I’ve just been to the Balearics (and I visit frequently-ish) and the languages I heard were Spanish, Romanian, French, Catalan, Dutch, German, Italian and Polish.
The languages that I could have used in various situations if I had spoken them were Romanian, Polish, Dutch and German.
The only language I used (Spanish speaking country so not all bad) was Spanish.
And here I am learning Afrikaans.
I am in a quandary because although I’m keep talking about access to culture through reading, and that speaking isn’t always important, at the same time, there comes a point when I want to actually use a language.
The top eight most widely spoken languages (as native speakers) within the EU are more or less follow the demographics:-
Germany. 65 million
France. 60 million
UK. 60 million.
Italy. 55 million
Spain. 47 million.
Poland. 46 million
Romania. 16 million
Greece. 15 million
Netherlands. 13 million
And so what do I do? Shall I continue with Afrikaans or flit like I normally do?
My language journey (on the right) indicates a startling lack of staying power, and one of my reasons for logging it was for precisely this reason. It would or should make me think about what I’m doing – or not doing. Admittedly I’ve not up until now spent a huge amount of time on this, but I would like to make some progress.
I need to prove to myself that I can learn another language … and the two which really jump out from this list are German and Polish.
What shall I do??????
Baci,
Moonface
Ek het ná ‘n paar jaar weer easyafrikaans.com kom besoek en ek is bly om te sien dat die webblad steeds aanlyn is. Ek weet nie wat jy besluit het nie, maar as ‘n ander leerder hoop ek dat jy aanhou leer. As jy enige raad wil hê sal ek baie bly wees om ‘n bietjie van my ervaring van Afrikaans met jou te deel. Alles van die beste!
Thanks for the comment and offer. I read your website and also understand the frustrations that you have had finding people to speak too. I’ve had similar with both Spanish and Italian (languages which I speak fairly well). With Afrikaans, I continue to dabble (reading mainly) but over time understand more when listening. I haven’t given up, but I haven’t spend enough time on it either, I suppose because of lack of a need to speak and actively play with the language.
That said, I did recently improve easyafrikaans to convert it to https, and am in the process of improving it (my day job gets in the way), so maybe this year could be the one where I finally put in the hours needed.
Cheers,
MF