For me, it’s never just “because”. Each language I’ve picked up has its own story and reason.
German — because Switzerland is the country that I would like to move to once I have graduated university (studying mathematics & statistics). Learning the language isn’t optional if I want to actually live and work there one day, not just visit.
Spanish - pure love. The music, the culture, the energy of the Latin world pulled me in long before I thought about practicality. (I will be back to South America; do not worry about that.)
Russian — for the challenge. The grammar, the literature, the way of thinking embedded in the language itself. It’s intellectually one of the hardest things I’ve taken on, and that’s exactly why I love it.
What’s your reason? Career, culture, love, curiosity, or just the thrill of the challenge?
I sometimes get the impression, that arguing in English leads me to other conclusions compared to my mother tongue German. It may be due to limitiations in my proficiency, but I also saw it mentioned often over the course of the years, that different languages causes you to think different. So I want to test it by learning a language quiet different from German or English and ended up learning Korean and Japanese.
My first attempt (after some Spanish with no specific reason for why I started it, it was just one of the available languages for German speakers on Duolingo back when I started) was Japanese, where I horribly failed trying to learn the alphabet due to my lack of experience in studying languages. Later on, because I like watching K-Dramas, I read that the korean alphabet is pretty simple, gave it a go and stuck with it. Last september I picked up Japanese again.
With Korean, except me liking K-Dramas and wanting to be able to watch them without subs one day, I actually like the grammar a lot. The language made me get very interested in grammar overall, not just the korean one.
In regards to Japanese I am listening to a lot of japanese music. I really like the sound of the language. And I like the script. Learning a language that uses chinese characters is just too tempting. It takes time, but imagine beeing able to read and write using this beautyful script makes the effort seem worthwhile.
Last time I was in Switzerland everyone was speaking French. I heard they also speak Italian in some places. Probably just depends on which city/town you go to.
When I was a teenager I was obsessed with the bands HIM and Nightwish. They sung in English but their word choices and phrasing seemed so alien compared to what I had learned in school. Knowing what I know now about how the words are translated and ordered it makes a lot more sense.
I’ve learned English to survive when I moved to Sweden, and now I’m learning Swedish because my kids - who have born in Sweden - are learning the language super fast and I’m trying to catch up!
Italian- I’ve always wanted to learn a romance language due it’s practicality and the culture surrounding it. For me, it was going to be between Italian, French, or Portuguese but something about the way Italian sounded just pulled me in its direction. Eventually plan to do a Tour of Italy one day. Got dragged into the world of Italian dubbed anime and I’ll just say that it’s severely underrated haha.
Japanese- As with most millennials that grew up on anime and video games it’s hard not to get pulled in by Japanese. I choose Japanese as my 2nd language since I knew wanted to “learn” Italian first (you never really finish). As mentioned above the difficulty of learning such a different language is a reward on to itself. But the dream would be to play FFX in Japanese.
Russian- Just dabbled a bit but this would be for something that is more of a medium difficulty language after Japanese. Cyrillic looks super cool and the language sounds amazing.
Native English speaker, from the English midlands.
French: Forced to study it at school, hated it. Met French speakers during a PhD, did some courses, went to Montreal for two years. 30 years later, I heard about Duolingo, finished the course, learnt very little, then finished the Busuu course, learnt very little, I then joined LingQ, which is a much better language learning tool assuming you use it properly. I can now understand most native French audio, and express most ideas, albeit clumsily, with an acceptable accent.
German: Started from zero at age 58, I believed the nonsense about learning a language with no effort, and I wanted to learn a language that was quite different to French and other romance languages. It’s hard work. I finished the Babbel course, learnt nothing, then moved to LingQ. I am currently at a B1 level and progressing. My aim is to reach a good B2 in two years time, where I understand clear speech and can speak clear, grammatically correct German albeit in a childlike manner.
Welsh: I did a little in my twenties, as I know some Welsh speakers. I’d love to learn it, but realistically I don’t think it will happen at my age. Languages take a lot of hard work and time to learn.
French - I have a lot of friends in France, and I wanted to be able to speak with them in their native language. I also always wanted to get good in another language, and I dabbled in a few others but I would consider this the first time I was truly consistent with it, and the first I got basic conversational skills in. I also wanted to study abroad and applied to a French university, so I thought if I would be living in France, I should know French.
Spanish - I did end up getting into said French university, but for various reasons came to the campus in Spain. I do not love the Spanish language the most of the ones I have / am learning (though I do love it in it’s own way), but it is the best now more out of necessity.
Italian - I have an Italian friend and another friend and I are learning it this summer to surprise him I genuinely do not know how much I will continue learning after this summer (though I hope to not lose any and keep talking at least basics with him).
Turkish - First it was because I went to Turkey and I always learn basics when I visit a country, even just enough to order food and be polite. But now it’s a bit more serious for the same reason as Italian actually, that same friend and I are also learning to surprise another friend of ours later this summer. Is it wise of us to learn two languages at once? Maybe not, but we don’t care, because we want to do something for our two friends. And with Turkish, I think this sounds the coolest of all, and there is something about the structure of it that my brain just clicks with, so I probably will continue more with it.
I’ll go in order of learning, not by proficiency or interest.
Spanish - We had to take language classes in high school. I chose Spanish because it was the most likely to be used in the U.S. I had no real interest to continue. In college, for Engineering it wasn’t a requirement but I took the placement test anyway. It told me I should be in Spanish 1. When I dropped out of Engineering, language (to a 3rd year level) now became a requirement for any other degree. I figured since I had taken like 3 years of Spanish in high school, no way should I be in Spanish 1, so I signed up for Spanish 3 and passed with a B! It was rough at the beginning as it was all taught in Spanish but somehow I managed. I did get renewed interest out of college about 15 or so years ago after taking a river cruise with my parents. One of our guides, from Belgium was able to speak all the languages of the countries we stopped in and I thought, I want to be able to do that! So I started Spanish again after that but was pretty lost how to go about it myself. I still dabble in it and try to progress, but it’s taken a backseat to German…
German - I met a German girlfriend. She grew up in the U.S. from around age 12 and she has no German accent when speaking English…well, except when she is speaking German with her parents and uses an English phrase or words…then she says them in German accent. Cute =D. Anyway, her parents live nearby in the U.S. as well and they all speak German. And of course when we are in Germany, everyone is speaking German. They all accomodate (the ones that can) my English, but prior to even going to Germany with them I had already started trying to learn German as I thought it would be fun. I also had seen the whole “learn a language in 3 months” stuff so I thought it would be a piece of cake and I’d learn a new language every couple of years to fluency. LOL. Anyway, I still really enjoy learning German. It’s going on 10 years. While a long time years-wise, I’ve probably only averaged 15-20 minutes a day over the course of that time. I keep plugging away. Mostly trying to up my listening and speaking game, but spending way too much time reading instead =). My ancestry is also mostly German and Swiss, so there is also an aspect of wanting to explore my roots as it relates to language and culture.
Norwegian* - I’m putting an asterisk as this is really a new interest so I can’t say how far I’ll continue it. I also have some Norwegian ancestry so I thought it might be fun to explore a language from the beginning again and one related to that ancestry. We are also visiting there in a month and will again in the future. I also figured it could be an easy one to progress with the German base I already have. I also am interested in focusing this one on speaking and conversation. The others I’ve spent vastly more time on input and frankly it shows. In German, I can get a point across, I can manage most day to day requirements. But I can’t speak well…at least not in the way I want to be able to. (so maybe I should focus on German than Norwegian you say…and I will…just want to focus this next month on Norwegian =D ). Anyway, so I am more interested in focusing Norwegian more on output so to speak, than input. I will actually probably be doing a lot of input in the form of listening, or reading, but it’s 80% going to be stuff that I would use in conversation. The 20% other reading will just be to increase vocabulary and have fun.
Japanese - I did learn the Hiragana and Katakana and some words and phrases for when we went to Japan. I would love to spend more time with this, and I would love to go back to Japan again. Unfortunately I don’t see myself having much time for this over the next few years, although I’m considering retiring early in the next year or two so maybe that will free up some time for more play, but still want to focus on the other 3 much more as they will have much more benefit to me.
I genuinely do not know how much I will continue learning after this summer (though I hope to not lose any and keep talking at least basics with him).