Wanderlust support group 5

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Rí.na.dTeangacha » 2021-01-16, 1:48

Russian has been winking at me for the last few months for some reason.
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oho

Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby oho » 2021-01-26, 15:42

Question: what's your method to keep your wanderlusts at bay? It would be interesting to share some tips, maybe we could help each other out.

Personally, when I get a wanderlust, I realize that's the moment to remind myself why I'm studying Hebrew, this means it could be a good idea to write down a list of the things I like about the language and the country where it's spoken and its culture.

Second, I find it very helpful to have a reality check to remind myself that I still have a long way off before getting fluency in my target language and that an extra language would be detrimental (e.g: I go on tandem, start chatting with someone and realize how stilted my conversational abilities are, or sometimes I open up my Hebrew novels and see that I can still understand little of them).

On a more sophisticated level, lately I've also been trying to apply so-called "cognitive defusion" which is one of the practices of ACT to wanderlusts. The results seem to be quite promising.

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby linguoboy » 2021-01-26, 17:33

oho wrote:Question: what's your method to keep your wanderlusts at bay? It would be interesting to share some tips, maybe we could help each other out.

I follow Wilde's advice: "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it." Generally I find that, as soon as I encountre any real resistance, I decide I'm not really up to the challenge and take a step back.

(For instance, I got frustrated trying to write a reply in Italian to a friend yesterday so I fired up the Italian course on Duolingo to practice my pronouns. I give it a week before I get bored and move on to the next thing.)
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oho

Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby oho » 2021-01-26, 19:19

linguoboy wrote:
oho wrote:Question: what's your method to keep your wanderlusts at bay? It would be interesting to share some tips, maybe we could help each other out.

I follow Wilde's advice: "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it." Generally I find that, as soon as I encountre any real resistance, I decide I'm not really up to the challenge and take a step back.

(For instance, I got frustrated trying to write a reply in Italian to a friend yesterday so I fired up the Italian course on Duolingo to practice my pronouns. I give it a week before I get bored and move on to the next thing.)


I suppose that's ok if the wanderlust only makes you want to start a duolingo course (even though there's still the issue of the time taken away from your target languages). On the other hand my wanderlusts are always accompanied by the strong impulse to buy good grammar books that cost 30-40 euros or more.

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby linguoboy » 2021-01-26, 19:36

oho wrote:On the other hand my wanderlusts are always accompanied by the strong impulse to buy good grammar books that cost 30-40 euros or more.

Well, I work for a university library so this isn't as much of a hazard.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby dEhiN » 2021-01-27, 1:39

linguoboy wrote:I follow Wilde's advice: "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it." Generally I find that, as soon as I encountre any real resistance, I decide I'm not really up to the challenge and take a step back.

I like your approach. It's funny because while I invariably take this approach, I have generally seen it as a negative thing. I've even used terms like "interest du jour" to apply to it as a way of possibly vilifying and therefore discouraging that behaviour within me. Yet, try as I might, I seem to naturally change interests fairly often and also, naturally follow those new interests down the rabbit hole for a time before finding another new interest and moving on. The only good thing I can say is that usually for things that matter, I tend to rotate through and eventually come back to the same interests. That's why over the past 9-10 years I've been into language learning, I've basically always stuck with French and Tamil (and to a lesser extent, Spanish and Portuguese); even when I've migrated away from them, I have tended to come back to them after a bit.

oho wrote:I suppose that's ok if the wanderlust only makes you want to start a duolingo course (even though there's still the issue of the time taken away from your target languages). On the other hand my wanderlusts are always accompanied by the strong impulse to buy good grammar books that cost 30-40 euros or more.

I personally find that the reality of my financial situation usually takes care of any impulsive desires to buy learning resources in a wanderlust language. While technically I probably could afford to buy a grammar book in whatever language has caught my fancy this week, realistically my budget couldn't sustain that. This forces me to find free resources to satisfy any wanderlust.

As for time taken away, sometimes I wonder if we create unrealistic expectations on ourselves that if we really want to learn a particular language, we should dedicate any and all study time to only that language. Unless someone can tell me that they dedicate every single free second they have to language study, the fact is probably that language learning is one among several things they do in their spare time. So, from that point of view, learning a little about a wanderlust language instead of watching Netflix probably won't really take time away from their target language. There's also other factors, like our brains needing time to digest what we've learned in our target language after a study session. While pursuing a wanderlust language is still "learning", it does give our brain time to digest our target language as it were - particularly, I've found, when the target and wanderlust languages are pretty dissimilar. Lastly, and related to what I just said, there's only so much time in a day one can spend studying any particular language. So, I think truthfully, the argument of taking time away from a target language isn't really an argument that holds up and it's just something we tell ourselves, perhaps out of guilt.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Yasna » 2021-01-31, 6:32

oho wrote:Question: what's your method to keep your wanderlusts at bay?

I remind myself of how much value my priority language will bring to my life once I'm proficient. And once in a while I give into the wanderlust, because it's fun.
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby linguoboy » 2021-02-01, 20:20

Indonesian. And I can't even remember now what prompted me to start Indonesian lessons on Duolingo last week. There must have been something concrete, but I'm damned if I can remember. I figure it'll be like every other time, I'll pursue it until the memory burden gets too onerous (and they introduce new vocabulary quickly!) and then drop it for something else.

ETA: Oh, I think I remember now. I was listening to an Aboriginal rock group from Groote Eylandt, started reading about the local languages, and discovered that there were loanwords from Makassarese due to trade relations. So then I started reading about Makassarese, was struck by how similar it was to Indonesian, and before you know it I'd added the course.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-02-02, 19:02

I really want to figure out the etymologies of words in Indonesian.

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby linguoboy » 2021-02-02, 19:52

vijayjohn wrote:I really want to figure out the etymologies of words in Indonesian.

Wiktionary tends to have good etymologies for those they have entries for, often tracing them back all the way to Proto-Austronesian (where possible) with a rich array of intervening protoforms. That's how I just learned that mereka is originally a borrowing from Javanese.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-02-03, 3:58

linguoboy wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:I really want to figure out the etymologies of words in Indonesian.

Wiktionary tends to have good etymologies for those they have entries for, often tracing them back all the way to Proto-Austronesian (where possible) with a rich array of intervening protoforms. That's how I just learned that mereka is originally a borrowing from Javanese.

What about (non-Austronesian) loanwords?

Also can anyone tell me where tf pinta in Indonesian comes from? Is it a native word?

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Massimiliano B » 2021-04-06, 23:31

Gujarati... I'm not really wanderlusting for it, but... It has in my opinion one of the most beautiful script. It is its script that attracts me.

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby mōdgethanc » 2021-05-03, 11:53

oho wrote:Question: what's your method to keep your wanderlusts at bay?
What I do is ask myself Can I truly see myself becoming fluent in this someday? Do I truly want to be in it for the long haul? Will I still care about it in five years? because if not, then that wanderlust can most likely be quelled by simply learning about the language, not trying to learn it in earnest.
On a more sophisticated level, lately I've also been trying to apply so-called "cognitive defusion" which is one of the practices of ACT to wanderlusts.
Interesting concept. I have a degree in psychology but have never heard this term before. Seems widely applicable to many things.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-05-12, 18:54

I should probably do that (more) although wanderlust isn't really an issue for me.
Massimiliano B wrote:Gujarati... I'm not really wanderlusting for it, but... It has in my opinion one of the most beautiful script. It is its script that attracts me.

Gujarati script is basically Devanagari but curvier and without the line on top.

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Meera » 2021-06-07, 16:47

I have been wanderlusting for Chinese.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-06-12, 2:47

Meera wrote:I have been wanderlusting for Chinese.

As someone once said to you on an earlier version of this thread when you said this before, 做到! :P

księżycowy

Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby księżycowy » 2021-06-13, 9:13

Meera wrote:I have been wanderlusting for Chinese.

Do it!

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-06-16, 22:34

księżycowy wrote:
Meera wrote:I have been wanderlusting for Chinese.

Do it!

That's what I just told her to do in Chinese! :lol:

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby dEhiN » 2021-06-18, 6:25

vijayjohn wrote:
księżycowy wrote:
Meera wrote:I have been wanderlusting for Chinese.

Do it!

That's what I just told her to do in Chinese! :lol:

But if she's wanderlusting for Chinese, chances are she doesn't know any Chinese or at least not to a high level, so telling her to do it in Chinese might defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Osias » 2021-06-20, 3:17

There's this Russian youtuber trying to figure out Brazilian memes and ads (the distinction is most of times none) making me wanderlust for Russian.
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