Entry 1


First Question: What has been your journey like learning foreign Languages?

 

           Since I was little, I’ve always been very fascinated with listening people speaking languages that I don’t understand. I love to imitate the unfamiliar sound, the tone and even the gestures people use when talking. Hence, it’s no doubt that I wished myself to become a multilingual when I grow up. Nevertheless, as I aged, I found that learning a language is not as easy as I had imagined because it takes so much time and efforts to achieve fluency. In addition, different approaches to a language can also vary on our performance.

           So far, I’ve learned two languages, English and Spanish. Though they’re totally two different languages, I found there are some similarities shared in my journey of learning them; but when a different pattern is created when I learned my second language, Spanish, I found the results can be a lot different. For instance, when starting to learn a new language, it’s always necessary to memorize many basic linguistic elements like vocabulary and phrases. When I was a beginner of learning English, I went to cram school where the teacher forced us to cram all kinds of must learn vocabulary into our brain; and if we didn’t do that well, we got punishment from the teachers. To be honest, in this way I learned pretty fast; however, I found that I came to fear of making mistakes in English. Nevertheless, when I was learning Spanish, my teacher would give us many chances to practice the vocabulary we learn in each class, and because we’re practicing with our classmates, we’re not afraid of making mistakes. In addition, the amount of vocabulary we have to learn is always affordable, which gave me more confidence; and I felt that I was encouraged to learn more by myself.

         If comparing these two languages, I think the way I learn a language influences not only my performance but my motivation. It’s no doubt that I enjoy learning Spanish more because of the relaxed environment and the confident I build through classes. Hence, if I’m going to learn a third foreign language , I would tend to follow the study pattern I have in Spanish.

Second Question: Why do you choose the particular language to learn in this semester?

   

    Last semester, I took a class about the culture, economy and politics of Turkey. From the class, I learned that we have so many interesting things that we might never get a chance to understand about this beautiful country; for instance, the cuisine, the custom, the architecture and the rich history. Hence, I want to learn Turkish so that one day I could travel to Turkey myself and explore the Turkish culture and its magnificent architecture built hundreds of years ago. In addition, I also learnt that although most Turkish people believe in Islam ,they’re not so religious as other Muslim countries in middle East; girls in Turkey seldom wear hijab, instead they wear shorts just like us. Probably because of its geography which serves as a bridge between the East and the West, the culture itself mixes very well with the two sides; therefore, I think it’s very worthy of learning Turkish to unveil this mysterious country and to broaden our horizon.