Languages and experiences

Hello all. This is my latest page to start up, to be honest I have no idea why it has taken so long *cough* I'm a procrastinator *cough*.

I'm not the most passionate flower for learning languages but I sure love learning the languages that I do. I started learning languages in 2007 at the start of secondary school.

 French - at first I did like French but I didn't love it. I was so concerned with 'when am I going to start learning Spanish'. I only realised I loved French when I already selected all my GCSE subjects. I started to achieve in French and I was sad that I couldn't do it for GCSE. At that time, I thought 'well I can't not choose geography' as it was between geography OR history, and I have not been a friend of  history since I finished primary school. I also (stupidly) thought my career path would be that of psychology. I had not realised my love for geography or the languages I learn. I now dislike psychology (or at least the way it was taught to me) and the idea of studying psychology at university looks like a joke to me, compared to this time last year. Last of all, the only subject I believed I could swap French for was Spanish. No way would I stop Spanish! So I gave up on French. My teacher was also annoyed at that as I was an achiever in French. Looking back, I should have done double linguistics, but how was I to know. I obviously understand some French now, however it's not at the same level as it was years ago. When working, I have had several french speaking countries that I loved conversing with. I remember one guy who was surprised I knew Toulouse was in 'le sud de France' where he resides; there was also a friendly old lady who demanded that I spoke French to her. I threw out the general conversation cues and all the random French I remembered. I wish I knew more! I also had MANY customers asking if I was French as I either 'had an accent' or 'gave off a vibe' or they 'just thought'. I'm definitely not offended, however I do wonder what my 'vibe' was.

Spanish - I was so ecstatic to start learning Spanish, for a reason I do not know and still do not know. I do not know why I love learning the language, or why I was so driven to learn it. I don't know why I find so much things about Spain, South America and other Spanish speaking countries so interesting; since I love it I learn it. I've always tried to do my best in Spanish. I was so surprised when I got and A in Spanish GCSE, considering I was predicted a C/B. Spanish was the only subject I'd be disappointed with my grade if I got a C/B. My Church is half a Spanish speaking community which is nice; I don't speak to many of them (in Spanish) but a particular married couple have helped me out a lot. It also helps me pick up on the little things when I hear the prayers in Spanish or sing the songs in Spanish. I still learn Spanish at A-Level and it's actually a wish of mine to live in a Spanish speaking country for around a year, hopefully in the next 10 years. I am actually going to Spain (again) at the start of 2014 for work experience! Yay! Also with customers again, there have been occasions where I've had to explain to customers things in Spanish, say the simple 'hola' or 'adios' to them or (wrongly I must admit) listen to their conversations in Spanish. In my last few months working at the store, I will try to interact with more customers in Spanish. In year 12, my dear friend arrived from Spain speaking little English so I worked as a sort of translator as I was the only year 12 Spanish student. It was fun and we exchanged languages teaching each other and I did learn a lot.

Korean - It took about 10 seconds to convince me to start learning Korean. I thought, like many people think, that korean is a language like Mandarin for example with thousands of characters, however korean has one of the most logical alphabets in the world with around 24 characters (I'm not sure if people include diphthongs, the characters 'ㅔ' 'ㅖ' 'ㅐ'or 'ㅒ'. I found it quite easy to learn the alphabet (as I am a bit of a spelling freak that is the area I concentrate on in Korean as I try to find out as many spelling rules as possible). I took Korean on as an enrichment subject, but treat it more seriously than 2 hours on a Friday. I just love Korean. I enjoy Spanish and Korean as they are quite logical languages and fun to learn. I speak to a few Korean people such as my five Korean teachers, lovely penpals and a lot of my friends also learn Korean...which is fun!

I tried to start self-teaching Norwegian once but it was a fail...maybe again in the future.
I hope I can speak at a more advanced level a different language. I do wish I learnt two languages from birth, but it is a great experience learning them now.