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Josquin’s Language Symphony (RU, IR, 東亜) | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Scottish) | Gaelic (Irish) | Icelandic | Portuguese | Multilingual | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4639 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 529 of 646 22 September 2013 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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SUNDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER 2013
This will be a lengthy reflection on my language learning philosophy, so all people who are not interested in reading me ramble about that please leave now. Still there? Good! So, to some of you my language learning decisions of the last few months may have seemed chaotic and often even contradictory, but I had some serious problems to handle and languages were mostly my last priority. I nevertheless kept studying them out of sheer fascination for language in general and specific languages in particular. I am now in the happy position that most of my former problems have been solved and I’m able to do what I love. But what exactly is that? I have always been a very curious human being and wanted to understand everything around me. From my childhood on, I have especially been fascinated by languages and music. I took three languages (English, French, and Latin) at grammar school and learned two others on my own (Italian and Swedish). I also dabbled a bit in Modern and Ancient Greek. For several reasons, I didn’t choose a language-related major at university, which I now regret, but I was able to follow the other great passion of mine: music. I always wanted to learn more languages, but I never did, because I was busy with my studies. Then, a few years ago, I finally got back to languages. I first explored Dutch, then dabbled in Scottish Gaelic, learned some basic Icelandic, and then got to Russian, which inspired me to start this log. Since then, I have been curiously exploring the world of languages and studied Russian, Icelandic, Faroese, Danish, Old Norse, Old English, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, Japanese, and now Mandarin. Some of those I studied very seriously (Russian, Scottish Gaelic, Japanese), some less seriously (Icelandic, Old Norse, Irish), and with others I didn’t get very far at all (Faroese, Danish, Old English, Welsh). However, there’s still the question tarvos asked some time ago: Do I want to keep up with the languages I have studied or, in other words, what are my goals in language learning? I’m learning languages out of curiosity and for my own pleasure. I don’t really have any practical need for most of them, but I simply enjoy studying them and thus broadening my horizon. That’s why I’m not really aiming for fluency in most of them. I do have some priority languages that I really want to improve, such as Russian, Gaelic/Irish, and Japanese, but the others are more or less intellectual pastimes. This attitude towards languages may explain why I change languages so often. My fascination for languages (and other things) comes and goes, and I will only concentrate on one language as long as I have a good textbook. After mastering the basics of a language and entering the intermediate level, things get more difficult for me. Dealing with native materials is still very demanding and so I tend to eschew these problems and resort to textbooks in a new language instead. What does that mean? Will I always be a jack-of-all-trades and never really master a language? Do I spread myself too thin and run the risk of always staying a dilettante in my languages? I don’t think so. While it is true that I may never reach advanced fluency in most of my languages unless I need to activate them in an immersion situation, I rather think of my studying process as focusing on a few "core" languages combined with dabbling in several "fringe" languages. I’m addicted to the fast progress I can make in the beginning stages of a new language, but I also like deepening my knowledge when I find out that a language truly fascinates me and isn’t just another "fringe" language. As I said, at the moment my "core" languages are Russian, Gaelic/Irish, and Japanese. All other languages I have been dealing with for the last year have never reached this stage. And although I may only be progressing slowly after having mastered the basics of a language, this does not mean I desert it altogether, or so I keep telling myself. So, this is how I see my studying strategy. On the one hand, I can never be confined to concentrate on one and only one language and master it to perfection, but on the other hand, I don’t want to dabble in an endless string of languages without ever getting anywhere either. So, I will have to refine my strategy for studying languages on the intermediate stage and expose myself to native materials more often, but I will also keep starting new languages just in order to see what they are like. In concrete terms, this means I will try to keep up my intermediate-level "core" languages Russian and Scottish Gaelic, study my beginner-level "core" languages Japanese and Irish, and dabble in Mandarin as my current "fringe" language. I hope this strategy will stand the test of reality in the near future and pay off with good study results. Edited by Josquin on 22 September 2013 at 4:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5129 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 530 of 646 23 September 2013 at 9:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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We all need to find our own path and our own methods - there is no one size fits all. If your way gives you joy and satisfaction, that is the only criteria it needs to pass.
You have been one of the most consistent members of our team - for that reason alone you have my full respect :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4639 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 531 of 646 23 September 2013 at 11:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks, Cristina!
Yes, maybe I'm taking it a bit too seriously and probably I'm overthinking the whole thing, but I somehow felt the need to describe my own path in language learning. I have been studying so many languages during the last two years that I needed to make a clear statement what my goals really are. I'm still striving to find my own path in language learning and seeing so many successful and skilled learners on this forum is often inspiring but sometimes even a bit intimidating. There is this saying "Do whatever floats your boat", but maybe I'm a bit bad at doing that. I'm a person who is used to doing what is expected of me and not what I really want. So, I find myself thinking: "I should study Russian more seriously and get better at it and not start a new language all over again." So, thank you for your encouragement! It's really helpful to me. I can see there is no need to worry. It's okay to be a jack-of-all-trades, and success is whatever I define it to be. I don't know why I keep beating myself up for this crap. As I said, I'm probably taking myself too seriously and I'm just not comfortable with simply doing what I want regardless what others might think. I'll try to remember that. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5129 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 532 of 646 23 September 2013 at 11:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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Language studies are for most of us something we do because we feel like it, not because we have to, so if there is any area where we should be allowed to do exactly as we please it is this one :-)
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5142 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 533 of 646 23 September 2013 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
Happy to see that you’re finally in a better place, Josquin! I’m also all for languages as intellectual pastimes: I see nothing wrong with it, and if that is what makes people like us tick I don’t see the need to justify our choices to others. As Cristina rightly said:
Enjoy your new linguistic adventures: both Mandarin and Japanese sound incredibly tempting to me as well. I’ll keep reading your log to gain any insight into how to better tackle those language behemoths: sooner or later I’m sure I’ll follow in your steps and finally cave in to their call. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4502 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 534 of 646 23 September 2013 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
You're definitely overthinking :) Honestly, I would love to study Russian so seriously that I spoke it like an educated native. But I don't have a use for that right now, and I really feel like dabbling a bit in many language so I can travel abroad and talk to people (which is what I like using them for). There's nothing wrong with knowing a bit of everything! I just like deepening a few languages personally because I've had experience living in those countries or feel compelled to know the language that well (French is a good example). The rest is just being generally a well-educated person! Edited by tarvos on 23 September 2013 at 1:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4639 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 535 of 646 23 September 2013 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you, Cristina, Emme, and tarvos!
I think I just needed to utter my self-doubt in order to dispel it. That's the great thing about HTLAL: You always get the sort of support you currently need. So, I studied some Mandarin and Japanese today and all is fine again. Pronunciation in Chinese is definitely more demanding than in Japanese, but it's very interesting. On the other hand, Chinese doesn't have any inflections on words. Well, it doesn't make much sense to list the pros and cons: They're both great. I'll try to fit some Irish into my daily routine as well, but East Asia is very fascinating at the moment. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4654 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 536 of 646 24 September 2013 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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When you read so many opinions, such as "you're just a creepy wanderluster, who just use excuses in order to NOT to learn ANY language" [a purposive exaggeration] it's no surprise you feel like that.
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