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Revitalising or reviving your language

If you speak an endangered language, or your parents or grandparents do/did, learning that language and passing it on to your children could help to revitalise or revive it.

Culture

Maybe you're interested in the literature, poetry, films, TV programs, music or some other aspect of the culture of people who speak a particular language and want to learn their language in order to gain a better understanding of their culture.

Most people in the world are multilingual, and everybody could be; no one is rigorously excluded from another's language community except through lack of time and effort. Different languages protect and nourish the growth of different cultures, where different pathways of human knowledge can be discovered. They certainly make life richer for those who know more than one of them.
(Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word)

Religion

Missionaries and other religious types learn languages in order to spread their message. In fact, missionairies have played a major role in documenting languages and devising writing systems for many of them. Others learn the language(s) in which the scriptures/holy books of their religion were originally written to gain a better understanding of them. For example, Christians might learn Hebrew, Aramaic and Biblical Greek; Muslims might learn Classical Arabic, and Buddhists might learn Sanskrit.

Food

Perhaps you enjoy the food and/or drink of a particular country or region and make regular trips there, or the recipe books you want to use are only available in a foreign language

Linguistic interest

Maybe you're interested in linguistic aspects of a particular language and decide to learn it in order to understand them better.

Challenging yourself

Maybe you enjoy the challenge of learning foreign languages or of learning a particularly difficult language.

Sounds/looks good to me

Perhaps you just like the sound of a particular language when it's spoken or sung. Or you find the written form of a language attractive. If you like singing, learning songs in other languages can be interesting, challenging and enjoyable.

One language is never enough!

If like me you're a bit of a linguaphile / glossophile / linguaholic or whatever you call someone who is fascinated by languages and enjoys learning them, then one language is never enough.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

(Nelson Mandela)

To better understand our thought processes (from Judah Kay)

All of our thought processes are conducted in language, so really our entire existence or essense or soul, however we phrase it, is inextricably bound up to and with the languages we speak. Try to think without language for instance. However, we see that the language is in essence superficial, since many languages exist. To understand the true roots of our thought processes, the real nature of the human soul, a knowledge of several languages may be necessary.



To become someone else (from Janet Gil)

As a teen, I wished I were someone else. Learning Spanish let me be part of my best friend's family and have friends in college from South America whom I may not have met had I not had such an interest in learning Spanish. I liked myself with these other people more than I liked my American self (if that makes sense). I have known of people who learned another language at age 19 and above who now speak their second language almost without an accent but speak their first language with an accent!

To understand your own language and culture better (from Evona York)

Sometimes learning a foreign language helps you understand your own language and culture better through comparison, or through the relationship between the foreign language and your mother tongue. For instance, studying Latin in high school taught me an incredible amount of English, because English has so many words that come from the Latin. Same with Greek.

Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen
Those who know no foreign language knows nothing of their mother tongue.
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

To keep your mind healthy (from Harvey Schmidt)

Learning a second language has been proven to delay the onset of dementia.

To find your future husband/wife (from Rico Suave)

Learning a new language and culture increases the size of your selection pool.

To better understand the rest of humankind (from Philip Lightfoot)

Language is an aspect of humanity, and learning what a fellow human speaks teaches you more about humankind as a whole. The more languages you know, the more you understand our species, and that is beneficial no matter what the situation is.

To talk to friends without others understanding (from Elizabeth)

If you and some of your friends learn a foreign language, you'll be able to talk to each other without other people having a clue what you're saying. This works best if you choose a language few people study, such as Japanese.

To learn songs in other languages (from Michelle Kelleher Tietz)

Michelle has been learning Irish and Scottish Gaelic because she likes to sing and has founded an a cappella group that sings in Celtic languages. They sing old work songs, lullabies, etc. This hobby combines her interests in languages, history and story telling.

To help people in need (from Nuntawun Yuntadilok)

Learning other languages increases our chances of providing help to people who seriously need it, such as those in hit by the tsunami of 2004, many of whom can not communicate in English, especially children.

Friendship (from Bill Conwell)

My best friend is French and speaks English, Spanish and some German as well. I am trying to learn French to enhance our communication, though he doesn't demand nor expect it.

Venting your feelings (from Dick H.)

Another reason why one might want to learn a foreign language is to insult/cuss out people without them understanding what you're saying. It works best if you choose a language few people study. Avoid the Big Two (Spanish and French), because too many of us learned them in high school. And you never know who has a German, Finnish, Italian, or Greek grandmother!

To help you understand how other people think (from Orionas)

Language influences culture, so learning a language helps you to understand how other people think, and it also helps you to get a general understanding of our world and the many people and cultures that inhabit it.

Because I love learning languages (from Cody Warren)

My reasons for learning foreign languages is because I just love to do it, it's all the different ways people express themself, and it shows that there really are other people out there (to a teenager who's always stuck at home in a small farm town). Its also a way to learn how people interact and socialize with each other, and how each society works.

Also, I like conlanging, and learning different languages help me to understand how things work so i can build conlangs, and vice versa, creating the conlangs help me to understand how all different languages grammars work (Im always a sucker for using a lot of moods, cases, tenses, etc).

Learning languages to me, is much more than making myself able to communicate with others. To me it's like getting some nice new surprise and a whole new level of understanding.

Showing respect (from Nicole Signer)

I believe that when somebody at least tries to learn the language of the country they are visiting it shows a lot of respect. People really appreciate it.

To express things that are difficult to express in your native language (from Tenacious Mel)

Learning a foreign language can provide you with ways to talk about things that might be difficult to express in your own language. It's also a way to get in touch with other selves.

To better understand your own language (from Kaiti)

In order to learn another language, you need to learn the different titles and functions of sentence parts. Learning these things can make you a better student and a more articulate person. Also, many of the root words used in foreign vocabulary will help you later on as you struggle to comprehend or analyze new words in your native language.

Understanding people (from Adam Briceland)

I believe a great reason to learn a foreign language such as Pacific island languages is so that you can understand what the native speakers are saying to each other when the'yre speaking their own language to each other. So you can s it there and not talk to them but completley understand what they're saying in public.

 


Date: 2015-02-16; view: 1329


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