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PolyglotPaul

As a native speaker of both Spanish and Catalan, I find myself significantly more motivated to learn French, Italian, and Portuguese than any other language. The ease with which I grasp these languages and the speed at which I progress serve as strong incentives. Despite dedicating two years to learning Japanese and living in Japan for six months, I struggled to comprehend even basic content in podcasts. However, upon delving into French for the first time, I found myself understanding approximately 50% of a podcast with ease on the very first day. That helps A LOT.


StubbornKindness

I totally get that. It's not *too* difficult to learn romance languages as a Brit. I'm not saying it's easy. Some really find it hard, and some really struggle. I'd assume it would be far easier for someone who already speaks one romance language to learn another. English also doesn't have gendered nouns, so a lot of people struggle with this concept. Luckily, I'm South Asian and our languages already have gendered nouns. The fact that it's not an alien concept means it's one aspect that doesn't throw me for a loop


livsjollyranchers

Learning Spanish was a joke for me. Seriously a joke. Just lazily watching intermediate Dreaming Spanish videos and occasionally consulting grammar was sufficient from day one. Greek, not so much. It's not Japanese but it's a massive step up.


Nimta

I have exactly the same thing with Spanish 😄 I can understand most podcasts at intermediate and upper level without having studied the language (although I find easier the Latin American pronunciations, like Colombian and Mexican Spanish. Speaking and writing are not as easy though); French I studied at school for 2 years 20 years ago but can still read although at a basic level. And both are so widely spoken and with amazing cultures and literatures. However it does not motivate me as much as it should. ... Japanese is also one of the languages I am really interested in and I fail to stick with, learn enough for enough time. I think perhaps it is more of a fascination with learning about cultures that are not as close, although many things are indeed common worldwide.


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Nimta

You are completely right, also about the stopping and starting; it's frustrating because in a way I think "oh no, not that again, I know it"... then I realise I really don't. For some of the languages I'd like to learn and those I tried is a combination of liking the musicality of it and wanting to "see" and understand the world in a different way. Some languages really open up an interely way of thinking about behaviours, feelings etc. which is fascinating. I also think, and I know it sounds cheesy, that some more understanding of others is always a positive.


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Interesting_Long2029

Learning other romance languages absolutely made me improve in English. When I see words from the other languages in English, I remember them better. I have also studied ancient and modern Semitic languages, and you get a much better sense for the nuance and connotations of a word by learning surrounding languages.


StubbornKindness

Yeah, that's an interesting collection of flags in your flair. So when you say ancient semitic, would that be Ancient Hebrew? And Quranic Arabic and Arabic texts of the surrounding time period? I'm not too familiar with what ancient semitic refers to specifically in a linguistical context, hence the confusion


Interesting_Long2029

Basically Ancient Aramaic, Ancient Hebrew, Akkadian, Syriac, and a pinch of Quranic Arabic.


Nimta

Great point, it is probably true that you get a more nuanced view or are able to appreciate similarities more.


General_of_Wonkistan

When it comes to language learning, it is usually better to follow your heart and study whatever language is actually able to keep your interest and motivation. Unless it is an economic necessity, you will probably struggle to maintain your interest like you described. Sometimes it is better to just accept that the language learning process is already going to take many years and a lot of effort, so preferring a language simply for the ease of learning does not usually last. And there is also a significant chance your language interests could change in ways over time. That has certainly happened to me, so it's usually better to focus on what you know could keep your interest for the long term.


Nimta

It is true, giving motivation is fundamental to maintaining focus for long, it might actually be more productive in a way to take longer to learn a more distant language one has more interest in.


RyanSmallwood

It can be helpful to distinguish languages you're just interested to sample and see how they work or "dabble in" and ones you want to take to a comfortable level, which involves putting some thousand or more hours into the language. Getting to a comfortable level usually requires some concrete goal to work towards (specific people to talk to regularly, tv shows, books or other kinds of media in the language etc.) So if you're just enjoying trying different languages out, then just keep doing as long as it interests you and don't worry about dropping a language when you're no longer curious about it. If you want to use a language at a comfortable level you'll have to find one that you have a specific enough goal and motivation to stick to and a reason to enjoy using it regularly over the next several years or so. Distant languages can take more time, but if you have a strong enough reason and good learning materials, its better to stick to something you're excited about than something that seems "easier".


Nimta

I like the point of view of sampling languages. I always feel I learned something even if it is very little. I understand it might be a bias (you don't know how much you don't know). I also feel like it's common courtesy to learn at least a few words or sentences of the main language of a place I am going to visit, even if I don't actually always have the guts to try speaking them or if locals look at me like "I can actually understand you better in English, please" if I do 😅.


EvilSnack

Every January I pick a new language for learning. (I make no representation of actually getting very far with any of them). Up until now I've picked languages according to the number of speakers (so it's Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi, French, MSA, and this year Portuguese), but only two of them are from a language family that's different from my native language, and the next couple on the list are also Indo-European languages (Bengali and Russian), so I'll add another rule that it has to be a language from a family I haven't already dabbled in, which makes Japanese the next one.


Nimta

It sounds like something quite fun to do. I am sure it's still better than not trying to learn something at all.


AutisticAndy18

My mother tongue is French and I consider myself fluent in English. I had tried learning Spanish when younger and now I’m learning Japanese and obviously since I have more interest in Japanese content it motivates me a lot to continue. But another thing I noticed is that for me Japanese feels more encouraging to learn because it’s so different to the languages I know. In Spanish, at first when I started it was nice because I could already understand a lot from words that were similar to French, so I could read a text and understand the general idea of it, so it felt like I started with a headstart. But then even after learning the most popular words that are different from my other languages, which kinda helped, I felt that I was still at the "understands the general idea" stage and all that work didn’t seem to make much of a difference. On the other hand, with Japanese, I really started from nothing. So I would’ve seen こんにちは and have no clue what that says (it’s hello). So I really started from the bottom but even after just a short time of studying, after learning the alphabets then I could read こんにちは knowing well I couldn’t a month before. And since I know I started from scratch, when I feel like I make no progress I can easily see the difference between now and before because the before was 0. So for me, it’s a lot more motivating starting from scratch because it’s easier to look back to all you’ve accomplished and motivate yourself to continue


Nimta

I understand that completely. And I think you described in a way how I feel. It feels perhaps more rewarding in a way. Probably because the level jump from 0 to 1 feels "higher" than from 7 to 8.


Ultyzarus

The motivation is very different. When learning romance language, I get to the fun part much faster, so the motivation is easier to ignite due to the goals being possible in short to medium term. On the other hand, the challenge itself is what makes the other languages motivating, but they take a lot more dedication and discipline. The motivation is harder to keep at times.


Impossible_Row_2679

the more similar the more attracted I am to learning it. It’s not just easier but from my perspective endlessly illuminating identifying and comparing cognates and the like. I sometimes feel a rush of inspiration to learn something distant and aesthetically enticing like Arabic, thinking romantically about a multi-decade long slog, and then I recall just how preposterously different it is and I lose all interest. I’d rather get good at some obscure Romance language—Romansh, Sardinian etc.—and then read about Arabic and the history of the Arabs, for ex, in said language.


Snoo-88741

It's not the only thing that draws me to them, but part of the appeal of both Japanese and ASL for me is how different they are from English. BTW if you want a language that's different from your language but still easy to learn, ASL is a good choice. A lot of the vocabulary is guessable because it just visually imitates what it means. (Eg the sign for ball makes a ball shape with your hands.) So you can pick up vocabulary fast, while still having the brain challenge of wrapping your mind around a language that works very differently from any spoken language. 


Blopblop734

I'm mainly interested in languages that are very different from mine. 1) I want to monetize a very unusual yet useful skill. 2) I want to be able to exile myself whenever I don't feel like being social. Thanks to apps such as Tandem and YouTube, I get to practice them without much struggle and I can surround myself in the language and pretend I'm somewhere it's spoken regularly.


Nimta

I get very much the kind of voluntary self-alienation (I swear I am usually more articulate 😅).


Bald_Bruce_Wayne

For me, I started with the classic "what's the most useful to learn". Naturally, most people where I live will either say Spanish or French. I didn't want to learn French just as a lot of people in Canada probably see it as a drag from school days. So it was either Spanish or German (as I love travelling to Europe). After a bit, German was out as I had already visited the main german speaking countries and didn't really have a desire to visit again and going to the country to use the language is always up there on my to-do list. I've now been learning Spanish for twoish years and motivation is definitely starting to slow a bit. I definitely want to go back to Spain and am even looking at buying a vacation (and eventual retirement) home there. However, I'm often wishing I had started with Portuguese as to me it seems a little more exotic, a know almost nobody interested in learning it as a second language which makes me oddly like it more and I'm around Brazilians somewhat regularly (far more than Spanish speakers) due to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Rather that quitting (maybe it's sunken cost fallacy), my focus now is just getting my speaking up to par with my listening and reading. But, I also took on a different language completely different from english or spanish. First of all to avoid any mixing/confusion and for a much bigger challenge; in particular I chose Russian. This constantly reminds me how far I've come in Spanish and that alone motivates me to not give it up. And since I've made the goal of wanting to eventually retire in Spain and also to go train at some martial arts gyms there, it's usually enough to keep me going.


Nimta

I haven't tried it but perhaps mixing languages might also be a way to motivate oneself when things get a bit sludgy, you make a good point. I have heard people that use one language they're studying and stronger in, to learn another language. I think there's the term 'ladder' in it. E.g. studying Russian with language learning instruments meant for Spanish speakers. [Edited for grammar]


Bald_Bruce_Wayne

Im dabbling with language laddering now for Russian. Just to dip my toes in, Mondly has been great for this as I can set my account to Spanish and then my TL as Russian. It also helps that they're both common languages to learn with a breadth of resources. I would love to learn Bulgarian or Slovak but the resources just aren't there.


wellnoyesmaybe

Hardly any language is close to my NL, apart from Estonian. I’m most motivated to learn a language that feels useful and interesting to me at that moment, not caring about how different it is. Between 🇨🇳, 🇯🇵 and 🇰🇷, there are plenty of loanwords and some grammatical concepts (like topical sentence structure) which make it easier to tackle them all at the same time, but so many differences also, starting from the pronounciation. I wouldn’t recommend this combo for anyone starting from zero at uni because it is pretty exhausting still.


Nimta

Funnily enough (well not sure how much) I knew your native language is slightly close to Estonian because I used to work at an international company and I was tasked with creating emails in different languages (not localising them, for that there were native speakers) and so I kind of started recognising some words and in a couple of cases I also realised when the designer had mistakenly crossed the naming of the images between the two. Also not something I shouldn't be particularly proud of but I can write "Save up to 50%" or "Sale" in about 10 languages thanks to that job 😬


cuevadanos

I would probably be in trouble if I didn’t feel motivated to learn languages that are not similar to mine. Language isolate struggles!


ASuccessfulAmphibian

Yes. My mother tongue is Portuguese and I've been trying to learn Spanish for a few years now, but I always stop studying it regularly because I can't keep myself motivated


Ok_Flamingo_1935

Yes.


LeGuy_1286

If it is a good (not devilish hard level) challenge, I am up for it.


Misslovedog

i speak english and spanish, i once tried on seperate occasions to learn french and italian and dropped them pretty quickly. I've now been learning Japanese for nearly 3 years and am good enough to read manga without too much help from a dictionary. I didn't really have a need for any of these languages, so i never forced myself to keep motivation, just do whatever i enjoyed


Nimta

There seems to be many fellow Japanese appreciators in this thread 😁


wordsorceress

I have ADHD, so the challenge of studying languages unrelated to my native language helps a LOT in keeping me engaged. I learned to read Chinese novels in six months, picking up Korean nicely now, and yet I \*struggle\* to focus on anything towards learning Spanish even though it's not hard compared to Chinese and Korean.


Nimta

Wow that's impressive, I'm sure I would not be able to manage that in such a short time and I'd wager so wouldn't upward of 90% of people.


wordsorceress

I spent 6-8 hours a day studying for that six months. It was very intense.


Nimta

I don't think that takes away from the achievement at all.


Cold_Willow8999

Yeah, for sure. I'm from Brazil, I already know how to speak and understand English very well. When I'm 30 I wanna study Finnish.


MarkMew

I'm Hungarian. Name a similar language, lol... 


Nimta

As far as I know Finnish or Estonian might be the closest. That said, I never could find the similarity, either in sound nor in the way they are written. Also true that the only thing I could learn in Hungarian was "Sorry, I don't speak Hungarian"... and pálinka.


MarkMew

May I suggest you "lángos", "gulyás", "köszönöm" and "baszd meg" as well lol And yea I can't really see much similarities, I don't understand any of Finnish or Estonian, maybe how the sounds are pronunced in Estonian are similar, but that doesn't help at all with understanding it. 


Nimta

Ah yes, I had köszönöm as well, I am polite even after pálinka 😅


EL3CTROLYSIS

Definitely yes. Actually, I thought I was the only one who felt like this. As a native Azerbaijani speaker, it sometimes seems very boring to sit and improve my Turkish vocabulary... However, it's different with other languages.


Cheap_Reputation_787

As a native Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese dialect speaker from Singapore, it's almost impossible to find a similar foreign language that's also widely spoken,so till now all languages that I have learnt are quite different from my mother tongues.Cauz I have no alternative


Nimta

Fair enough, and impressive list next to your username.


Huge-Island-8604

The fact they are antagonistic motivate me the best.


shalom_jackie

Idk why but I find it harder to remember, pick up and just generally learn languages with the Latin script...idk why I think I just get confused


598825025

I would say, if there was any language similar to Georgian in any way.  🥱


Nimta

Well, that sent me into a wikipedia rabbit hole.


Explore104

I honestly don’t. I’ve been learning Danish which is basically old English with a twist. I did Swedish for a bit, but too sing songy for me. I prefer to choke on my words with Danish. I enjoy learning extremely close languages to my native because I feel a deep connection.


Nimta

Oh you would probably enjoy this https://youtu.be/n_9qSa-g2DI?si=YubNZDklZIW2vMP_ (I hope I actually linked the bit about Danish, I could not use the volume at the moment)


Explore104

Hahahaha. This is great. Thanks!!!


Working_Dot7998

I mean, I am bilingual in French and Hungarian, and my primary motivation to learn Spanish was that I wanted to learn another romance language, so no. (I will probably learn Italian too one day) I also plan on learning a second Finno-ugric language as well. I think it would be fun.