Interview with an Author: Hatchet
That’s me.
I’m a college student, and one of my favorite hobbies is learning languages.
I’ve been learning Spanish for around 4 years now. Unfortunately, I don’t know many Spanish speakers at all, let alone native Spanish speakers. Thus, Duolingo, Memrise, and the whole rest of the Internet in general have been my main sources for learning Spanish.
Of course, only learning from on the computer has major drawbacks.
First, speaking is awkward for me because online courses give me plenty of time to formulate a sentence, but in real life, taking more than a couple of seconds before speaking can make conversations come to a grinding halt.
Second, I’m terrible at listening. The speed at which the typical Spanish speaker talks doesn’t help matters. I regularly have to repeat listening exercises on Duolingo 2–4 times before I feel confident enough about what’s being said.
Of course, the learning experience I’ve had from the Internet hasn’t been all bad, there are definitely some pro’s to balance the con’s:
Convenience. It’s the Internet, of course. It’s pretty darn convenient.
Reading. Since the silent Internet is… silent, it’s very much text-based, meaning that if I learn a language on the Internet, I’m going to have a leg up in the reading department. With respect to my current handle of the Spanish language, I believe I do.
I’d be willing to claim A2 level proficiency in Spanish.
Earlier this spring I decided to try out Japanese.
Oh boy.
Let’s just say that after six months, I can:
- Read Hiragana
- Write Hiragana
- Read Katakana
- Write Katakana
- Words (like 50 of them)
こんぼんは！
I need a language partner!
Okay, it’s not quite that bad, but it’s hard. Since Japanese is so radically different from English (esp. compared to Spanish), and since it has fewer speakers, there are a lot fewer resources out there for English speakers to learn Japanese. I’ve been experimenting with Anki and Memrise, as well as Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese. It’s all been helpful, but I think I’m going to have to either get some formal lessons or splurge on some good quality textbooks before I actually make good progress.
Enough with the language learning, it’s not like anybody reading this blog is actually interested in that. </sarcasm>
Anyways, I’m in college, studying stuff in computer science. I’m a programmer. Fun. Thus, along with LL.SE, I’m also on StackOverflow.
I have a YouTube channel, a website, and the maturity of a lizard (take that how you will).
I’m Hatchet.
That’s me.
