Following Your Passion For A Language Will Make You Waste Time
Every language learning forum emphasizes the importance of being passionate about the language you're learning. Common statements include: "You can't learn a language you don't like," "You should never try to learn a language you're not passionate about," "Passion is everything in language learning," and "Go with the languages you love," among others.
However, I am increasingly inclined to believe that passion is highly overrated in this context, and solely relying on your personal preferences will only result in wasting your time.
The Difference Between "I Like" and "I Need"
First and foremost, this post is not intended for those who have already learned multiple languages and continue to do so out of a genuine interest in language learning as a whole. If you are a polyglot, you probably know what you're doing and why. Moreover, your "fluent-in" list likely already includes popular languages such as English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, and so on.
Instead, this post is aimed at people whose passion for a language leads them to learn something like Ukrainian, Javanese, Korean, Swedish, Kurdish, and the like. More importantly, it is for those who are solely driven by this passion rather than well-thought-out reasons. By the way, there's nothing inherently wrong with these languages, except that you shouldn't focus on them if you don't have a compelling reason to do so. That's what I refer to as "I like.".
On the other hand, when it comes to "I need," the situation is quite different. If you don't have specific preferences and solid plans to move to a particular country, your "I need" list should include the top 10 languages spoken in the world based on the number of second language (L2) speakers. The logic behind this statement is simple: if millions of people are learning a certain language, it means that this language provides them with a socio-economic advantage. What kind of advantage, you ask? Better education, higher-paying jobs, and an improved quality of life.
I hope you see my point.
Why You Lack Passion for "Useful" Languages
The root of the problem runs deep and can be traced back to our earliest experiences with learning foreign languages.
School Killed It All
I believe most of us had a rather painful experience with language learning in school. For the most part, we were taught one of the popular and "useful in life" languages spoken by millions of people. If you take a look at the top 10 world languages, you'll likely find the one you attempted to learn (or rather, were forced to learn) during your school years. You probably knew that learning it would be a wise investment, or at least your parents thought so.
Nonetheless, you couldn't help but hate those language classes that were both boring and seemingly useless. Firstly, you didn't choose to learn the language; you were held accountable for your progress nonetheless. Secondly, the teaching methods were far from perfect: you had to read tedious texts, memorize long word lists, and construct dialogues on topics that never interested you. I'm sure you can relate.
Personally, I haven't met a single person who would admit to having learned a foreign language solely in the school classroom. I wonder if such people even exist.
You Don't Want to Follow the Crowd
If you managed to preserve that passion for language learning deep inside you, you probably desired to learn something different later on. But what language? Well, anything except English, Spanish, or French (take your pick). Anything but what is forced upon you to learn. Anything but what everybody else is learning.
I remember being so disappointed in English to such an extent that I actually intensively studied Polish grammar during my English classes. So, if you wanted to meet the most loyal proponent of the "passion trumps all" theory, you would have had a very engaging conversation with the version of me from five years ago.
However, the subsequent five years of language learning have helped me understand that following your passion for a language can be a misleading approach.
Here are five reasons why you risk wasting your time:
Passions have a tendency to change.
Few individuals stick to their passions for a long time. The more common scenario is as follows:
You experience a spark of interest in a new idea (a new language, in our case).
This super-excitement takes complete control of you, and you burn with is desire to explore and learn this language.
You start accumulating a pile of resources: textbooks, courses, language learning apps, dictionaries, conjugators, and eagerly practice the new skill for a while.
At a certain point, something pops up in your life (a new passion, an upcoming vacation, a birth, death, or marriage - you name it).
You have no choice but to change your focus.
Your passion for the languagea,completely abandoned.
Often, you hold onto that old, heartwarming dream of revising and relearning Polish, Irish, or Inuit, but you simply don't have the time. You know, with work, studies, triathlons, and then wanting to learn how to code... All these obligations and other interests compete for your time, and your brain whispers to you that language learning is not the thing you should be doing right now (in the midst of ALL THIS).
Opportunities for learning and practice are limited.
If you aim to learn a rare language (and by rare, I mean any language not in the top 10 based on the number of L2 speakers), you may find yourself struggling to find quality learning materials.
Yes, the internet has alleviated the problem to some extent, but the issue still persists. If there is insufficient demand, there is, by default, a lack of sufficient supply as well. For instance, one of my recent brilliant ideas was to learn Amharic. I cannot deny that Wikipedia has a very thorough article on Amharic grammar and that general vocabulary is available on Memrise.
However, the quality of these materials is significantly inferior compared to those available for world languages. Furthermore, since Ethiopia lacks reliable internet access, there are scarce resources like YouTube videos, iTunes podcasts, and other examples of Amharic pronunciation available on the web.
The only reliable way to learn this kind of language is through immersion, but I will probably postpone moving to Ethiopia.
Usage of this language is geographically restricted.
It's very easy to develop a passion for a language spoken in a single small country or even a single province (think about India). World languages are mainly deprived of this charm and sense of uniqueness simply because they are widely used and spoken by nearly everyone.
And it's totally fine to be deeply in love with Thai culture and try to connect with its heritage through the Thai language. But... If you're serious about it, you might want to consider relocating to a place like 13.7379579,100.51679 and actually immerse yourself in that culture. Otherwise, it's like learning scuba diving in a municipal pool. It's kind of fun and gives you a feeling, but it's incomparable to diving in the Great Barrier Reef.
Even with the internet and globalization, your usage of Thai in the USA, Canada, and Europe is highly limited. Sure, you'll learn some vocabulary, find a dozen decent Thai YouTubers to practice your understanding, and even have a few speaking sessions on Skype. But what's next? With the sole passion for a language, you have two options: a) artificially maintain the language for the rest of your life from your condo in downtown Toronto, or b) forget the language.
This language has low social status in the world.
That's another universal truth. Unpopular languages are unpopular for a reason.
Language death has a reason, just as language globalization does. English is the lingua franca of the 21st century because it unlocks the doors to one of the most powerful economies in the world. French, Spanish, and Portuguese are in the top 10 because centuries ago, smart Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Portuguese managed to colonize half of the world. Chinese is on the list because of its immense population of native speakers and, once again, its powerful economy.
What can you say about Greek? Not much, except that it is the language of a country recovering from a crisis. Javanese? It's the 11th language in terms of the total number of speakers, but have you heard much about it? Bantu? Moldovan? Ojibwe? Azerbaijani? They don't come from one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and they don't lead scientific progress.
So speaking one of these languages will never give you the same advantage as speaking one of the lingua francas.
Here's the top-10 languages sorted by the number of L2 speakers. Source: Wikipedia.
How to bring your passion for a language to the next level
I bet you already know all the aforementioned reasons. Your brain knows, at least on some unconscious level. You might already have experienced abandoning a language because your logic took over and you realized that the return didn't worth the investment.
However, if you are stubborn (same as me at various points in my life), all these reasons leave you no other choice but to maintain the language. Somehow. Through incidental conversations on Skype, reviewing vocabulary on Memrise, or watching movies in your target language.
But how long can you go on with passion alone? Once you fall out of this language learning routine, you're left with the "i-learned-this-language-for-a-while.zip" folder archived deep in your brain. And it takes much more time to retrieve it, dust it off, and unzip it again than you may think.
So your best shot is to never let this situation happen in your life.
It requires some planning. First of all, you won't get too far without these 5 energy-saving rules for language learners that will save you hundreds of hours. And secondly, at any point in your language learning journey, you will have to find a reason other than sheer passion for a language to keep learning it. You want this language to play a crucial role in your life, at least for a few years. And then, your powers are unlimited.
Find your own reason
The reason for learning your favorite language can be personal or professional. It doesn't matter. What matters is that it should force you to use this language outside the classroom. It must (MUST) be meaningful for you. And it should bring added value to your life, other than the simple fact of speaking a foreign language.
Here are 5 examples to help you get started:
You know that you're learning Greek because you're just about to marry a Greek girl (and you will have to deal with her family).
You just signed a contract with a Czech company. Prague is your new home for another three years of your life, and you can't wait to pick up this language.
The book “Don’t sleep there are snakes” by Daniel Everett has completely excited you. You're selling your house, car, and dog on eBay and heading to the Amazon Rainforest to conduct scientific research on the Piraha people.
Modern society has completely worn you out, so you're packing a Tibetan phrasebook and heading on a meditation tour in the mountains.
Japan has long attracted you. Now, as a student, you have the opportunity to spend a year abroad – in Japan, of course.
If you have a plan, go ahead and learn this language, no matter how rare and seemingly useless it may appear to others. There's often just a small bridge between the passion for a language and the powerful motivation that can change your world for the better.
You just need to have a vision.
