Resolutions

A shortish blog post to wind up the year. I have given my Livejournal blog the end of year treatment: I will likely do the same for this blog, some time tomorrow. It will give me something to do.

What sort of a resolution have I made for this coming year already, I hear you ask.

Well, it will begin with my picking up the study of French and German. As much as possible, I aim to give those languages a good, solid try, possibly brushing up on Welsh as well, in the meantime. This will give me the excuse to study the less accessible language choices I have made, namely Portuguese, Japanese, Latin and Klingon.

I describe two motivations for learning a language: ambition, and necessity. If you learn a language just so you can start applying for jobs, it's necessity and the results can be pretty bloody awful to listen to.

But if you just want to learn the language, just because, so that you can sit and listen to TV shows in the language or to speak with friends in that language, blog in that language and form relationships with people who speak that language ... that is ambition, and those who want to learn the language out of love usually make a much better effort to learn it than those for whom learning is a chore, fit only to give them a passing knowledge of how to say "Where is the toilet?" in the local lingo.

So, then, my resolution - in part, more or less the same as for last year. Learn. Study. Practice. Put into practice.