There are languages I want to learn someday or at least dabble in more (such as Swahili and German). There are languages I think I ought to learn but don’t really want to (Spanish and Mandarin Chinese). And then there are languages I really love and would regret not learning. It’s not a question of guilt, but simply that I enjoy these languages so much that I miss them like friends whenever I neglect them. These are the languages I want to focus on for the foreseeable future.
To make time for them, I’m putting away the languages I don’t really want to learn and delaying other languages I like. I already know that Japanese, Russian, and French belong on this short list. Anything else? Yes: Indonesian! So, I’m now learning these four languages.
Now that French is getting closer to advanced (C1)–not there yet but getting noticeably closer to it–I have a desire to bring all four of these languages to the same point eventually. I don’t know if I’ll find enough resources to do that with Indonesian, but I want to try.
Why Indonesian? I love the way it sounds and like some of the TV, YouTubers, and music from Indonesia. I’m still a novice though. I dabbled in it two or three times in the past, but didn’t retain anything because the vocabulary is completely different from any language I’ve learned so far. At least it’s easy to pronounce and the grammar is easy for beginners, which will help me to learn it quickly.
My favorite courses (Michel Thomas and Language Transfer) aren’t available, so I need to learn it a different way in the beginning. I chose the Mass Sentence Method, using Glossika, Book2, and Vocabulearn. There will be a lot of listening-and-repeating of audio, but that will prepare me for conversation better than most textbooks would. And, I can play detective, figuring out the grammar for myself rather than being taught it by a course.
Later, I plan to use LingQ to help me to learn to read the news and internet articles, to give me things to talk about in conversation and to help me get to the intermediate level faster.
What languages do you have the strongest desire to learn? When you’re old, will there be any languages you’ll regret not having learned? Do you know?
(Photo by Rakicevic Nenad from Pexels)
AndyMountHood