Exploring German
One of my 2004 resolutions was to explore a foreign language and I've decided to take that goal more seriously in the last few weeks.
Ich studiere Deutsch.
As I mentioned a week or so back I've decided to learn a bit of German, mainly because of all the languages I could study, I know more people who speak German (mostly filkers) than any other language, plus I have some unilingual friends, like Debbie and Paul Kwinn who are studying German, too.
I fear my track record with foreign languages has never been good. The only experience I have in studying another language is four years of high school French, pretty common here in Canada, but I was really, really terrible at it. The school board where I attended elementary school until Gr. 8 didn't have a French program, so I already felt rather behind when I got to high school French, so that, plus no natural affinity for other languages, made French a constant struggle. I stuck with it until Gr. 12 because I was given to understand I couldn't major in English in university without foreign language high school credits. I took a term of Latin, as well, which I found quite interesting.
I still remember how surreal I used to feel in those French classrooms. I was in a school with a high Italian population, so many of the students I took French with also had an exposure to Italian and it seems true that exposure to a second language makes learning a third language easier. Many of those students would be chattering away to our teacher in French and it was all I could do to keep up with comprehension, much less join the discussion. It was tough for me, I was a good student in most other subjects so it was hard to come against the wall of a subject I didn't have a natural aptitude for. I squeaked out a pass in Gr. 12 French, but it was a near thing. I'm still convinced I was passed because some English teacher told my French teacher, "She has an 'A' in English and her public speaking skills are strong enough to have her nominated for Valedictorian. She wants to study English in university and go into teaching, so just give her the bare pass in French to grease the wheels.". And a bare pass is what I got.
It's been a lot of years since I last attempted a foreign language, so though I am enthusiastic and keen to learn a bit of German, I really have no idea as to how much I will be able to understand or retain. Even reading about Deb's experiences studying various verb forms, etc., makes me somewhat despair :). But I am going to try to devote thirty minutes to it a day for the next while.
Tomorrow I'll talk more about the German language tools I've bought to help me.
SURVEY: Do you speak more than one language? What is your native tongue? How did you learn the second, third, etc. language? At home? At school? At what time in your life did you learn the extra languages? Did you find learning new languages easy or difficult?
QUESTION: What one piece of advice would you give someone tackling a new language for the first time?
Ich studiere Deutsch.
As I mentioned a week or so back I've decided to learn a bit of German, mainly because of all the languages I could study, I know more people who speak German (mostly filkers) than any other language, plus I have some unilingual friends, like Debbie and Paul Kwinn who are studying German, too.
I fear my track record with foreign languages has never been good. The only experience I have in studying another language is four years of high school French, pretty common here in Canada, but I was really, really terrible at it. The school board where I attended elementary school until Gr. 8 didn't have a French program, so I already felt rather behind when I got to high school French, so that, plus no natural affinity for other languages, made French a constant struggle. I stuck with it until Gr. 12 because I was given to understand I couldn't major in English in university without foreign language high school credits. I took a term of Latin, as well, which I found quite interesting.
I still remember how surreal I used to feel in those French classrooms. I was in a school with a high Italian population, so many of the students I took French with also had an exposure to Italian and it seems true that exposure to a second language makes learning a third language easier. Many of those students would be chattering away to our teacher in French and it was all I could do to keep up with comprehension, much less join the discussion. It was tough for me, I was a good student in most other subjects so it was hard to come against the wall of a subject I didn't have a natural aptitude for. I squeaked out a pass in Gr. 12 French, but it was a near thing. I'm still convinced I was passed because some English teacher told my French teacher, "She has an 'A' in English and her public speaking skills are strong enough to have her nominated for Valedictorian. She wants to study English in university and go into teaching, so just give her the bare pass in French to grease the wheels.". And a bare pass is what I got.
It's been a lot of years since I last attempted a foreign language, so though I am enthusiastic and keen to learn a bit of German, I really have no idea as to how much I will be able to understand or retain. Even reading about Deb's experiences studying various verb forms, etc., makes me somewhat despair :). But I am going to try to devote thirty minutes to it a day for the next while.
Tomorrow I'll talk more about the German language tools I've bought to help me.
SURVEY: Do you speak more than one language? What is your native tongue? How did you learn the second, third, etc. language? At home? At school? At what time in your life did you learn the extra languages? Did you find learning new languages easy or difficult?
QUESTION: What one piece of advice would you give someone tackling a new language for the first time?