As much as I'd love to start this blog saying "I found a way to learn languages very easily, let me explain", that unfortunately isn't the case. In fact, the opposite is true- I'm gonna be talking about why I have so much difficulty with it, and my experiences with language.
Now, for starters- as you may have noticed, I speak English. I've had no trouble learning this language- literature aside, English has always been one of my stronger subjects. (This isn't necessarily reflected in my grades- a lot of English classes focus on studying literature, poems, etc., which never really made any sense to me, but that's beside the point). Spelling comes naturally to me, and grammar is hardly any more difficult. I'm not sure exactly why this is- I'd say it's the way I was raised (I did do a lot of reading when I was young), but it could be argued that I was raised that way because I understood English.
Being Canadian, I had to take French classes as I got older. I believe they started in grade 6- at first, it was learning common phrases, like "how are you" and some responses, but by high school we'd started learning tenses and grammar. At the time, I noticed something interesting. I could read French pretty well, and I could write it without too much difficulty. When it came to hearing and speaking though, I had much more trouble. I think a lot of it came down to understanding spoken words- when words are mumbled in an unfamiliar language, it's hard to understand them (especially compared to seeing them written)- but also, being able to slowly work through things and plan a sentence makes written communication a lot easier. Translating at conversational speeds is not something I could do easily. By the end of high school, I stopped taking French to make room for more sciencey subjects.
I have since tried learning languages outside of school, a couple of times. One time, I tried learning German along with a friend- I can honestly say, of the languages I've tried to learn, German was the easiest. I suppose it's because English is largely a Germanic language, so a lot of the grammar structure is similar, and some words share their origins. I never got too far into German though, and it was some time ago- by now, I remember a few basic sentence bits, and I could, for instance, call someone a potato, but that's about it.
I tried getting back into French, too- this was inspired by my socials teacher. We were learning a lot of Canadian history, and he really made a point of how the French-Canadian population was, and is, treated. Specifically, he mentioned that Canada is legally a bilingual country, yet a fairly small portion of people (especially in the West) actually speak French. It is a very good point, and I felt bad for not giving French more of an effort, so I tried it again. Unfortunately, it didn't last particularly long (though I would still like to learn French, I just need to find the motivation).
Most recently, I gave Italian a try. I was hoping to visit Italy as an exchange trip with the university, and figured I'd need to learn at least enough to order food, ask for directions, and other basic things like that. Again though, I didn't get particularly far in it. My current theory is that Duolingo is the culprit. It's true that without it, I probably wouldn't have done any language learning outside of school, but I think the streak system is the reason I haven't done more. I can force myself to do daily practice for around two weeks, but after that, I tend to slip up, at which point my motivation to keep going just completely drops. By the time I want to start again, I usually have a new language I want to learn. To be honest, that's part of the reason I've been so strict with my daily schedule on here- I don't want to slip up and lose motivation.
Now, there is one other thing I have yet to mention. I was raised English, but with a tiny sprinkling of Polish. My mom is Polish (though she moved to Canada at a very young age), so she would use Polish terms for a lot of things around the house. It took until I was a teenager to learn that a bułka didn't refer to a specific type of bun from Superstore, it was a word from a different language. Animals, foods and body parts were also referred to in Polish, and we would use it when talking about people behind their backs (I always joke to my mom that I only know rude words in Polish). Unfortunately, I don't actually speak the language, I just know a handful of words, mostly nouns and a few adjectives, which wouldn't do me much good in an actual conversation.
Anyways, hopefully you've enjoyed today's post! Let me know if you've tried learning another language, and how it worked out for you.
