Falling in love with foreign languages
It happens. And it’s the kind of love that defines you, the kind of love that makes you want to be better. I am not a native English speaker. And yet when I think of writing something, I think about it in English and not my mother tongue. I used to write in my native language before high school, but my goal was to become better at writing in English.
I figured that in order to write in English, one must start reading in English! I knew and could speak the language very well, but never really attempted to write something in it other than my homework.
I was in my sophomore year when I read my first book in English: Jane Austen’s Emma. I found it difficult at first, but the use of language was so elegant that I immediately fell in love with it.
I came across a lot of unknown words and it was frustrating at times, but I decided I should focus on the overall meaning and enjoy the reading. I would later look up the words and write them down for future use.
Soon I became acquainted with the writing style and other great novels followed. After a while, I started reading the romantic poets, Byron and Shelley. Yes, my teenhood was lovely (and so were my college years, when I discovered T.S.Eliot).
So, what started as a learning process led to a new hobby. I started avoiding Romanian (my mother tongue) translations of novels or poems I could read in their original language. I wanted to hear the genuine voice of the author and I knew it could get lost when translated.
Then I started writing in a journal. From short stories to poems, to mundane happenings from my life. I was creating my style.
The passion for foreign languages grew quite fast. I was not satisfied just with knowing English and a bit of French. When it came to picking-up a college, I chose the Faculty of Foreign Language and Literatures. I studied English (Major) and German (Minor).
It was a choice for my soul. Not only did I get to read some pretty amazing books, but I also learned how to learn a language. I cannot remember how I learned English, I knew a lot of words and phrases from television, before going to school. I used to get the grammar right because it sounded right, but could not really explain my choices for certain grammatical structures. Linguistics made it clear. Thank you, Noam Chomsky.
Now, I know that German does not sound like a fun language, but it really is challenging. It is a logical language and you just have to be patient, as you can not master it very fast. The word order might seem peculiar, but you’ll get the hang of it eventually. I still have problems with it when I speak with someone, but I try to focus on being fluent, regardless of the mistakes I make. I want to enjoy it and not feel tortured by it.
Learning a foreign language is a must nowadays. We have the means to do it, so there is no excuse not to. If you don’t have the money you can either download apps, grammar books or watch/read language learning vlogs/blogs. You can easily reach a B1 level by yourself.
I also learned that getting to know the culture behind a language is a great way to understand the language itself.
If you liked this post, feel free to clap and leave feedback :-)
If you are looking for language partners to improve your foreign language skills you can find it on swaplanguage.com.
