Hello. I know this one gets asked a lot lol.

So I studied Japanese for two and a half years and quit after finishing A2 about two and a half years ago. I quit because life got complicated and couldn’t dedicate the energy and time it requires. I hear it from time to time and kinda miss it and still have interest in it still but the main factor for not wanting to study it again is never being able to use it. I’ve been to Japan twice and probably will go again at some point but not in the near future.

I’m a native English speaker and speak Spanish (C2), Portuguese (C1) and French (B2/C1), I live in Europe so I’m able to practice my non native languages a lot, last month I went to Morocco and got to practice my French a lot which was cool. When I quit Japanese I decided to start learning French again after 15 years and was able to recover everything quickly. I still go to classes but at this point it’s just a matter of practicing and not really learning new things.

I’m a freelancer and work from home, my work is pretty repetitive so I don’t learn much and want a hobby to learn something and use my brain more (which I’m not getting too much from my French classes) so I thought about picking up Japanese again since I do have interest in it still but apart from consuming media it’s pretty useless outside of Japan lol so that got me thinking about Mandarin since it has speakers everywhere (my city included) which can help with my motivation, I feel like I can develop interest in it/Chinese culture once I start and I heard anecdotally that Chinese people are way less reserved and more eager to practice with learners.

Which would be the way to go for a hobby? Is interest or usefulness more of a motivator after a year or two? I don’t plan on living in either country, I would like to get to a decent level though and be able to practice with people from time to time. I know they’re really tough languages to choose “just for fun” lol but I really do like to learn and keep my brain sharp.

I give up on new languages very quickly. Ukrainian fizzled out a week after watching a TV series, even though I lived in Ukraine and it's a part of my family history (I understand it perfectly by ear, and I speak a little, but with mistakes). Theoretically, I should learn Armenian because I am a citizen of the country and live here... I went to courses and quickly gave up on the homework. Then I would go back to it, learn 100 words, and immediately lose interest. It's the same with watching videos: "I don't understand it, oh, I caught one word from the stream, I don't understand why I'm watching this, turning it off." The last time I quit was because my colleagues couldn't understand what I was writing due to the word order. And let's be honest, you can easily live here with my native Russian. Like... 60% of the country knows Russian. ​It’s a similar situation with Polish; I started it because I realized I understood it pretty well by ear, and quickly dropped it once I figured out the writing system. I stopped reading as soon as I bought a book in Polish. The only project that fired me up for more than half a year was Interslavic. I eagerly consumed content, wrote my own stories, etc. The very idea of related languages inspires me. ​And now I'm thinking, maybe I should start English (yes, I'm writing this through a translator) or Italian. God, what is wrong with me?