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In which I actually LEARN STUFF.
Jan. 17th, 2012 05:05 pmOne of the stranger things to come out of 2012 so far is that I'm learning Russian. I don't even know why. One day I was simply in the mood to hang out on Livemocha a bit and then I started about a million new courses at once, not quite realising that I was essentially trying on languages for size. I honestly thought I was going to proceed with all of them and silently berated myself for multitasking, but it quickly became apparent that only Russian had really caught my interest.
I have since figured out what my problem was with not only the other languages I looked at that day, but also the ones I had previously attempted to use the site for. It's quite ironic: I couldn't maintain the motivation to practise those because I had a reason for wanting to learn each of them. I wanted to be able to speak French because France is close to Germany and lots of people I know speak it, too. Japanese, to understand what GACKT was singing and to be able to watch some scenes from video games (and related material) in their original language. Finnish, Norwegian and Portuguese because I know or used to know people from those countries. Turkish because you're practically bound to meet at least one person who speaks it wherever you go here in Germany.
But incentive is good, right? ... Apparently not if you're me.
I have nothing to gain from studying Russian other than the enjoyment of learning a new language, so don't ask me why I decided to try it out. I guess I saw it on the drop-down list and went, "Oh hey. I've always liked the sound of that one. Let's add it to my courses, too." And here I am now, almost two weeks later, completely disinterested in the others and practising Russian as if I were planning to emigrate. Still doing it every two days or so even though I don't have Daniel's computer anymore and Livemocha takes painfully long to load on mine.
Should I eventually lose interest, achieve fluency and/or run out of available lessons, I have decided that I'm going to choose my next language the same way. Sooner or later I should get around to a more "useful" one through mere coincidence, right? And if I end up speaking ten languages before it comes to that, well. No harm done. :P
I wish I had realised this years ago when I first discovered the site. I could be speaking ten languages already! ... Possibly. Ahem. Overconfident, me?? o.O
It's so much fun, though. And the alphabet is a challenge, but not a big enough one to be discouraging. I don't know how I could possibly make my keyboard produce those letters, but reading them is starting to get easier. Maybe once I have a better computer again, I'll figure out some sort of on-screen keyboard work-around thingie. In the meantime I could try writing some words down by hand to practise.
So that's the other thing I do these days, aside from watching Stargate. XD
I have since figured out what my problem was with not only the other languages I looked at that day, but also the ones I had previously attempted to use the site for. It's quite ironic: I couldn't maintain the motivation to practise those because I had a reason for wanting to learn each of them. I wanted to be able to speak French because France is close to Germany and lots of people I know speak it, too. Japanese, to understand what GACKT was singing and to be able to watch some scenes from video games (and related material) in their original language. Finnish, Norwegian and Portuguese because I know or used to know people from those countries. Turkish because you're practically bound to meet at least one person who speaks it wherever you go here in Germany.
But incentive is good, right? ... Apparently not if you're me.
I have nothing to gain from studying Russian other than the enjoyment of learning a new language, so don't ask me why I decided to try it out. I guess I saw it on the drop-down list and went, "Oh hey. I've always liked the sound of that one. Let's add it to my courses, too." And here I am now, almost two weeks later, completely disinterested in the others and practising Russian as if I were planning to emigrate. Still doing it every two days or so even though I don't have Daniel's computer anymore and Livemocha takes painfully long to load on mine.
Should I eventually lose interest, achieve fluency and/or run out of available lessons, I have decided that I'm going to choose my next language the same way. Sooner or later I should get around to a more "useful" one through mere coincidence, right? And if I end up speaking ten languages before it comes to that, well. No harm done. :P
I wish I had realised this years ago when I first discovered the site. I could be speaking ten languages already! ... Possibly. Ahem. Overconfident, me?? o.O
It's so much fun, though. And the alphabet is a challenge, but not a big enough one to be discouraging. I don't know how I could possibly make my keyboard produce those letters, but reading them is starting to get easier. Maybe once I have a better computer again, I'll figure out some sort of on-screen keyboard work-around thingie. In the meantime I could try writing some words down by hand to practise.
So that's the other thing I do these days, aside from watching Stargate. XD
