Learning foreign languages has always been a goal and struggle of mine
In elementary school I started taking Spanish classes, at that point it was mostly just vocabulary. So when I had to take Spanish in middle school, I thought I was ready, but I hardly understood any of it because I didn’t realize, or know what I was learning while I was learning it. Fast forward to high school where Spanish seemed like the obvious language choice, but I didn’t want to be in over my head, so Spanish 1plus it was again. Oh and I never did do very good at remembering accent marks. Again in college, I realized I needed a language course to graduate with my bachelor’s degree. So back to Spanish 1ish it was so that I wouldn’t stress myself out more than I had to.
In college I decided to go on a study abroad trip, and part of it was in France, so a friend and I got inspired to hop onto a language learning app and see what we could figure out. We didn’t get very far, but we had fun with what we learned. Nowadays I throw a phrase or two in to my speech as a conversation starter and then admit I don’t actually know French.
Learning languages is hard, it is interesting but I don’t think school is the best place to learn it. They add so much unnecessary stuff in, and everyone learns it so differently.
Even with English I feel like I’ve learned a lot more writing and reading on my own than I did in college, keep researching, reading, and writing things yourself, you may be surprised what new discoveries you can make about any language, from dialects (like Minnesotan, doncha know), to words that aren’t used much anymore.
Learning about language can tell you a lot about history. Just think if you looked back at the word of the year for 100 different years, what a change you’d see I bet!
This all to say that learning (about) language is important anyway, even if it’s your first and only language.
Je ne connais pas beaucoup le français. Je suis désolé…..Or said in English: I do not know much French. I am sorry.
