I was surprised to see this outdated way of thinking recently expressed in a popular language book, so I felt I should comment about it. It’s been a long time since I’ve read something like that, so let me give you a little background. Back when I first discovered forums, I think it was about 2005, I remember reading about motivation for learning Japanese. I felt ashamed and embarrassed, because there were many more experienced learners saying that my main reason for learning Japanese wasn’t strong enough to allow me to learn the language. They weren’t talking about me specifically, and I wasn’t brave enough to contradict them, but their comments hurt. What’s more, there was a not so subtle hint that I was learning for immoral purposes. If you haven’t guessed already, my strongest motivation for learning Japanese is my fondness for female speakers of that language. I ignored the warnings, because I suspected they were wrong and I really wanted to communicate well with certain young ladies. My success in learning Japanese proved to myself that that those claims were false. A few years later, I brought this topic up in other forums, or sometimes saw it brought up by others, and the tide had changed. Now the vast majority of posters were saying that strong motivation, regardless of the source, will allow one to learn a language. This was repeated in thread after thread, so I thought “case closed”. But evidentially not. I recently read the following in the book Fluent in Three Months On page 6, Benny Lewis says: And later on page 8: Now these are two very short excerpts from about 10 pages. I would have included a longer quote, but “look inside” feature at Amazon doesn’t allow cutting and pasting. Please go there if you want to read more. Basically, Benny says that one needs a specific type of motivation, that he calls “passion”, to learn a language. For example, wanting to get a job by using the target language is “wrong” motivation; whereas wanting to speak to natives of the target language is “passion”. I don’t have a problem with someone encouraging others to be passionate. But I disagree that there is “wrong” motivation. Strong vs weak motivation might make a good discussion; I think it would be hard to succeed with very weak motivation. But no motivation is inherently “wrong”. For example, I’ve met many people who have succeeded dramatically by using employment as their main motivation. I remember a group of law students in Japan who impressed members of that Japanese forum with their very fast progress. The forum was mostly a group of people who really loved Japanese culture, and the law students were essentially a group of mercenaries who came to study internationally. I was super jealous because they were so much better than us. I got over it, sort of, but it will always stick out in my mind as an example of how a goal like becoming an international lawyer can be a great motivating factor. If you read between the lines in Benny’s book, I get the feeling what he’s really trying to say is “don’t focus too much on your goal and lose sight of the language”. I come to this conclusion because he keeps saying you need “passion”, and “passion” to him is learning the language for the sake of learning the language. Of course, regardless of the goal, if it requires learning a language, then you have to learn the language. This seems pretty obvious to me, but maybe reminding people that they actually need to learn the language can be helpful. But if that’s what he wanted to say, why didn’t he come out and state that? Why say that “learning the language for the sake of learning the language” is passion, and other motivations are “wrong”? Anyway, I’m interested in hearing if you think there is such a thing as “wrong” motivation.
I think the only wrong motivation is to impress people who don't speak the language. It doesn't take much effort to do that. Then what? As far as the motivation of passing an exam, that was how I learned Biblical Greek.
I started French more or less because I wanted to cross "learn a foreign language beyond babbling a few tourist phrases" off my bucket list. Just as an experiment to see if I could actually do it. What people sometimes forget is that success does not always depend on having a passionate motivation from the very start. I definitely did not. Rather, it suffices to have a motivation that endures. Certainly career advancement can work as a motivation. There are actually a couple of advantages that people can have in that case. One is that they are often given clear deadlines to plan around -- for example, they are told that they will be transferred to a certain country in one year. Another advantage is that rather than having a somewhat nebulous objective like "learn everything about the language," they have a specific domain, like law or manufacturing or medicine, whose vocabulary and style of expression they must master, and this gives a clear direction to their studies. I think romantic motivations are perfectly legitimate and can be very effective as well. About the only motivations I would have a problem with would be violent or criminal ones, like learning a language in order to better infiltrate a foreign government and assassinate its leaders, or to set up shop and run some kind of financial scam in the country in question. But I imagine they could still be effective motivations, even if I wouldn't want anything to do with the people who had them.
好久不見大狗 Is “learning a language for of sake of learning the language” really definition of passion? I read a definition in the MacMillan dictionary that I think most closely corresponds to language learning: something that produces a strong enthusiasm or interest in you If you use that definition, it sounds same as strong motivation. Passion is good, but the definition isn’t limited to learning the language for the sake of learning languages. Do you agree?
I remember that I once wrote that I began reading Spanish because I found a text book written by the same people (2 x Kirchheiner) who had written my Italian text book, and I happened to like that book. No other reason, and back in the early 60s I had hardly heard any of these languages in vivo and certainly not visited any countries where they were spoken. So I can't really claim that I was driven to study them by deep feelings or economical or practical reasons - I just found something interesting to do in my spare time. The most curious thing is that I got some very angry reactions concerning my lack of passion for the Spanish language, and I still don't understand why. I have been studying and/or using Spanish since the 60s ... do I then also have to be passionate about it ??
I’ll tell you why he gave a long talk about passion. Benny is all about encouragement; that’s what he builds his business on. He loves to talk about passion, because that’s what sells books. He has been accused by many, even himself once on the lingQ forum, of not having passion and just being in it for the money. Of course he was only joking in his negative post about himself, but it shows what he is worried about. What you have to understand is that this is his career, and the money is probably the biggest motivator for him, not passion. That’s just my personal opinion of course. So he wrote this book, and wrote a long chapter about how important passion is. His logic is - you can’t learn a language if you don’t have passion – he has learned several languages – therefore he has passion. If I seem bitter, it's because he blocked me from his youtube channel after being rude to me, lol. i used to really like him, but not after that.
好久不見花花 Oh - a blast from the past, heh heh. I was hoping you would post. I think you are right - he's using his own definition of the word.
One of the things that really gets my goat about Benny is this whole motivation schtick. Any time anyone criticised the complete lack of substance in his advice, his response is that he isn't there to teach, but merely to motivate. But then he runs round the internet telling people that the only reason they fail is that they're doing it wrong, with no indication of how to do it right. That's not exactly "motivating", is it?
I think that motivation is personal, espcially the intrinsic one. Therefore, individual and of course different. If it is successful (that it mean that you do your best), then it's good in my opinion as long as it doesn't hurt others. I wish that the wordl would accept diveristy and not always say that your thoughts are wrong or not the reality. We can learn with different motivations, why not? My school and paretns were soemtimes absolutely fed up with my languages. For example, I've written my high school diploma essay in Dutch, not French. My teachers didn't udnerstand it therefore they had to ask a Flemish. (I didn't exams, only until I was about 14). I think that you can write your essay in any of the country's official langauges, or now in globalization in any language. They were little bit annoyed but not too bad, and I have the high school diploma. For me, I havne't a passion for the languages, but I have made a truly big effort, during all the years since about 2006. Without the langauges my life would be much worse, and in danger. Therefore a necessity. My passion is for the birds, and maybe also the music, poodles, and the gardens. I suppose that if you want to promote your books, then you must haev a clear paradigm, and say that the others are wrong. I like Benny.
