What have you given up on?

[Lietmotiv]

. But no, I guess Slavic languages don't excite me because of the feeling of a somewhat deja-vu. I still love Serbia though!

I envy you, actually. As a native-speaker of Russian I have big difficulties in understanding (especially spoken) other Slavic languages, especially Southern Slavic(which I don't understand at all).
The only Slavic language I understand, and this is almost 100%, is Ukrainian, due to the exposure (Ukrainian TV, many visists to Ukraine and so on) and also due to the very similar to Russian grammar and many common words.

[Saim]

BTW perhaps I exaggerated that all Slavic languages don't excite me since I only tried to learn Ukrainian and Serbian

I have a weird relationship. My native languages are of the Anglo-Frisian and Italo-Dalmatian familes; I learn virtually no Germanic languages, despite the short-lived bouts of wanderlust I've gone through from time-to-time, while I know virtually every major Romance except Catalan.

You're also missing Romanian.

[PEMbl]

I've tried Turkish and Korean when I was way younger. I didn't have the discipline I have now to ensure that I practice a language and just kinda lost it. I still remember how to read and write korean properly, though, but it's quite useless because I only remember a few words. And all I remember in Turkish is "Hayat guzël!" (not sure if I'm spelling it right, but it means "life is good" or something along the lines)

Also 4-5 years ago I worked for cantonese people and learned quite a bit of it; although I was not as fluent in it as I am in Russian now, I got to a nice level considering they weren't especially good teachers, and I never really put much effort into it. Unfortunately I lost most of it after I quit that job.

[voron]

Hayat guzël

güzel

[PEMbl]

At least I remembered the ¨ part!

[Luís]

I'm thinking about giving up on Chinese... (at least for now) I really like the language, but it's just taking too much of my time.
I have hundreds of Anki reviews everyday that don't ever seem to go down (vocabulary, characters, tone drills, etc.). It takes forever for me to be able to read something and most of my classes with an actual teacher focus on pronunciation (I don't know if I'll ever be able not to mess up the tones in a sentence, especially when speaking fast... )

I have the feeling I could be doing much more with other languages in the same time.

[Yasna]

I'm thinking about giving up on Chinese... (at least for now) I really like the language, but it's just taking too much of my time.
I have hundreds of Anki reviews everyday that don't ever seem to go down (vocabulary, characters, tone drills, etc.). It takes forever for me to be able to read something and most of my classes with an actual teacher focus on pronunciation (I don't know if I'll ever be able not to mess up the tones in a sentence, especially when speaking fast... )

I have the feeling I could be doing much more with other languages in the same time.

Unfortunately I can sympathize very strongly with that. Chinese has been my main study language for something like 5 years now, with no end in sight. And the crazy thing is that I had a big advantage going into it since I know Japanese well! I do take breaks though, sometimes for months at a time, where I will study other languages. It fills me with horror to think about how much progress I could have made with other languages using the time I have devoted to Chinese. But for someone like myself who is interested in economics, geopolitics, and languages, there is just no getting around Chinese. Plus I hear it multiple times every day living in a city with a large Chinese population, so I can never forget about it. On the bright side though, any other language I learn seriously for the rest of my life will likely be considerably easier than Chinese, with the possible exception of Arabic. So that's something to be happy about.

[vijayjohn]

I do take breaks though, sometimes for months at a time, where I will study other languages.

For me, this is an important and necessary, if underrated, part of learning languages. I have taken long breaks from studying every language I have ever learned, except maybe English.

[Luís]

But after taking that long break won't you forget most of what you have learned? I'm afraid I'll probably forget half the characters I know if I don't review them for a long while.

[vijayjohn]

But after taking that long break won't you forget most of what you have learned?

Idk, I think it kind of depends. If it's a few months, it doesn't have to be harmful. If it's a few years - which it often is in my case - OK, then maybe, but even then, I'm not sure I really care. This is why I never sell books, especially not language-learning books! That way I can just review what I already learned.

[voron]

but even then, I'm not sure I really care.

I like this approach, and I should take it as an example to follow.

I haven't done anything with Serbian for several years now, not even chatted or read a news article, so it's slowly slipping away. It makes me sad thinking how fluent I was and how it's getting rusty now, but I guess I should relax and let it go with the flow.

[Yasna]

But after taking that long break won't you forget most of what you have learned? I'm afraid I'll probably forget half the characters I know if I don't review them for a long while.

Even during a break, I still read and listen to the language a little on most days, so my passive skills are basically maintained. Active skills do get rusty. But they are quickly recovered when I return to the language with renewed purpose.

[TheStrayCat]

From my experience, even if you've taken a long break from learning a language, your knowledge comes back nevertheless in a few days after you get back to it. However, I don't always have the motivation to do this - like now with Turkish, in which I used to be around good A1, but which has little practical use to me except enjoying its weird grammar, - but that's another story.

[voron]

From my experience, even if you've taken a long break from learning a language, your knowledge comes back nevertheless in a few days after you get back to it.

I want to share a different experience. When still at high school I participated in an exchange program with a Swedish school, and before going to Sweden I had studied quite a lot of Swedish so I could communicate and understood a lot when I went there (I was around B1).

Now, some 15 years later, I don't remember anything. I can only say "tack så mycket" and "jag kan inte talar svenska", that's it.

That said, I have never tried to reactivate it. Maybe the knowledge would come back fast.

but which has little practical use to me except enjoying its weird grammar

It is weird indeed. After 5 years of studying it it keeps surprising me.
(I know Vijay would say it's typologically pretty standard and super easy, unlike maybe some Amerindian or Papuan languages, but hey Vijay, we are just humans unlike you. ).

Just yesterday I asked my Russian-speaking Turkish friend to translate this into Turkish:
Меня не за что ругать. (There is nothing I should be reprimanded for), lit. me no for what reprimand.

He came up with this:
Benim kızılacak bir şeyim yok, lit. My will-be-reprimanded a my-thing there-is-no.

Isn't the sentence structure great?

[linguoboy]

From my experience, even if you've taken a long break from learning a language, your knowledge comes back nevertheless in a few days after you get back to it.

Maybe when you have a young supple mind. I've learned stuff and then forgotten it again to the point where I can't read things I wrote even a year or two ago. Studying brings some of it back, but by no means all.

[Michael]

I've given up on Polish for good and have given up on Greek, Italian, and Turkish/Azerbaijani indefinitely. It seems there is only room in my mind to maintain active knowledge of a mere couple of languages these days.

[Antea]

I don't give up, but some languages are like in a sleeping mood. Sometimes, suddenly, for some reason or other, one of the sleeping languages wake up and then it beguns coming back, like a flood

[vijayjohn]

From my experience, even if you've taken a long break from learning a language, your knowledge comes back nevertheless in a few days after you get back to it.

Well, not necessarily if you don't have much time each day to get back to it! That's been my problem lately.

I know Vijay would say it's typologically pretty standard and super easy, unlike maybe some Amerindian or Papuan languages, but hey Vijay, we are just humans unlike you.

Also I'm the only one who actually speaks a Dravidian language and doesn't fuck off the forum after writing ten posts or less.

[Meera]

I have lost my passion for a lot of languages, currently I have given up on Turkish, Persian, Indonesian, etc. I have tried to get back into them and maybe one day I will, but right now I really don't have a big urge to learn them. I think I may have just grew out of them.

[france-eesti]

[flag=]la[/flag] Gave up Latin when I was 14 because my teacher was lousy.
[flag=]es[/flag] Gave up Spanish the minute it was possible for me
[flag=]nl[/flag] Gave up Dutch when I broke up with my Dutch boyfriend (and because I didn't like it so much after all).
[flag=]mg[/flag] Gave up Malagasy when I left the Malagasy music band although I loved them (the language and the band)
[flag=]et[/flag] Gave up Estonian because of the Partitive case


but I'll be back!!!!!
(for you [flag=]et[/flag])