I speak fluent English, Spanish and Chinese, and I'm happy with my progress with these three languages. My big problem, and what I need advice on, is on choosing the next study target. In the past I have:
- taken two years of Japanese more than 10 years ago, and many later false restarts in which I invested many hours for a few months and then stopped. Still can read katakana and hiragana and basic Japanese, but nothing remotely nearing the progress that works correspond to the account of time I've put in this language.
- I took several months of Korean classes, can read Hangul.
I stopped studying the languages above, even though I'm honestly very interested in the languages and cultures, because of the doubts I have about having any realistic possibility of getting to use them often, either by living in the countries that speak them out by using them back in Europe (this doesn't happen with Chinese because I live currently in a Chinese speaking area, my fiancee's mother tongue is Chinese and back in Europe there are plenty of Chinese speakers, so I'll be able to use or no matter what). In my current country of residence the amount of fluent, younger and talented local Korean and Japanese speakers means I, as an European, have very little possibility of getting paid employment that requires using them.
I have also started studying French (nearing one year of study with poor progress now) and German (took three years back when I was in Junior high school, and I've forgotten most things I learnt, but still keep some of the basics. I have also had many false restarts studying German too. About both French and German, while I'm not personally attracted to these languages as much as to Korean and Japanese, the fact I'm a EU citizen means that they will be both easy to use in my own country (Spain) and door openers top work in other EU countries means they are, at least on theory, a safe investment and a very good thing to learn. Plus, I honestly admire both France and Germany, have been several times to the former and liked it, and think they have amazing cultures, it's just that my personal interests and perhaps religious beliefs have an influence in me having a stronger interest in Asian languages.
TL:DR : I've invested more than enough time and effort to learn an additional language, but my consistent inability to keep studying the same language means I didn't learn any of these languages.
Could somebody give me some advice/motivation/something that helps getting out of this impasse? Either help in deciding for one language (info about Japanese or Korean's usefulness in Europe for people who speak them there would help). I know this kind of questions get a lot of flak because I've should find his own motivation, but I really need advice and would be grateful for any meaningful input I got.
I'm in my early 30s.
Thanks to all!
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