It's easy enough to say I'm going to start learning this language, but I know
from experience, it's a lot of work.
Hi there's Steve Kaufmann here.
Today I want to sort of ask myself a question: why do you
want to learn another language?
Um, and, um, but first, before I get into the subject, uh, if you
enjoy my videos, please subscribe, click on the bell for notifications.
And if you follow me on a podcast service, please leave a review.
So why has this subject suddenly come to my mind?
Well, my, a large part of my inspiration for learning languages comes from
different series that my wife watches on Netflix and I kind of go in and out of the
TV room and sometimes sit down and watch.
And she was watching an Indian movie ... or something.
Uh, and of course it's, it's in Bombay it's a hundred years
ago or whenever, 80 years ago.
And it's very exotic and all of these things that sort of, you know, and
of course I pick up the odd word in Hindi that sounds a bit like Persian.
Uh, the odd one and it then becomes very tempting to say, you know what,
I should learn Hindi or Punjabi or one of those Indian languages.
And so then I say to myself, well, here you are, you've been
struggling with Persian and Arabic and of course neglecting other
languages that you've learned.
Why would you take on yet another language?
And, um, yeah, this is an interesting question.
Obviously, the more languages you have or the more languages you try to
learn, uh, the less well you're going to speak in languages that you have
already spent time trying to learn.
You know, I sometimes say to myself, why did you ever bother
trying to learn Persian and Arabic?
When, you know, I, maybe you should focus on Korean, which is not
at a level that you would like.
Um, and, and the, the simple answer is that I'm always curious, you
know, as imperfect as my Arabic and Persian are, and I will perhaps do
a um, maybe a conversation with my tutor again, in those languages, and
you'll see that it's full of holes.
And yet it's at a level where I enjoy them.
Uh, I enjoy listening to my, um, you know, Radio Farda uh, podcast news in Farsi.
I understand a fair amount of it.
I enjoy, for example, my Jordanian.
Um, cartoon series.
So I'm enjoying participating to some extent in that language, in
that culture, however imperfectly.
So whatever I put in, I feel I get back.
Now, how exciting would it be to have some sense of how some Indian language works?
Uh, probably Hindi because it's the most widely spoken.
And of course the Bollywood movies are in Hindi, but here in Vancouver, most
of the people from India are in fact from the Punjab so they speak Punjabi.
Um, probably I have no idea how mutually intelligible those languages are,
but, um, it would be fun to do them.
And so it becomes fun.
Uh it's it's a challenge, like part of learning another languages simply
because the language is there.
So it's like, why do you climb a mountain?
Because the mountain is there.
You know, uh, I look back to when I wrote my book The Linguist on Language,
uh, I guess I was 57 or so and I had nine languages and I had enjoyed
every one of those nine languages.
Well, now I'm approaching my 20th language.
Um, mostly since the age of 60 and it's brought me so much and I can think of the
Egyptian movies that I watched training very hard to understand something,
not understanding too much, but, but because of my exposure to that language
and the few things that I do understand I'm more involved, I, I can feel and
smell and touch the culture more.
Uh, similarly with Persian, where Sahara in Iran has sent me some, uh, Irani
movies and I'm confident, maybe more confident in Persian than in Arabic,
that I'll eventually be on, be able to understand those movies quite well.
Uh, so it, it brings me all of that.
And I think I made the point in, in a number of my other videos
that whatever I achieve is good.
It's all a plus.
There is no negative.
Perhaps the only negative is that I haven't spent that time working
on some of my other languages, but I can go back to them.
Whatever I put into them is there.
I'm not going to lose it.
It might take me a little while to refresh them.
So I don't know, why learn another language?
I guess the question can be asked of someone like me who has tried to
learn, say, 20 languages and who might look at trying to learn about another,
yet another language or two or three or someone who is still struggling
with their first foreign language.
And of course, for many people, it's not a hobby.
For many people, it's, it's, there's a practical need.
Uh, they might be an immigrant or a refugee in a country, in Germany or
in North America or somewhere they have to learn the local language.
Or, uh, if you're living somewhere where you do business with people
from another country and you need that language, then of course there's a
greater sort of need for the language, but I'm not in that situation.
I'm in the situation where I learn languages for pleasure.
And uh, why would I take on yet another language with all of an, and of course
it's easy enough to say I'm going to start learning this language, but I know
from experience, it's a lot of work.
So once I commit myself to sort of spending time with that language, it's
going to be another sort of times sump, but it's an enjoyable pursuit for me.
Uh, and not only is the actual study of the language enjoyable, but everything
that comes with it, the discovery of the culture, getting closer to
those people and seeing those people less sort of in a caricature form or
stereotype form, but rather seeing them as they are and hearing how they
speak and how they express themselves.
So that's why I continue to add languages, although I don't achieve a
high level of fluency I do achieve a very worthwhile level of familiarity
with those languages and that's why I would continue learning languages.
And I would like to suggest you have a look at two languages or two
videos that I did on the subject.
Uh, one was six months ago where I talk about learning two languages at
once and another one, three months ago, where I would talk about learning
multiple languages at the same time.
And that might give you a different perspective on the issue of taking on,
uh, different languages or continuing to challenge yourself with more
languages when you already know some.
And I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation.
So I look forward to hearing from you.
Bye for now.