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16:51
November 22, 2011
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Are languages just a hobby or also a work for you?
… or are they a hobby that you hope to turn to work?
For me they're just a hobby (also because I'm not attending a languages High school) and I'm studying by myself, but I hope to be able to make them more than a passion!
feel free to correct my mistakes,
I will appreciate it!
18:53
Experienced Language Hacker
July 9, 2011
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I started learning Spanish on my own about four years after I graduated high school. I realized after 4 years of high school Spanish, I had learned a lot of words, but I had not learned how to speak. I was challenged by the fact I wanted to communicate with my coworkers who spoke almost no English, and I realized the only way to do this was to start practicing on my own. It was a hobby at first, but a hobby I soon become obsessed with. I spent roughly the next three years or so focusing only on Spanish, only to decide this year that I wanted to add Italian and French to my collection. I find being able to speak multiple languages fascinating, and while it may never become more than a hobby for me, I get a great deal of satisfaction from learning and having small bits of success every few days. Obviously there are those who must learn languages in order to be successful in their jobs, but I hope to always be able to keep it fun and stress free by calling it a hobby and nothing more.
Learning: Spanish
Wants to add: Portuguese
If you´re bored and want to follow my progress, check out: http://jaimito424.wordpress.com/
23:58
Experienced Language Hacker
July 28, 2011
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Hobby
I'm doing History at Uni but at this stage I'm just spending most of my time picking up languages. The course is easy enough – I just need to buckle down and work hard every week or two weeks for a while and I have time to pursue my love of languages.
– Native 
– Intermediate 
+ 
+ 
– Beginner
00:46
moderator
July 15, 2011
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For me languages have always been a passion (not necessarily a hobby) for the most part. I started learning Spanish by working with immigrants here in Florida which at first was a necessity that turned into passion for the language and people. Spanish opened many doors for me such as work, living abroad and meeting the love of my life. The language became a means to an end and has improved my quality of life significantly. It also hasn't hurt me find work due to my bilingual abilities.
Turkish happened the same way: I feel in love with the country and its people. Besides, having Turkish listed on my résumé can't hurt either. However, I would never go out of my way to learn a language simply for capitalistic prospects.
Learning to fluency:
There will definitely be more that follow!
01:18
Experienced Language Hacker
July 25, 2011
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Itʻs my job. I teach Latin to homeschoolers and have for the last six years. I also worked for a publisher of Latin textbooks for five years. Now Iʻm headed off to grad-school in linguistics.
But I'd bet that anyone doing languages for a living is doing what they love. I didn't start doing this for a living because I love making glossaries (not that it isn't fun), but because I love Latin and languages generally.
Advanced: 
From Basic to Intermediate: 
I dream:
My blogs: Dead Linguist, Latin, Ancient Greek, Old English My YouTube: sipes23
15:07
July 8, 2011
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Both! Languages is my greatest passion, and I've always known my career would involve it somehow. After studying Linguistics and Japanese at University, I came to Japan and founded a language school where I teach English and sometimes German to Japanese adults. I've also been translating on the side for a few years, which I'm just now trying to turn into my bona fide "second job". Within the next few years I hope to become location independent so I can travel the world like Benny, studying languages while I translate and maybe even teach languages from my computer 
If you want to make languages your career, the one thing you should be careful about is making sure you have other skills and fields of knowledge to go along with it. Language by itself is not a marketable skill if you have no knowledge or skills to contribute in that language! Even in translation, which many people think of as the most purely language-related job there is, we "language people" will lose out to the engineers, accountants, programmers, physicists, fashion writers, and art history experts or other knowledgable people who just happen to have learned another language So follow your passions outside of languages, and become well-informed about the things that interest you. You never know when they might help you earn a friend, a connection, or your dream job!
I especially recommend gaining some familiarity in one or more of the following fields (whichever ones interest you). I've found them to be the most potentially useful in any job, language-related or otherwise. They are: web design, accounting, and computer programming (am I missing anything?)
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Studying: 
Next up: 
Current Mission: 3 Months to Fluent (B1) Mandarin
18:08
July 19, 2011
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Hmm…learning is definitely a hobby for me! My fascination with the German language began when I was in high school, but I was not an active learner at the time. I mostly just listened to the German music that I could find and spent time reading about the culture, without any real interest in learning the actual language (mostly because I was Sooo terrible with my Spanish studies)! This fascination stuck with me for many years (more than I'd like to admit here…lol) and went from a casual fascination to a more active persuance when I attempted finding literature in the language that had been translated. Finding most of it to be very badly translated or not flowing very well if it were poetry, etc., I then decided to learn the language last December.
I wanted to dip myself in slowly, so just focused on audio material and a few phrases/words. THEN, I had a phone conversation with someone from Germany at work and it motivated me to learn more for her visit to the States. This propelled me and motivated me to really pull up the boot straps! By April, when the lady had arrived, I'd found this website and was able to have a very basic conversation with her in German! It was very exciting, and she motivated me to make a visit to the country that I'd already loved for so many years.
It's really such a great language, and the people are wonderful! I'm also attempting to learn Polish due to my family heritage, but want to wait until I have a better grasp on German for now, because I'm loving it so much! I managed to get across the whole country of Germany without using much English, and I'm determined now to make another trip without having to use ANY. At some point I will also attempt Spanish again; I have so many opportunities to speak it here that it would be stupid of me not to learn it! Especially since I already know quite a few conversational sentences…despite how much I DIDN'T learn in high school and college.
Eventually, I would like to make this language learning journey a part of my career, but for now, it is exhilarating just to be able to learn the language of a country that I have felt connected to for so long.
23:01
September 22, 2011
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Definitely a hobby. And I want to keep it that way.
( 
)
07:29
August 24, 2012
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It's a hobby, and it's fun. Every so often I take a language examination at one of the CEFR levels (A2, B2, etc.), but only so that I can get feedback from an impartial third party on what level I have actually attained. The certificates that I gain won't get me a new career or even a new job—I'm 62—but they're proof that I'm making progress.
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