My Language Tag
Hi Everyone! I am here to tell you about my journey learning languages. I am currently om my 6th language to learn. This tag will tell you a bit about my journey and just my relationship with languages in general. If you have any questions regarding anything to do with languages, please do ask them in the comments of this post.
1. what do you consider to be your native language?
A: Norwegian
2. what was your first language learning experience?
A: Learning English in 2nd grade as a 6-7 y/o. Don´t remember any details of it.
3. what languages have you studied and why did you start them?
A: English, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish.
English – Because I had to. Was a part of the school classes. Year 2004.
Korean – Because of kpop, but the more I learned about South Korea, the more I fell in love with the entire country. The language, culture, food, music, anything. But that took a while so it´s only lately that I actually started learning it seriously. Year 2015.
Chinese – I originally wanted to study Korean in University, but they didn´t have it where I wanted to go, so I though Chinese was the next best thing. But after having classes about their culture, history, geography and later the language, I started falling in love with it as well. So now I don´t think Chinese is hard or not interesting anymore.
Japanese – I´ve always wanted to learn it, but I was scared to because learning a new language is very hard, and my bff studies it in University and said it is very hard. So I just thought “no thanks”, but lately I´ve wanted to understand it in some way, so I´ve briefly started learning just Hiragana. Not even begun learning katakana.
Spanish – Also always wanted to learn. Usually in Norway when a person starts 8th grade, we can choose another language to learn. Most places it is Spanish, French or German. And I want to learn all of them, but I liked mostly the sound of Spanish. And Spanish was in many summer songs I used to listen to, but I never learned it because I thought I had to learn a new language at school. That it was impossible to learn it on my own, but I also just started learning this language, so not many experiences with it yet.
4. how does your personality affect how you learn languages?
A: Like most language learners I know, I´m a shy person. I don´t like learning languages with people I don´t know. So I keep to myself most of the time, which means no one can correct me, since I´m hiding myself away from the world. I try to put some of my language learning online, but I always just end up writing in English.
5. do you prefer learning languages in a class or individually?
A: I have been lucky to try both. And I like individually the most. Why? Because there´s no one to slow you down. I can go in my own pace, without anyone being too quick or too slow. Both can be annoying. If someone is too quick, you yourself feel slow, so you start working a lot more on it and maybe your day to day life changes because you don´t have time to do anything else because you´re too focused on learning it. And when people are too slow, you kind of feel like you have to step back and be at their level, so you don´t get bored or just already know everything that you guys are going through.
6. what are your favourite language learning materials?
A: Books (like TTMIK, Contemporary Chinese, Korean from Zero, Chinese Grammar Wiki book 1 & 2), quizlet, apps spesifically for the languages I´m learning, duolingo, IG accounts for language learning.
7. how much time do you spend actively learning per day/week?
A: Every minute I´m awake and not working currently, I´m learning the languages.
I try to stick to Mon-Fri “1h Chinese + 1h Korean”, Fri “30 min Japanese” Sat “30 min Spanish + review Chinese & Korean 1-2h each” Sun “test taking in Chinese & Korean + review what I forgot or haven´t studied enough”.
This is maybe too much since I barely do anything else. Woops
8. what are your short term and long-term language learning goals?
A: My long-term goal for any language I want to learn is getting to an advanced level at some point. I want to be able to use these languages comfortably and easily.
My short-term goal is getting in some form of language learning every day. Now learning 4 languages, I want at least 30-45 min of Japanese and Spanish per week & 1h Chinese and Korean per day. This year I also want to get to Low Intermediate in Korean, Low Advanced in Chinese, N5 in Japanese and A1-A2 in Spanish. If I don´t get to those levels, that is fine, but it´s goals I´m gonna work hard on to achieve.
9. what is your favourite language?
A: Korean. It´s the first language except English I started learning. Because of getting into kpop and learning Korean, I have made many friends and I´ve also found something that makes me happy and makes me want to keep living a life at it´s fullest.
10. what is the next language you want to learn?
A: Since I just started learning Spanish and Japanese, I won´t start learning a new language in a long while, but the next one I kind of want to learn is either Thai or one of the Philippines languages. None of them are easy, but it´s languages I´ve wanted to learn for a while. My bff is half Philippine, so I thought “how fun would it be to know her language and speak to her mom in her native language, because the mom is the 100% Philippine in that family”.
11. what advice can you give to new language learners?
A: Do not rush into learning a language thinking you´ll understand everything and know everything right away. Take your time learning it and learn a language through many different things. Like Tv-Shows, Learning Books, Music, reading books, etc. Then you´ll be exposed to it in many ways without really trying.
If you want, you can answer these questions in the comments of this post. Also anything you want me to post about when it comes to anything you are curious about, then also comment it. Comment anything you want answered in any way.
If you already have done this Tag before, put a link in the comments and I will check it out and leave a comment (you can link your social media and I will check it out anyway :D)
If you want, you can answer these questions in the comments of this post. Also anything you want me to post about when it comes to anything you are curious about, then also comment it. Comment anything you want answered in any way.
If you already have done this Tag before, put a link in the comments and I will check it out and leave a comment (you can link your social media and I will check it out anyway :D)