 2021 8:23 pm

Ahem, yes - at least those languages that are spoken natively in Europe (which includes some non-Indoeuropean languages). But the availability of good grammars, good dictionaries and other resources will automatically limit the number of languages I have to get through, and I accept not having active skills in a fair number of them (like Sardinian or Swiss German or Sorbian or Homeric Greek). Well, you have to set yourself a goal in life, don't you? And this seems to me to be an attainable goal.
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Re: Struggles to choose and stick with languages

Postby Decidida » Sat Sep 11, 2021 1:41 am

This is what I have learned personally: picking the "right" language is often the way to stop learning any language at all.

I could fill a page with reasons why I should learn a certain language, but I have come to hate it. This language is spoken by more people in my current neighborhood than English. I cannot shop or function here without knowing this language. And I quit studying it anyway, and in the process stopped studying any language at all.

I am skipping all details of my situation and the language, because those things are off-topic for the thread, and ... I just don't want to talk about some it.

I started restudying a language that I love. but that always gets crowded out of my life by other things I "should" be studying instead. No one here speaks this language. It is one of the most "wrong" languages that I could study right now for a list of reasons that could fill another page.

I know people that have studied French because they love IT, not love what they can DO with it. I think I understand them now.

Loving a language is different than loving what you can DO with it. There are people that marry truly for love, and people that marry for what that marriage partnership can DO for them.

Some people do very well learning a language they need, but now I understand people that live in a country and never learn the language. Living among another language can be like being force fed food that you don't want, even if you are hungry. Some people will eat it. Some people will starve despite access to those calories, eating less and less instead of more and more. Sometimes the more ridiculous the situation seems, the more your resistance can grow.

I am studying the other language again. Some days I ask myself what I am doing. This makes no sense at all. A romantic affair that would wreck my life would make more sense than this.

Maybe some things don't need to make sense even to me. I already know I don't have to explain myself to anyone, but still, I am hesitant to tell most people what I am up to lately.

My neighbors must be thinking I am nuts. I use the children's DinoLingo videos to review basic vocabulary and chant along to the music-filled video flashcards every day. in addition to may language studies, I have also been watching a ridiculous Chinese Soap Opera on Youtube that has subtitles. LOL. All sorts of foreign words are leaking through the walls and none of them are the "right" ones. And I don't care. This pandemic is getting to me. It is getting to everyone. This is the best that I can do.
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