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Ceasing study of a language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6179 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 24 03 February 2010 at 7:56am | IP Logged | ||
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At least one, maybe two other threads arguing about Russia have been closed. Let's try to stay on topic here and not turn this into a debate about politics, xenophobia, etc.
Eric 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lingvolingo Bilingual Diglot Newbie United Kingdom http:/lingvolingo.bl Joined 5212 days ago 8 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English*, Lowland Scots* Studies: French, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 10 of 24 03 February 2010 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I disagree with some of the other posters in relation to your continuation. Whilst you might have invested a lot of time into learning Russian in the past, continuing to study it will only waste more of your time if you decide to drop it sometime in the future. I think it's pointless to continue with any subject that you no longer feel passionate about. In forcing yourself to continue without any motivation, all you'll be doing is making it an unenjoyable chore and it might make you resentful towards the subject.
Maybe you should take a small break with Russian for now whilst you make your decision. Stopping for a month or so won't make you lose all the Russian you have and whatever you do lose should be easy to pick up again if you do decide to continue. In the meantime you should think about what made you interested in Russian in the first place. Travelling has always been a great interest of mine. Anytime I start to lose motivation I browse through all the photos I've accumulated of countries that speak that language and that always motivates me because if I were to visit a country, I would want to make the most out of it by being able to converse with the natives of that country. You mentioned that you might never travel to Russia, but think about what it was that made you interested in the first place and that might rekindle your motivation to continue. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mdkhoury Diglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5348 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 11 of 24 03 February 2010 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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No, I spend a lot of time in France, my significant other lives in Germany, and I love living
in a country where I'm accepted regardless of my religious and ethnic background. Call it anecdotal evidence, but the only time slurs have been used against me is by Russians. But, yeah, enough of that. Thanks for the advice lingvolingo, it certainly was helpful. :) I would say one of the major reasons for learning Russian was only for reading. But, I can't ever say that I have heard of someone being able to read a living language at a high level, and not have developed speaking skills. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5295 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 12 of 24 03 February 2010 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||
Are you currently in university or have you already graduated? My suggestion is that if you are still in school, but considering another major, choose one that will be of interest and/or worthwhile in terms of finding employment. Since you've already completed some Russian courses, I'm sure it wouldn't be much more work to earn a minor in the language. In my humble opinion, only studying a language in university is semi- pointless if only an undergraduate degree is obtained. However, if you study something that will likely find you a decent job somewhere, that added minor in Russian will just add to your resume. It will make you look smarter and more motivated than the next guy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5247 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 13 of 24 04 February 2010 at 1:00am | IP Logged | ||
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The concept at issue here is sunk costs: No, you can't get back the time you spent learning Russian, and that may make you feel like you can't walk away or you'll lose your investment. But if that investment isn't going to bring what you're looking for, investing more won't change that; it will just increase the time you have seemingly lost.
Whether or not you maintain your Russian, you'll always have the experience of having learned and the insights into the different ways that language can work that arose from that study. And truthfully, figuring out that something you've worked at isn't what you really want is a learning experience in and of itself. A few years ago, I went through this with Mandarin. I had studied it for quite some time, and was quite convinced that based on where I live, people I know and the growing popularity of the language, I ought to persevere with it. But after a certain point my enthusiasm wasn't there, and instead of expanding my knowledge of Mandarin, I was just expanding my library of books I wasn't going to read, CDs I wasn't going to listen to and my frustration with a language that just didn't fit into my life the way I thought it would. It's hard to give up a language, though. Eventually, alongside my goals for languages that I would learn, I had to add a specific goal not to study Mandarin anymore. Once I made that resolution, I very gladly said goodbye. Doing so has freed up more time for languages I enjoy and has made language learning once again something I always enjoy. Now, my experience with Mandarin is just that: MY experience. I don't know whether at the back of your mind, you were looking for encouragement to continue or permission to stop. To truly answer you're question, you'll have to ask yourself why you posted it. But whichever way you decide is fine: It's your life, and it's foolish to invest it - especially such free hours as you can find - on pursuits that don't fit with who you are or what you want to do. A simple test is to ask yourself what you'd do with your time instead. Then ask yourself: In five years, am I more likely to regret not being proficient in Russian or not having had the experiences or other learning opportunities that giving up Russian gave me the time to enjoy. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5786 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 14 of 24 04 February 2010 at 5:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I think that depending on the level of the language that you've achieved, it's possible that you can take a break from Russian for a while and then you might find that in a few years you'll want to come back to it.
In my own case, I burned out on Mandarin a while ago, and decided to give it a rest for a bit and concentrate on some easier languages. Ironically, I now find that I have motivation to study Mandarin again, but I'm still concentrating on the current projects for now. With regard to other people's opinion of the safety of certain places, I think you should take everyone's opinion with a grain of salt. For instance, a friend of mine once told me that he spent several months in a certain other country (not Russia), and I immediately responded "oh, that must have been fun!", to which he replied "no, it was horrible, I'll never go back". The key piece of information here is that I'm white and my friend is brown and wears a turban. When I visited that country I had a great time, but my friend was regularly chased through the streets and physically assaulted, and had to start taking martial arts for self defense. As mentioned before, though, this is sometimes just a feature of big cities where more of these sorts of idiots can get together and cause more trouble. In a lot of cases, small towns are much nicer since there's more of a sense of community and accountability. Russia is a big place, and is not homogeneous. Perhaps there are some excellent places that are not showcased in the news headlines. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aliebe Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 5635 days ago 59 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 24 08 February 2010 at 6:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Don't stick with it just because you have already invested time into it. That just drags out the misery, so to speak. Stick with it if you derive any pleasure from learning it, or at least have goals you want to accomplish in the case that the actual studying has lost some of its appeal. I studied Russian for a year at Uni and lost interest, therfore I dropped the language. That was almost ten years ago and I have never really regretted that. And having given it up I have a lot more time to seriously continue working on improving German and learning French. And even dabble in languages like Hungarian and Turkish which I find really interesting and are the languages of countries I either have or will visit.
But perhaps the question I should be really asking is this: What answer were you looking for when you posted on the forum? Validation for a decision to quit Russian that you have already made or reprimand for having thought to quit Russian in order to get a kick start back into a language you do not really want to give up? :D 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nadia Triglot Groupie Russian Federation Joined 5314 days ago 50 posts - 98 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: Hindi | Message 16 of 24 09 February 2010 at 9:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, first of all, I'm very sorry about the reasons which make you you consider giving up studying Russian. It's possible that there is foundation for your fears, though you shouldn't trust the media implicitly as they have their own agenda. Russian culture is very rich but I suppose it might be difficult just to get the materials like films and books.
I agree that there's no point in making yourself study a language you're not interested in. I always study languages for my own pleasure. I continue improving my English both because it's my work now and because I'm something of an Anglophile. I rather think it's not very productive to take up languages out of practical considerations, like, "China is becoming a strong economy, why don't I take up Mandarin" and it turns out it's difficult as hell for somebody whose language is from the Indo-European family. If ever I have the time to pick up Chinese it will be purely out of interest in and respect for the Chinese culture and I don't think I'll ever arrive at a high level there. The basics would be enough, perhaps. I've recently become a huge fan of Bollywood and Indian culture so I now seriously consider learning Hindi. But that will be purely a hobby and I anticipate vast amounts of pleasure from studying it. :) If ever it comes in handy, it'll be just a bonus. Edited by nadia on 09 February 2010 at 9:31am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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