8/7/2023 0 Comments German grammar workbook redditIt certainly is a bit sad to see your skills degrade over time, and this has certainly contributed to some fear of picking up the language again, but that probably goes for most skills and hobbies anyways.Īnd as you said, I have the same experience whenever someone asks me about my language learning experience - I always mention how rusty I am these days, and there’s a nagging feeling I need to shake off the rust so I don’t have to say that anymore. I’d definitely still say the experience was worth it, given that I still have much of my previous ability and can probably relearn it rather quickly. Of course, visits will certainly be an option in the future. That didn’t end up happening (which in hindsight was very fortunate, as my time in France would’ve been severely compromised due to COVID), but is still something I would consider in the future. A huge motivation for me while learning was that I wanted to experiment with living in France for at least a year or two after finishing school, to be able to experience living abroad, while speaking a foreign language, before “life happens” and I get too rooted here in the US. I did a bit of reading in French after this article, though I haven’t kept up with it. Putting much effort into languages is quite a humbling experience. the conversation had to quickly be corrected by "oh I'm totally rusty" which got the response of "oh don't be modest I am sure bla bla" which made me regret that the whole thing ever came up. After leaving these countries, breaking up with girlfriends, change of social circles, etc I felt like a fraud every time somebody introduced me with "and he is fluent in can you believe it". I liked being able to brag about what rare, exotic languages (for a European) I was able to converse fluently in. But many languages you have to actually be there if you want any chance at all of being good at it. Not that there is anything wrong with "learning for learning sake" but I know the feeling when you can literally see it slipping from your grasp and still can't stop it.įrench Spanish English maybe not so much because it's everywhere so practicing it is easy. Spending a whole year learning and then let yourself get rusty is almost like spending 12 months on crafting a magic key then throwing it away before entering the castle. It's like a honeymoon phase with the country and its people. The best thing about language is the vast ocean of superb material to chose from as you dive in. And so with every hour I spend on Italian I see my previous skill and speed with which I could form a French sentence wane. But bittersweet having to make a choice as I now want to dive into Italian. Since I left France the only way to maintain motivation is continue reading French books (OMG there is so much to chose from). I like to think learning it is "easy", not getting rusty is the hard part :) However, language learning resources are getting better constantly, so you can certainly still learn quite a lot without total, in-person immersion, as I did! Japanese), you’ll have to follow a different path to achieve the same proficiency. And as others have noted, for other languages, particularly those that are less closely related to English (e.g. Duolingo) since I stopped studying a while back. My recommendations are still largely the same, though I haven’t used these resources (e.g. I also did roughly the same thing with my Spanish in the following year, with similar results, though I’d say I probably reached a solid B1.5 or weak B2 after a year (due to COVID I was unable to take the proficiency test and lost some motivation to continue studying to a high level as a result.) I have been thinking of picking up French again soon, as traveling to a French speaking country becomes more of an option. I haven’t used or studied French much since then, and have gotten quite rusty, though I’ve had a few conversations fully in French in the last few months and can still maintain a conversation. I guess I’ll give a quick update on how things have been since this article was written. Author here, didn’t expect to see this here again after two years!
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