What made you decide to start learning a foreign language?

[RoseThurst]

What made you decide to start learning a foreign language?

I decided to start learning French because 1. I thought it would make me seem more intelligent and interesting and like a female James Bond 2. I was reading slash Harry Potter fanfiction, and I kept running across stories in French that I couldn't read. I started imagine how many well written french stories must be out there that I would never know about if I didn't learn the language.

So 1. to look cool 2. To read more books. Haha.

et vous?

[SarahRTW]

For me it never felt like a decision.  I love learning about cultures and I Love studying languages and how they work.  Therefore language learning was always something that interested me.  The decision was "what language to learn"....Spanish came to mind as a practical language, and when I was selected to study for 4 months in Spain, I had the perfect reason.  I'm also interested in German and (just to be random) Swahili. 

[fredkawig]

I started learning a new language because I wanted to. And because I think the language is very interesting and very attractive. French is the language I really want to learn because of the way people speak, it seems so good.

[1inamillion]

What made you decide to start learning a foreign language?

I decided to start learning French because 1. I thought it would make me seem more intelligent and interesting and like a female James Bond 2. I was reading slash Harry Potter fanfiction, and I kept running across stories in French that I couldn't read. I started imagine how many well written french stories must be out there that I would never know about if I didn't learn the language.

So 1. to look cool 2. To read more books. Haha.

et vous?

I agree with you, learning a foreign language does make you look more intelligent and interesting. When you move to a different country or region learning the local language will help you to communicate and integrate with the local community. My partner in laws, relatives and some friends speak a different language, learning that language will help me to communicate with them. It can also give me a better understanding of their culture and way of thinking. My work involve regular contact with persons of different culture and creed, being able to talk to them in their own language will help me to communicate with them. It also helps me to make sales and negotiate with them and secure contact. Knowledge of a foreign language may also increase the chance of finding a new job, get a promotion, transfer over seas or go on foreign business trips.

[Jrh2]

I always wanted to learn french as I enjoyed it at school. When I left school I didn't really learn any more french until I found the app Duolingo. I enjoyed this app and so it made me want to learn french and hopefully stick at it this time. I would use the app to learn the language but I ended up only using it every now and then as I found if you didn't have much time you forget the bits you have learnt and are back to square one again. I recently started to learn french again, and more determined this time, as I got a new job and there is a child who is french and her parent comes in each day talking to her in that language. This is really frustrating when you cannot make out all of what they are saying so I am going to learn french and hopefully understand most of what they say to each other before the summer holidays. I am probably a bit too optimistic but I will give it a try.

[Diprotodon]

I'm looking into eventually going on to a Ph.D in literature/English, and at most decent universities, a reading comprehension level of two other languages is required for admission, so that sort of jump-started the interest.

But I also want to be fluent in languages that I feel will be relevant to my studies because I want to be able to read source material myself without needing to rely on translations. I also want to be able to do useful, important cross-cultural comparisons of the genres I am interested in writing in (primarily horror/supernatural and folklore).

[Cadence]

I decided to learn german for a few different reasons. First of all my mother comes from germany (but she's lived her whole life in sweden) so most of my relatives on her side of the family lives in germany and speaks german of course. My boyfriend is also german and he speaks german at home with his mother and sister so I thought it could be interesting to be able to understan them and join their conversations in german. Also in 6th grade we had to chose a language, the choices were german, french or spanish and I picked german. So I learned it in high school for three years - unfortunately I had a horrible teacher and it was my most hated subject. But now, 5 years later, I decided to pick it up again.

[FatesWing]

I really wanted to learn a foreign language initially, because I saw myself wanting to travel the world right after high school. At the time it seemed like a concrete idea but soon after I learned you really do have to have patience with yourself as far as learning a new language goes. I am still looking to travel to many different places within the world but am pacing myself to learn foreign languages properly and to the best of my ability.

[Cookiesandcream]

I didn't really have a choice. I had to take a second language for my credits and needed to pass. But I don't regret the school giving me that little push because at the end of the day, it helped me converse especially when I went to Spain for my summer break. Now, I'm trying to learn Hindi because I think it's beautiful and love the script.

[Ella]

Learning languages is mandatory in my native country. We get taught Dutch, French, German and English. It wasn't always fun, but now I'm glad I can speak more than one language.

I love travelling, so being able to talk to the locals is one reason to learn a language. I started learning Spanish and Italian after visiting Italy and Spain a few times. I loved it there! It's been almost 10 years since I started studying those languages. I want to brush up my Spanish again because I want to go travelling in South America.