Learning a Language You Don't Love

[Xenops]

I have a confession: I don't love Spanish. My motivation for learning it is because would be the most useful second-language to learn and use in the U.S. And, because I studied it for three years in high school, and my attitude has been "I've gotten this far, why shouldn't I go all of the way?"

But I don't love it; yeah, it has a nice sound, but I'm not interested in any of the related cultures, there's no literature or films I'm dying to enjoy in the original language, and I don't even plan to stay in the U.S.; my understanding is that medical laboratory scientists (my future career) are universal, so I plan to move to another country, but I have no interest to move to a predominately Spanish-speaking one.

I'm guessed some of you learned English or some other language of necessity, what has been your experience? Is your learning it for the usefulness justified, or would you encourage others to learn a language only because they love it? At this point, any other language sounds more interesting than Spanish.

For a while I've equated learning a language to a serious, long-term relationship--for better or for worse. Is it okay to break-up with a language where the "love has died"?

[James29]

Yup. Dump Spanish for now. You might get interested in her again later for other reasons. Your message makes it look like the value of Spanish to you would probably be pretty low. If you want to learn a language do something you are going to enjoy.

[PeterMollenburg]

You've come a long way, but...

If you're at the 'intermediate' stage there's still a very long path to get to advanced, so although you've come this far, there's still a long (potentially arduous) journey ahead. Thus giving up now might make you feel like i've given all that up, or wasted all that time. However you could waste a lot more were you to continue, and...

...If at all you are interested in another romance language then your experience with Spanish will pay off tremendously. Are you interested in Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan, Galician etc? Then your Spanish will give you a tremendous head start. If not it's still not a waste, as the learning of any foreign language will help with another, even if completely unrelated. So pick a language that you absolutely really want to learn and go with that! Don't waste any more time not learning the language you actually do want to learn!

[iguanamon]

As is typical in most of these type posts, you've answered your own question. Drop Spanish. You don't like it. You don't need it. You won't do what it takes to get it to a high level.- spend money, watch series, read, converse, travel. Life is too short to waste it doing something you don't really want to do, especially when you don't have to do it. Learn anything else that you actually want to do. Don't fall into the sunk cost fallacy trap.

[CarlyD]

Ok, this was a really depressing thread. Because I'm in the same place, or nearly.

I love-love-love German yet I'm sitting here "finishing" my Spanish (to B1 or B2) before I return for probably several years to German.

I did a pros and cons about this in my log a while back--as opposed to the OP, I actually can/need to use Spanish, although not every day, and there's a lot more tv shows that I'd rather watch in Spanish than in English.

Xenops--if you can't come up with even one use for it--and have another language waiting for you in the wings--then drop it. It'll still be there if/when you return.

[Marais]

To me this is no different to hating piano but being forced by some outside force (parents?) to play.

It'll never last.

Do what you want to do - if anything your Spanish foundation will provide a good platform to go on and learn a language you do want to learn.

[Cavesa]

That's normal. I had to learn the language I hated the most (or right after German those days). English

Due to the stupid education system, I had to drop my beloved French at the age of 11. Instead, I got the ugly and irregular English with a nightmare teacher, who taught by shouting and making people memorize nonsense (you could guess which weird sentences from the grammar book would be on the test. Usually the least useful ones. The most important knowledge was to write correctly the full name of the UK. We were beginners with required vocabulary like "oysters", something most of us barely knew what it was.). She shouted at most people at least occassionally but she always had a preferred target in every group she was teaching. Guess who it was in our group. I was being shouted at for accidentally saying something in French (which she claimed not to be French as she considered herself a polyglot, which she trully wasn't), got bad grades all the time, was being shouted at for not remembering the correct pronunciation of something after having it heard once or twice in my life, got shouted at for writing a word on a different page in a notebook than she had on mind, or for writing test corrections at the other side of the grammar notebook instead of the vocab notebook, which I did due to practical reasons like running out of space or something (true story, nothing made up on this list).

What was my experience? For the whole four years, I had been sincerely hoping everyday that either she or I would die. My life had been quite complicated and not fine even without that monster but she enjoyed shouting at me, perhaps trully believing she was helping me learn. You can't imagine how much I hated the language that was her excuse for emotionally torturing me and embarassing me constantly in front of others. As time went, I started defending myself and things got even worse in class. But had I not defended myself in public, I would have probably ended worse and I wouldn't certainly be talking to you right now.

What changed. Two things. 1.I found a text based rpg game in English, set in my favourite fantasy world. And I desired to join the most releplay heavy clan. I had to learn, I learnt tons by assimilation, new vocabulary (and now it was finally useful vocab), I began to use the grammar correctly, to express myself fast, I got writing corrections later as well. That was vast majority of my success, reading and writing. Reading and writing fast. 2.And during the last year of the first half of studies at that school (aged 14), we knew that we'd be regrouped for the next year. And I got to know that the best group would have a different teacher. So I got through a grammar book on my own just for the test. And I succeeded. Later, I began watching tvseries in English and that moved me forwards as well, I started reading in English and so on.

Even now. I love the opportunities this langauge gives me. I love lots of the anglophone content. Books, tv series, music, textbooks. I love the fact that I've got a skill many others lack, as the overall level of English is not that good among the population and that it has been helping me in many situations. But the langauge itself? No reason to love it. Does a worker love a hammer? Or a screwdriver? Does a doctor love the computer they fill all the forms on? Does a teacher love the chalk?

So, my advice for you: You've got two options, where I had gotten only one, so choose freely.
1.Abandon it. You can. You are no longer obliged to "learn" it at school. You have already got the 1st most useful language worldwide inside your brain. I trully cannot understand why so many English natives feel pressured to learn an "officially useful" langauge. Choose whatever you like.
2.Find uses for it. If you don't want to quit and lose all the work invested, find things you will love and will need Spanish for.

[DangerDave2010]

It's only a language dude, there's nothing to love or hate about it.

[Seneca]

hmmmm

[asterion]

It's only a language dude, there's nothing to love or hate about it.

Do not really agree...

1. Language can be loved merely for the sound of it. In our native language we often take it for granted, speaking a language becomes an automatic process, and you really get to regard it as merely a " hammer or a screwdriver" to a worker. But even in my native language, when I'm listening to someone with a pleasant sound of voice, excellent diction, eloquent choice of words...it can be a feast for the ears, almost like a musical piece( some people have the talent for using their voices as a musical instrument). In my case, it was Cortazar's eloquent, beautiful Argentinian Spanish, with nice European( French) touch that got me interested in Spanish. The very thought of one day being able to produce that same sounds, can be enough to keep someone going with the language.

2. Language is not a self-serving sign system, but the key allowing entrance into the world that lives through that language. It can be the world of Latin American boom literature, Spanish/ Latin American music, cinematography, sport( if you support some team)...So your love for that world is transferred to the language.

OP finds that Spanish has a " nice sound" ( but clearly not enough to keep him going), and he has no desire to enter the world of Spanish, making it a " dead language" to him . In that case...I think he could use Spanish as a tremendous help for learning Romance languages he dabbles in( French, Italian), if he finds them more useful, or just let go of learning Spanish for a while( keep it on life support), and see if he will at some point of his life see it as more useful.