So here's a lengthy post just to say that I'm quitting two languages.
Backstory: I'm the kind of language learner who prefers having an in-depth knowledge of fewer languages rather than a shallow knowledge of a lot of them, and please don't misunderstand me, I don't judge those who enjoy learning many languages, I perfectly realize that there are different sorts of language enthusiasts. I really don't want to start a fight about this on here, or anywhere else for that matter.
Anyway, I thought that 4 foreign languages (English and Ladin excluded) could be a feasible task but I've kind of changed my mind about that, especially since I've recently realized how much I still have to know about English, which is a language that I've been learning (more or less actively) for a lot of years. So I've decided to downsize my language list. It's not the first time I do that, but I've never managed to be completely serious about that before.After weighing up the pros and cons I've decided to quit [flag=]pt[/flag] and [flag=]ru[/flag] and here are the reasons why:
[flag=]fr[/flag]
I like France, it's probably my favourite foreign country in Europe, and it's a neighbouring country that I can reach by car within about 5 hours and this really motivates me to learn French. Moreover it's quite a widespread language, spoken in other interesting countries, and I like how it sounds, I think its phonology is quite interesting. However the extreme closeness to Italian grammar-wise can make it a bit dull sometimes, but I'm ready to take this risk.
[flag=]he[/flag]
I have an Israeli friend and various acquaintances and one day I'd like to talk with them in Hebrew. But that aside, I just love the language. I also like Israel because it's a nice mix between the West and the Middle East. The con is that it's quite a tiny country and pretty much everything revolves around Tel Aviv (or Jerusalem if you're religious), but again, it's a con that I'm ready to accept.UPDATE: Ok, Hebrew is gone too.
And now the reasons why I'm going to quit [flag=]pt[/flag] and [flag=]ru[/flag]
[flag=]pt[/flag]
Portuguese is a bit frustrating for various reasons: Portuguese novels are expensive as fuck, Portuguese TV seems pretty boring (not that it's the only one, but still...), foreign films are not dubbed and I'm not too hung up on cheesy telenovelas, moreover every time you google something in Portuguese, odds are you'll get a part of the results in Spanish. Things can get even worse if, like me, you're interested in European Portuguese which is in a minority position compared with Brazilian Portuguese.[flag=]ru[/flag]
I like Russian culture in an idealistic way I guess (if that makes any sense), but I really doubt I'd be able to fit in nowadays' Russian society owing to, amongst other things, the extreme homophobia of the country. Not that I've ever planned on living in Russia, but when you learn a language I think it's almost impossible not to get in contact with its society. I realize I could be accused of generalizing and painting an entire people with the same brush, so let me get this straight: I don't believe that all Russians are homophobic but I don't think I'm making anything up when I say that the general attitude isn't one of the best and that there
are huge problems of homophobia.