My Linguistic Journey so far

Introduction

I know you probably don’t care about my story, which is completely fine. But I am sharing my linguistic journey with you intending to inspire you and help you to learn something that can be beneficial for YOU, as this is my goal with this article.

I hope my experiences help you realise something which I did, can help you with the following;

1. help you learn ways in which languages can be learned (I've highlighted in bold the key points.)
2. avoid the mistakes that I made.
3. if you are having any struggles with language learning you can know that it is normal.

So, here is my story.

Secondary school

My linguistic journey started in secondary school when I was 12 years old. But of course, at the time I didn’t have a clue it started. At school, we did many subjects, but among them, English and French. Unfortunately, when I was at home I rarely did my homework, only when asked (don’t tell my students that I teach, this :) ).

I mainly watched TV, played football with my friends or played FIFA. But even without studying, I got excellent grades in English and French.? At the time, I didn’t realise I had a natural ability for it. In the other subjects, my grades were average.

The first very small realisation I had about my linguistic abilities was when the following year I was in the top class for French (without doing any homework). Back in the day (I feel old now) at my secondary school, each subject was split into the top, middle and bottom classes depending on your level.

Since I was in the top class for French, I had the option of choosing German over another class. I decided to choose it. Also, my mother speaks German after living there for one and a half years. I continued with German for a year.

When the time came, I did my final exams at secondary school and I felt confident about my French and English over the others. I got my English grade, very good as expected but when I opened my French grade, it had dropped. Throughout my entire secondary school year, I had the grade needed to do French at college (as I was looking at studying it later), but now when it mattered, I didn’t. I was really upset. So, I chose another subject to study at college.

Pause in language learning and then the preparation to start my humanitarian work

My language journey then stopped for various years until I was nineteen. I decided to do some voluntary humanitarian work after college. I was hoping to travel to another country to do this. So, to get a head start I decided to try to learn a language by myself. It was back in the day before Duolingo and other free language learning resources. So, I went into my local town centre bookshop and I bought a CD and a small booklet to learn Russian.

You may be wondering, why Russian? Shortly before I decided to do this voluntary work, one of my favourite film trilogies came out in 2007. The majority of the second film, which was my favourite, was mainly set and filmed there. I don’t know why but the Russian culture and language interested me.

I started learning Russian, but I didn’t get very far, to be honest, I was at least motivated to study a language by myself with no teacher. Then my Russian classes stopped when I got my assignment for my voluntary work. I was assigned to work in Spain, around the Madrid area. So, I started focusing entirely on learning Spanish.

I stored away my Russian books, (I think I still have them somewhere tucked away in our loft). I then started on my journey to learn Spanish, which at the time I didn’t realise how big it would be for my life.

(Spoiler Alert!, it has influenced my entire life and I have spoken Spanish in some way every day since starting my humanitarian work in 2007 until this very day, l have lived in Spain now for 10 years and Bolivia for 6 months, I've travelled to Chile and Peru also, I studied Spanish as minor courses at university along with my major courses and I’m married to a Bolivian Spanish woman.)

Luckily, my parents were friends with a lady who lived in my hometown who had travelled and lived in Spain and Portugal. She gave me very basic Spanish classes for free which helped.

Training for my humanitarian work

I still remember the day I left for my humanitarian work like it was yesterday, it was in November 2007.

(Embarrassing and funny story alert!)

I remember the first person I met who was native Spanish-speaking and who only spoke Spanish. In this training group, was a girl from Honduras who was going to learn English. When we sat down for the first meeting, she sat next to me, I recognised that her surname was Spanish and she had various materials to learn English from Spanish. I spoke to her in English, as I was very shy with my Spanish, and she didn’t understand me, so I tried the basic Spanish I learned in my hometown. Our conversation lasted literally 30 seconds after we both rather awkwardly just looked to the front of the class waiting to hear our instructions from our trainer.

Arriving in Spain

When I got into the airport in Madrid I remember standing waiting for the person who had organised to pick me up. Everyone around me was speaking so fast, I didn’t understand a word. Then suddenly out of nowhere a middle-aged lady approached me and said something to me. I didn’t have a clue what she said. I just shrugged my shoulders silently. She must have gathered I didn’t know what she was saying and she left. I thought, well, let’s see how successful my Spanish is living in Spain.

Over the next 6 weeks, my Spanish improved a lot. I was having daily one-to-one intensive classes with a native Spaniard. This really helped me improve. Plus, I got to walk around Madrid a bit and practice my Spanish by myself, which scared me but also helped me grow.

I stopped having the classes and then I continued learning by myself with self-study materials and I practised what I could in Madrid. This really helped me, it was total immersion. I think a mix of studying the language and living in the country where the target language is spoken is key. Later I started working in Salamanca. A place that was touristy for the university, but not as much as Madrid. I spoke a lot more Spanish there and after I really felt that my confidence in Spanish grew.

After working in Spain for 6 months, I stopped studying and just simply went about my daily life speaking to people, asking questions and not being afraid to mess up, which everyone does when speaking new languages. I was in Spain for a total of 2 years at that time.? Within those two years, I became fluent, I could read, speak, listen and write Spanish to a very good level. I came to really love the Spanish culture. Whilst living there I also met various people from Central and South America, I fell in love with their culture too. I enjoyed being around Spaniards and Latinos. I enjoyed speaking Spanish. This is something else that really helps when learning languages. Enjoy doing it.

Now.

I have been living in Spain for 10 years, why? Because I have fallen in love with the culture, weather, food and the people in general.

This has helped me naturally enjoy and want to be here. I have been speaking Spanish consistently here too.

Also, after being with my now wife for almost 5 years in total. It has naturally helped me improve. (When I was growing up, I always thought I was going to marry an English woman.)

For my other blog articles that will come, I will describe certain aspects of language learning and more about language teaching in more detail.

My Main Takeaways

This part for me basically gives you the main points I want you to learn from this post.

Obviously, you will get more or less different things from what I will say below, which is completely fine.

• Think of why are you learning a language. What is your motivation? What is your goal? Try to stay motivated as best you can throughout your journey. I wanted to learn Russian when I was younger, so I acted, I used my money saved, and I bought what resources I had. I kept with it for a few months until my situation changed.
• Travel to the country where your target language is spoken IF you can for holidays.

If not, try speaking with natives or others who speak it in online language exchanges, classes or face-to-face language exchanges etc. where you live.

• Studying and Practicing the language you or learning (often known as the target language or your L2) as much as you can start you on your way of learning. It’s important to keep this up.
• When learning a language, ask people questions about the language, and how to say words, and don’t be afraid to mess up, it’s normal. People will generally like it if you are wanting to learn their language.
• Try to immerse yourself in the culture, this really helps when learning and it makes it easier. Make friends with people from your target languages country. This will help you enjoy speaking your target language, once you enjoy it, it makes it a lot easier to study it and visit the country again, if and when you can.
• Don't let setbacks put you off. Like I had with French, setbacks are a normal part of language learning. Keep going and think of the why, is it for work, travel, family, or other?

How have you picked up the language you have learned?

How are you currently learning a new language?

I'd love to hear from you in the comments.