What have you given up on?

[Chekhov]

I'm assuming everyone here has experienced that feeling when you've been trying to learn a new language for months and haven't been making progress. Have you ever been so frustrated you just gave up? Or abandoned a language because it was no longer interesting or appealing to you? How about if you simply found out you had no use for it?

In my time, I've given up on:

- [flag]sv[/flag] Swedish (no real use for it; no one to practice with)
- [flag]ar[/flag] Arabic (too damn hard; no real use for it)
- [flag]pl[/flag] Polish (never made any real progress with it)
- [flag]he[/flag] Hebrew (no use for it; didn't like the sound of it)

and probably a few others I've forgotten about by now.

How about you?

[Ashkhan]

Do cases when you abandoned a language but promised yourself to return to it apply here as well? If so, then:

[flag]es[/flag] I could feel some progress but then I lost any interest in learning it. I felt like I'm forcing myself to learn Spanish as it's the largest Romance language and, apparently, the most useful one. Unfortunately, not so much on my hemisphere.
[flag]de[/flag] I've been learning it actively for a year and I enjoyed it, but then the ammount of duties I had at the time made me abandon it. I'm currently wanderlusting for it.
[flag]sv[/flag] More like a flirt, I've been trying to learn it but the lack of resources and time forced me to leave that one behind too.
[flag]ja[/flag] Same as above. I was waiting for a good moment to start learning but when it arrived, I realized I'm no longer interested.

I guess that's it so far.

[hlysnan]

There are a lot of languages I've decided to leave till later, but I think some, which I may not actually end up learning would be:

[flag]et[/flag] Estonian (it's just so low on my priority and list of things to do I don't think I'll ever get around to it anymore)
[flag]ja[/flag] Japanese (classmates at uni put me off, and I became tired with the way the language sounded)
Breton (same as Estonian)

I'm hoping that the following languages won't meet the same fate, but I'm not optimistic:

[flag]nl[/flag] Dutch (low priority)
[flag]nn[/flag] Norwegian (low priority)

[johntm]

I gave up on you making good posts. I just wanted to get to that before Sophie did.

I gave up on (and plan on coming back to, Mandarin is kind of iffy):
-[flag]zh[/flag] Mandarin-Still kind of get random wanderlusts for it, nothing that will keep me to it. Just did 3 or so hours of Michel Thomas, and learned to recognize a few characters
-[flag]de[/flag] German-This was the second language I ever started, after Spanish. Gave up on it because I went out of town and missed a week of study, instead of growing a pair and continuing on I gave it up. Knew I'd regret it 6 months later, and lo and behold, 6 months later I thought back and said to myself "I should've stuck with it". Still wish I would have, but whatever, that's the past.
-[flag]nl[/flag] Dutch-This was the least important (for lack of a better word, I couldn't use it/didn't need it as much/soon as the others) and I felt that it was taking time away from Spanish and French, so I put it off
I've dabbled in others but wouldn't say I gave up on them because I never really started, like I'll listen to an intro tape for 30 minutes or so for a language for fun or learn it's alphabet to some degree for the hell of it.

[hlysnan]

Oh god, I just remembered another.

[flag]ko[/flag] Korean (I just have to walk 15 minutes to see all the reasons why I can't stand it anymore. I don't like the culture, too many people smoke, and the personalities of their females are utterly homogenous, cutesy and generally annoying)*

*In my opinion

[johntm]

Oh god, I just remembered another.

[flag]ko[/flag] Korean (I just have to walk 15 minutes to see all the reasons why I can't stand it anymore. I don't like the culture, too many people smoke, and the personalities of their females are utterly homogenous, cutesy and generally annoying)*

*In my opinion

Sounds like why I'll never touch Japanese, minus the smoking thing. Dunno about that.

[JackFrost]

Oh god...

[flag]de[/flag] German/Swiss German: I had two years of courses back in high school and university. I mostly got turned off because my ex went to Germany on exchange for a month and couldn't shut the fuck about it. That's what I get for encouraging him to learn it. He thinks he even "lived" there... No, he didn't. I might look it over to refresh my memory, but I mostly have forgotten it to the point that I could barely understand it now.
[flag]nl[/flag] Dutch: one of the first languages I really learnt. Gave up due to lack of motivation.
[flag]sv[/flag] Swedish: same as above.
[flag]is[/flag] Icelandic: a few years of it (yes, thanks to Björk, so fuck you) and then I lost motivation. I'd learn it again if it's so damn hard to find the speakers who would care.
[flag]vi[/flag] Vietnamese: my ex's family language. Gave up once he ditched me.
[flag]ko[/flag] Korean: only really cared about the alphabet.
[flag]he[/flag] Hebrew: same as above.
[flag]ru[/flag] Russian: same as above.
[flag]yue[/flag] Cantonese: just to impress my Hongkonger friend with the characters.
[flag]no[/flag] Norwegian: I dunno why.
[flag]dk[/flag] Danish: I dunno what I was smoking to attempt to acquire this throat disease. Let's not talk about it.
[flag]cy[/flag] Welsh: my ancestors' language. I'd still like to learn more, but again... no motivation.
[flag]cs[/flag] Czech: I admit it... All of the inflections drove me insane.
[flag]fi[/flag] Finnish: Really, I love it, but I lost the motivation. The same damn story with other languages.
[flag]es[/flag] Spanish: I got sick of mixing the gender and words with French ones. Plus, Catalan won me over.
[flag]pt[/flag] Portuguese: borrrinnnggg. It was a one-night stand, so.

I think that's all I could remember now.

[księżycowy]

Hmmmm . . . .

[flag]tl[/flag] Tagalog - No interest after a while.
[flag]th[/flag] Thai - Rather do Lao.
[flag]id[/flag]/[flag]ms[/flag] Indonesian/Malay - No interest in anymore.
[flag]pt[/flag] Portuguese - Lost interest (if there ever was any really).
[flag]nl[/flag] Dutch - German is enough Germanic for me. Plus I'm lacking interest.
[flag]da[/flag] Danish - Same as Dutch.
[flag]no[/flag] Norwegian - Ditto.
[flag]sv[/flag] Swedish - Ditto.
[flag]it[/flag] Italian - Lost interest.

[flag]kk[/flag] Kazakh - Rather do Mongolian. [Might return]
[flag]mus[/flag]/[flag]cho[/flag] Creek/Chotaw - Rather do other NAILs. [Might return]

I'm sure there are more, but this is all I can think of off the top of my head.

[Chekhov]

Wow, Jack, I had no idea you were so promiscuous!

[flag]ja[/flag] Japanese (classmates at uni put me off, and I became tired with the way the language sounded)

Oh god, were they all weeaboos? I was planning on taking Japanese next year (even though I should really improve my French instead) and I was afraid of being the only one in the room who isn't an unwashed otaku with a a Gundam t-shirt.

Korean (I just have to walk 15 minutes to see all the reasons why I can't stand it anymore. I don't like the culture, too many people smoke, and the personalities of their females are utterly homogenous, cutesy and generally annoying)*

IME, the part about cutesiness applies far more to Japan than Korea. Their entire culture is saturated with it, and I find it very off-putting and annoying. As for the part about smoking, I have no idea what you're talking about. If any of my Korean friends took up smoking, their parents would probably murder them within hours.

[Aurinĭa]

So far, Dutch, Swedish and German seem to be quite popular languages to give up on... my mother tongue and two of my all-time favourites.

I've studied lots of languages I'm not currently studying, but I intend to go back to avery singme one of them, even if it takes years and years before I return to them. Except probably Spanish, but I never did more than a few self study lessons for that, so that doesn't really count.

[IMABI]

You know Chekhov that my site basically has everything you need for Japanese. I think why people get turned off about Japanese is that everything you can easily get for it are normally too watered down. IDK why people would give up Korean. They have some of the best music out there. Oh well, here are my feelings on some languages.

I've been in Spanish for 3 years, and I'm the best person at it in my class, but I feel that I'm going to forget about it in the future.

I think it would be cool to know Ainu, but I don't feel like it will ever happen.

I think I should learn Norwegian because I'm part Norwegian, but I don't know if it will ever happen.

[Meera]

Sometime in the future I will probably give up on Arabic. It's just way too hard.

[Chekhov]

Jack, you should go back to Spanish. You seem like you got pretty good at it, and life as a translator between French/Spanish/Catalan would be pretty easy.

Sometime in the future I will probably give up on Arabic. It's just way too hard.

Will you still try to learn a dialect, and if so, which one?

[JackFrost]

Wow, Jack, I had no idea you were so promiscuous!

I was mostly a naïve teenager then.

Jack, you should go back to Spanish. You seem like you got pretty good at it, and life as a translator between French/Spanish/Catalan would be pretty easy.

I tell myself that all the time.

I do know I can understand Spanish well enough that I could honestly include it in my language list on my profile. Just gimme a dictionary and I can make sentences too. I even have to read some Spanish statuses daily on my Facebook and sometimes I end up reading an article or two per month out of pure curiosity what's going on back in Spain.

Maybe someday. I dunno. We'll see.

[razlem]

[flag]ar[/flag] - I don't see this being a viable option in the career I'm pursuing, so I'm going to put it off when I finish my classes.
[flag]mi[/flag] - as fun as it was, there were few resources and no native speakers with whom I could hone the language. Still Wanderlusting over it though...

[Chekhov]

What career, razlem?

I do know I can understand Spanish well enough that I could honestly include it in my language list on my profile. Just gimme a dictionary and I can make sentences too. I even have to read some Spanish statuses daily on my Facebook and sometimes I end up reading an article or two per month out of pure curiosity what's going on back in Spain.

Basically the same way. I have a few Spanish-speaking friends who force me to use it once in a while, but other than that I don't really use it much except for reading stuff here. I've sort of lost interest in Latin America.

[johntm]

Basically the same way. I have a few Spanish-speaking friends who force me to use it once in a while, but other than that I don't really use it much except for reading stuff here. I've sort of lost interest in Latin America.

I'm finding myself in a similar situation. My friends don't force me to use it with them, but I do. I don't see them much anymore.

[razlem]

What career, razlem?

ESL. But it's just that I'd be better off investing my time improving another, much easier language like Chinese or German.

[Chekhov]

much easier language like Chinese

I was going to say that's an oxymoron, but then I remembered it was Arabic we were talking about.

[ILuvEire]

I've given up on so many languages, there's no use in listing them. Some that I've given up on that I plan to maybe someday come back to, though include
[flag]pt[/flag] Portuguese: I left it because I don't have the most use for it in real life, and it was just the lowest common denominator. Before I die, though, my bitchass will be learning Portuguese hanging out in Lisbon like a motherfucker.
[flag]fi[/flag] Finnish: We had the most rocky relationship; I found the language so beautiful, but I really didn't know so many Finns. Now I've got more opportunity than ever to use it, though, because my best friend is in the middle of moving to Finland, so I'll have a forever home in Oulu.
[flag]et[/flag] Estonian: I'm, honestly, more attracted to Estonian than Finnish, even though I have no chances to use it. Just such a pleasant language.
[flag]zh[/flag] Mandarin: I want to learn Cantonese and Minnan, but I felt like Mandarin was a place I needed to start before I moved in to a smaller Chinese language. I just really cannot stand Mandarin at all, and I have no interest in visiting the PRC.
[flag]vi[/flag] Vietnamese: Someday I'll return, I know I will. I just got very discouraged very quickly because nothing I said sounded natural at all and I felt like a failure no matter how hard I tried. I love Vietnamese everything, though, so this may change.
[flag]ja[/flag] Japanese: I quit Japanese for a variety of reasons, but they can all just be summed up by a simple realization: Japanese is fucking hard. My motivations (Japanese food and a good friend who spoke Japanese) simply did not outweigh how difficult the language was (kanji, politeness etc.)
[flag]ar[/flag] Arabic: I don't have the resources or time to take it on. I do understand how difficult it is, but I also think that I have ample motivation to tackle it someday when I can go through it.

EDIT: FUCK, I had to try like forty different combinations for Estonia. That damn flag. Bane of my existence.