{"id":2615,"date":"2014-08-08T09:55:58","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T08:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=2615"},"modified":"2014-08-08T09:55:58","modified_gmt":"2014-08-08T08:55:58","slug":"which-language-are-you-learning-the-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/which-language-are-you-learning-the-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Which language are you learning? The results!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had\u00a0a great response to our recent language learning survey; thank you to everyone who took the time to complete it. First things first: we’re delighted to announce that the winner of the iPad mini prize draw is Konstantia Sakellariou<\/strong>. Congratulations, Konstantia – your iPad is on its way!<\/p>\n

We wanted also to share a few of our findings with you. Some of the results from the survey were as\u00a0we expected, others were quite surprising. Here are just a few of the things you had to tell us. Thanks again for all your thoughtful responses, we’ll put them to good use.<\/p>\n

Which language(s) are you learning (or would like to learn)?<\/h3>\n

The first question was pretty straightforward. A couple of people ticked every language on offer (over 100) – now that’s what we call ambition! – but most chose between 1 and 5. Here are\u00a0the\u00a0top ten most popular languages: \"Which<\/a> Other popular choices included Greek<\/a>, Swedish<\/a>, Dutch<\/a>, Brazilian Portuguese<\/a>, Norwegian<\/a>, Irish<\/a>, Polish<\/a> and Icelandic<\/a>. We also got some requests for languages we don’t yet offer, like Guern\u00e9siais<\/a>\u00a0and Twi<\/a> – we’ll do our best to add those languages to our list, so\u00a0watch this space!<\/p>\n

Why are you learning a language?<\/h3>\n

Next, we wanted to know why you’re learning a language. Nearly half of the respondents chose travel<\/strong> as a reason, and almost as many said they were\u00a0learning a language just\u00a0for fun<\/strong>. 36% of respondents said it was\u00a0for family reasons or for a relationship<\/strong>, and 27% for work<\/strong>. The results were quite evenly split though, showing that there’s no one overwhelming reason – everyone has their own motivation. \"Why<\/a> Among the other reasons, we had a range of answers, including an interest in the culture of the language<\/strong>, personal challenge<\/strong> and wanting to follow literature, film and music<\/strong> in other languages. Many people are living in another country<\/strong>, which was\u00a0their main motivation for learning the local language. And one person said that their heart asked for the knowledge<\/strong>, which we loved\u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

What prevents you from learning a language?<\/h3>\n

We were also interested to know what stops people from learning a language, so we asked you\u00a0to rate the following reasons out of 5. The most common barrier to learning is a lack of time<\/strong>, followed by not having found the right method<\/strong>, and then the cost involved<\/strong>. \"What<\/a> Incidentally, if you’re facing any of these barriers, you may like to check out our recent posts, on finding time to learn a language<\/a> and learning on a budget<\/a>. And if you’re looking for\u00a0resources, did you know you can try out the EuroTalk\u00a0learning method\u00a0for free? Either visit our website<\/a>, or download our free app, uTalk<\/a>\u00a0for iOS, to give it a go. We believe learning a language should be\u00a0fun, because our research shows we learn much better if we’re enjoying ourselves, and this in turn\u00a0makes it a lot easier to overcome the obstacles that get in the way. See what you think! Other answers included not having an opportunity to use the language<\/strong>, a lack of motivation<\/strong> and difficulty finding resources for the particular language they wanted to learn<\/strong> (we may be able to help there – we’ve got\u00a0136 languages<\/a> and counting…).<\/p>\n

How have you used your language when travelling?<\/h3>\n

Finally, we asked how knowing another language has been\u00a0useful when you’re travelling. There was no clear winner here, which just goes to show knowing a language is always useful! But the top response was that it gives\u00a0you the ability to talk to locals<\/strong> in their own language; many people added that they felt more welcome as a result and that it gave them independence so they could make the most of\u00a0their trip. There were lots of practical reasons too, with getting around<\/strong> and eating out<\/strong> narrowly beating shopping<\/strong> in the poll.\"How<\/a>If you missed out on the survey this time, don’t worry – we’re planning another one soon, so keep an eye on the blog (you can subscribe by email above to get the latest updates), or follow us on Facebook<\/a> or Twitter<\/a>. And if you didn’t answer this survey but would still like to have your say on any of the questions, you’re very welcome to email<\/a> us or add your thoughts in the comments below.<\/p>\n

Liz<\/p>\n

Data above based on 877 survey responses.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had\u00a0a great response to our recent language learning survey; thank you to everyone who took the time to complete it. First things first: we’re delighted to announce that the winner of the iPad mini prize draw is Konstantia Sakellariou. Congratulations, Konstantia – your iPad is on its way! We wanted also to share a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[606,150,49,244,346,231,103,3,80,421,312,9],"tags":[118,273,237,287,727,457,32,176,48,243,34,728,729,302,495,64,124,2,4,730,731,221,53,251,148,240,85,732,65,160,8,604,57,618,28,733,310],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}