How can I make my interests last longer?

Lead a horse to water. He will drink eventually.

You can try and make it interesting for yourself – learn about the French culture or try French food. Make connections with the language that way. I’m learning Italian and I stay interested because I have Italian heritage, and becuase I traveled to Italy and got to know the culture. You said that “knowing and understanding French where I live is pretty important” – are there ever situations when someone is speaking French and you want to know what they’re saying? Focus on that. Set goals for yourself. Good luck :)

I bet @AnonymousGirl would get real interested real fast if an @AnonymousBoy would teach her to french kiss french.

^ I already know how to kiss like that, but I get bored of that, too. I meant it when I said I get bored/give up too easily. I do see the humour in what you said, though. ;) Thanks for your lighthearted approach to this. I appreciate it! ^_^

@babybadger Great ideas! Thanks!

Go with the flow baby. Go with the flow. When you first start something, it might seem wonderful. But, then as you get into it, you might learn that it isn’t all that you thought it might be. But, you need to keep on trying new things and going where your heart leads you. Some day, you might just find that you start something that catches you and that you follow onward with… but, most things suck. So, don’t get your hopes too high just yet. Just kidding, but be patient. Chill baby. Go with the flow… of your desires…

you have to emerse yourself in it if you really want to learn it, that’s the fastest and easiest way. Or just make learning french fun. If french is a pretty important language around you I am sure your friends probably would like it learn it too. Try talking to them in french just small phrases at first and then expand.

I am in college right now and there is an African kid on the first floor of my dorm who speaks Swahili. His room mate said he learned more Swahili in a month from just trying to talk to his roommate than he did learning Spanish in his 3 years of Spanish classes at high school.

We talked about this on another thread, find your passion. My father called me a butterfly. I used to flit from one thing to the next and I rarely focused on anything. Then I found something that mattered to me, and the focus came. If you can find something you love, it will be easier to stick with it. Even now, I am constantly looking for new challenges, new ways to look at things. Mostly though, they connect to the areas I love. Think about the things you really enjoy.

Learn to accept boredom. Our culture of instantaneous gratification encourages very poor focus. Meditation is an excruciatingly boring activity. Before meditation is possible one must learn to tolerate boredom. This is why a roshi (a Buddhist teaching master) will teach stillness before he’ll teach meditation. Until you can practice stillness, meditation is out of reach. You can start by eliminating television. Study after study has shown nothing but negative psychological and physiological effects from watching television. Within seconds of sitting down to watch, your brain shifts to a passive, unthinking state which slurps up stimulation like a fat man hoovering up a plate of spaghetti. It conditions you to require constant stimulation.

If you find that you’re unable to give up constant stimulation, I encourage you to seek out a roshi at your local meditation centre. Most major cities have one. The meditation centre will teach you exercises to increase your toleration for boredom. Once you no longer fear boredom, there’s an amazing number of activities which become either possible or much easier, from hunting to dealing with bureaucracy to grocery shopping to learning to new skills (such as languages).

@SmashTheState is right. Also, establish a rule in your mind that says the following: “Knowledge is good, no matter what”

I’ve learned many things that I didn’t seem to need once I started learning them. Eventually though, I would suddenly come across a situation in which I’d use that knowledge.

Even if that wasn’t the case, learning simply makes you smarter and more capable. Few people seem to care about that, and this is a huge mistake. When you learn, you get these benefits + the specific benefits of the material you’re learning [like being able to communicate in French], which will probably help you at some point in your life.

Keep in mind that there will be times of “boredom” in which you won’t feel like learning, but that doesn’t mean you should quit.

“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”
—John Cage

You all continue to impress me with your awesome advice! Thank you so much! :)

I do agree that I should learn to accept boredom and to be more tolerant of it! ^_^

Sorry. I don’t think you need to accept boredom! I think it is different. You need to learn to see the beauty inside things…. so, look deeper.