21 and 49 for the langblr!
Target Language(s): General
21: What’s your favorite method of studying?
I’m blissfully oldschool. Pen, paper, textbook, dictionary, and maybe a reader including example passages and translations if it’s a dead language. While I make use of apps like Memrise, Duolingo, and Drops (vocabulary aggregator), I ultimately need to sit down and do the work manually to let it really sink in. This is the reason I always learned to read and write earlier than I learnt to speak and listen, which isn’t always practical - but I learn faster, and at a fraction of the cost, as a result.
Passive learning for me includes writing fics or watching videos in the target language. There’s a Russian web documentary series about doves I’m watching atm, it’s probably my most obscure fandom
49: Do you have any language pet peeves?
Gatekeeping.
Obviously I condemn the more common sort of language gatekeeping, the kind where some stranger comes up to tell you to speak English because this is America/the UK/Australia/etc. But there are also people out there, especially in langblr communities, who think you need a good reason to learn a language - and look down on people with shallow reasons, or singular interests, or when people study ‘non-useful’ languages. I have an axe to grind with that.
There aren’t many invalid reasons in the world to learn a language. It's fine to learn Korean for the sake of K-Pop thirst, actually. It’s fine to learn German or Russian because you’re interested in milhist. It’s not the learning of a language that makes people racists/fetishizers/etc., but how they treat the culture, and how much of said culture they consider in their learning.
Language learning is a massive investment of time and effort. I don’t really see the point in gatekeeping who’s allowed to learn a language, because people with genuinely ‘shallow’ reasons or impure intentions tend to drop out quickly - the stress behind learning a language is that great. And even if they don’t, they eventually come to a point where they have to confront what the native speakers of their target language think, and it almost never turns out like how they imagined. People who are genuinely interested in a language and its associated culture will not recognize this as an obstacle.
Those who have the will, the interest, and the open mind will learn. Those who don’t, won’t. There’s no point to shutting them down before they even start. Language learning should be made accessible for everybody, without making it some kind of a morals game or a shitty competition imo
