Categories: linguistics, study
Date: 22 September 2004 00:40:08
Reading this entry from the ever-entertaining Jack the Lass (especially the comments at the end on Russian and Romanian), I remembered my great love affair with learning languages.
It started several years ago when I was bored one Tuesday evening. Most people would probably go to the movies, or call a friend; not me -- I signed up for 10 weeks of German lessons. Two-and-a-half years later I was still studying German. I attempted French thrice, with terrible results on all occasions -- although there were many moments of hilarity: the "Ode To Fruit" a fellow student and I wrote (in French!) and sang to the tune of Frére Jacques is a fond memory.
I'm hoping to study Arabic and Mandarin at some point in the near future. One reason is my fascination with the fact their scripts and language are so very different from Western scripts and languages. I'm also fascinated by languages in general -- and how different languages express similar concepts in strikingly different ways (and even the fact different languages have concepts unknown in English). As well, I'd like to surprise friends and friends' parents one day with a fluent (or as near as I can to fluent) outpouring of their first language. I did try this once with an Assyrian friend, using a website as my teacher, but my pronunciation left quite a bit to be desired.
Speaking of languages, last week was my final Conversation Class for the current batch of English Course students at Macquarie Uni -- their course finishes this week and they are doing their exam today. After a small break they'll then be moving to their tertiary studies. I've greatly enjoyed meeting and (hopefully) helping many students, and I look forward to the next ten weeks and all of the new students I'll meet. It is feelings like this that make me sure this career change is a good thing.