Motivation is very important when learning a language, or indeed anything else. Without motivation it’s difficult to continue studying for very long.

An enthusiastic teacher or tutor can really help, as can learning materials at the right level, i.e. one that stretches you, but not much. Setting yourself targets and goals, and rewarding yourself when you achieve them can also help. Another good way to motivate yourself is to spend time studying the language in a country or region where it’s spoken.

Way back in 1988 when I first tried to teach myself languages, I found it very difficult to continue studying for more than a few weeks. My lack of motivation was the main reason. Since about 1998 though, I’ve been studying various languages more or less continuously. Motivation seems to come more easily to me these days.

How do you motivate yourself to study?

According to report in the Times, increasing numbers of primary schools in the UK are teaching, or plan to teach, their pupils foreign languages, usually French. The idea is to use new, inovative teaching methods to get children excited about languages at an early age, with the hope that they will continue studying them at secondary school. So far this scheme appears to have a success.

At the same time, there have been decreases in the numbers studying languages such as French and German at secondary school, but increases in those studying more exotic languages like Chinese and Arabic. Those schools that teach the more exotic languages find it difficult to find teachers – there are only a few colleges in the UK offering teacher training in Chinese, Japanese or Arabic. In fact there’s such a shortage of language teachers that generous finanicial assistance and incentives are on offer to those who train to teach them.

There seem to be fashions in which languages people choose to learn and in which languages are in demand by employers. Some languages, notably French, German and Spanish, are perennial favorites, at least in English-speaking countries. Other languages may enjoy popularity for a while, then are displaced by different ones. In the UK there are increasing numbers of people learning Chinese and Japanese, and Spanish is also gaining more followers, particularly among adult learners. In the USA there is currently a significant demand for people with Arabic language skills.

During the Cold War, many of the inhabitants of Eastern European had to learn Russian at school, a language few of them felt much affection for. Since the collapse of the USSR, other languages have become popular, particuarly English and German. And according to Radio Polonia, Russian has been making a come back in Poland recently.

Which languages are popular in your country?

Sources: www.cilt.org.uk, www.vistawide.com

Continuing yesterday’s theme, sort of (not all posts on blog are completely random), my question for you today is at what stage can you claim that you ‘speak’ a language, are ‘fluent’ or ‘proficient’ in a language or ‘know’ a language? And when you make such claims, what do you mean by them?

My English dictionary defines ‘fluent’ as “able to speak or write a specified foreign language with facility”. By this definition, I’m fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and nearly fluent in French, Welsh and Irish. I can read and understand a number of other languages fairly well, but can’t speak or write them nearly as well.

Unless you grow up speaking two or more languages, it’s very difficult, though not impossible, to be as proficient in a foreign language as you are in your mother tongue. If you immerse yourself completely in a language, you will probably eventually acquire native or near-native proficiency, but at the same time you might loose some of your proficiency in your mother tongue. This certainly happened to me to some extent when I was in Taiwan – my Mandarin became fluent, but I was not keeping up with all the latest developments in English.