What're Your Reasons for Learning?
What're your reasons for learning your target language(s)?
Most of us here are probably already knee deep in studies and immersion and discovering things. But what made you make that first step in your journey? Also, when it gets tough, is there any major motivator for you to help you continue? Did you ever get a major language high that made you feel in tune with your goals?
Personal anecdote was I didn't start really committing to language learning at all until my niece was feeling suicidal. She was very much into everything Japanese. Language, anime, culture, etc. I started my Japanese because I wanted to make sure she wouldn't feel as ostracised (she had other issues at the time I won't get into). There's not really a huge pull for me for Japanese other than that. She's in a much better position now, but I've been on the grind long enough I don't want to stop. Japanese is fun and interesting in it's own right and the insights you get into other cultures via language also gives you more insight to other cultures than the target language as well as your own. (My minor kanji recognition for instance sometimes helps me guess what a small Chinese text might indicate, for instance).
Second to that, my Spanish is because my girlfriend comes from a Spanish speaking country, and I think it's important trying to be able to integrate somewhat with your SO's respective tongue/culture.
Irish for me is the same but self targeted. I've lived all my life in Ireland, but never really took up the language. I do aim to change that, but the other languages, Japanese and Spanish are more paramount for me knowing sooner.
So what about you? What made you jump into all this? Language learning seems like such a monumental goal. I figure to fully commit to it you have to be quite dedicated to it, so I'm sure you all have very good reasons for jumping in. I'd love to hear from everyone.
8 replies
i'm learning irish because it's my native language & it should've been my first language. i feel at a loss when i'm not able to access/understand irish language stories/books/tv programmes/etc.
i've also heard "it's the way that it's taught in schools" used as an excuse for too long. i'm an adult & i haven't set foot in any school in years, so it felt hypocritical of me to not use my adult time and money to take courses, & start reading books & going to ciorcal comhrás!
I've actually never heard someone refer to their native language as something other than their first language, and with Irish I can totally see how it's applicable. Good on you for taking it on yourself. I've read about the efforts to keep the Irish language going and it's very interesting!
it's unfortunately pretty common in places that have undergone colonisation; one of the first things done is often enforcing use of the coloniser language & cutting people off from their native language.
it's the same patterns over and over, whether it's the welsh knot & bata scóir in schools closer to me, or via atrocities like the stolen generation in australia or the sixties scoop & industrial schools in the americas 💔
it is really heartening to see people learning their native languages that they've been cut off from. on its own, it can't undo all the damage done, but it feels like a good start ❤️🩹🙌
My favorite band, Korpiklaani sings primarily in Finnish these days. I met the lead singer as I was leaving a concert back in 2014. I said hi, thanked him for the music, and the show. I promised him the next time I met him I would talk with him in his native tongue.
I have been studying Finnish since 2021, I have met the band twice since the first meeting. The second time they remembered me, I am the crazy guy learning Finnish.
Japanese for me started out practical and then moved into personal interest and it's circled all the way back around to practical again.
I needed to fill out my undergraduate course load for a semester, and a friend decided to take Japanese I. He invited me along. Like many kids our age at the time, we had an interest in anime and Japanese video games.
Naturally, my friend dropped out within six weeks--rote hiragana/katakana memorization isn't for everyone. I met some friends I'd end up keeping for the rest of my undergrad in that class, and also ended up doing four semesters of Japanese by the time I graduated. Five, actually, because I did a lower intermediate class when I did a study abroad for my last semester. I studied at Kansai Gaidai near Osaka.
From that point I let it drop for years, and I lost a ton of it. Probably most of the kanji, but not the kana, fortunately. Definitely whatever listening capacity I had.
I gradually let it come back to me. What got me back into it at first was the tech side of it I kept hearing conversations about. The Learn Japanese subreddit, friends on Discord, the occasional GitHub project. I kept thinking I wish I had half of these tools back when I was in college or in Japan, SRS in particular. Now I could do all this stuff from my phone.
I started SRS with the now-ancient Houhou, but it was Seth Clydesdale's great Tobira Study Resources site that really got me moving. I had purchased Tobira, the leading intermediate book at the time, but barely touched it for a year and a half. Now I had a motivating tool to work with. I went back a few chapters in Genki for remedial work (also using Seth's Genki site, which has sadly since been taken down by request), and then slowly started to make way through Tobira.
What really got me studying in earnest was a breakthrough in behavioral therapy where I decided to use Japanese to anchor my day. I'd been adrift--a business I'd tried to start wasn't going anywhere, work was drying up, and I wasn't getting hired despite my best efforts either. My routine had become pretty messy by that point. Regular Japanese helped me a lot, as did the challenge of study, I think, in hindsight. A lot of learning comes naturally to me, but language never had, even when doing Spanish and French in grade school. Languages have always been something I had to put extra effort into.
Integrating the tech become a critical part of my journey. I'd since returned to college, and my classes in web design overlapped with card styles in Anki. Anki lead to Yomitan, which led to learning how to work with API calls to Azure to generate voices for my mined flashcards. After graduating from college I started learning AI workflows for my career development, which I also started integrating into my study. I've even started writing Python scripts to make or process study materials.
What started as a regulating, anchoring activity ended up being a gateway into present-day tech for me, which has become essential. Language study somehow turned into this interdependent, parallel path to my career. Now I'm in the home stretch of a push towards N2 (upper intermediate) certification, which is the minimum to have Japanese as a marketable skill.
Japanese work itself could end up being part of my career in the end. I don't know what direction that's headed in yet, but I do have a strong interest in localization and not many people in my field can translate Japanese to English. Even setting aside the wins you get from using another language, everything I learned about tech from language study and the routine it gave me has all been highly rewarding.
Yo aprendo español porque mi esposa es de españa, lo intento muy difícil y lo no disfrutar pero algo para ella.
I have been learning on and off for a while because like you say I think it is good to be able to meet them in the middle with their language as well as it giving you insights into their country and their lives. Also being able to talk to her family and friends over there in a more succinct manner would be very beneficial.
I find languages very hard though and really don't enjoy languages in general. My motivation to learn has always been swings and roundabouts but I have just recently started formal lessons at a college to try and keep me at it and moving forward as well as to actually be able to ask questions rather than just trying to find the info ans blundering my way through learning by myself.
My reasons are mostly idealistic, honestly. I hope to be a bridge over the gap of understanding and respect between people who are at odds. Although I'll likely never enter the sphere of politics and international relations, I still wish to talk with the normal people, and be a friendly face with insight from both sides.
The major motivator for continuing is both the conflicts in the world and my partner. And when I manage to understand my partner's parents I do become quite exhilarated! It's taken me many years of on and off, and still only barely level A2, though I'm hanging in there!
My reasons aren't as great as some others, but they were enough to get me started and find out that I enjoy the process. I enjoy the heavy code-switching feeling when speaking to someone in another language, and I enjoy the feeling of practicing language skills while enjoying media.
I realized pretty early on that I liked Japanese cultural exports. That interest made Japanese language a goal of mine. Over time, it's shifted to wanting to learn the language for fun, challege, and pure, stubborn, spite.
For Spanish, I had many opportunities to take classes throughout school. I enjoyed and did well in the classes. The US has a high proportion of Spanish speakers (relative to any other non-English language) and Spanish is widely spoken worldwide, so I thought it'd be useful to know.
The other language I'd like to learn (long-term) is German. Initially, because I perceived it as being so related to English that it'd be an easy one to pick up. That's not really true (romance languages turn out to be easier, and all languages are hard in ways), but I still think it'd be a good complement to my others. I perceive that German has a presence in free software and on the fediverse, and a company I'd worked for had a German parent org. And people have told me it's a nice place to visit. It all adds up to enough to make me interested, if not strongly motivated yet.