When I was a young boy, I have only been speaking german. More precisely the swabian variety, which is quite distinct from the standard "Hochdeutsch". When visiting primary school in Germany, i used to learn English as subject in school. Sadly that was more a subject than a language. After 4 years of "studying", i was not able to communicate.
Well. I was in the fifth grade in a german "Gymnasium", but when I look at this time nowadays, us pupils should have progressed better. Maybe another method of learning? Well.. Maybe. I have always been a good student, I never had any noticable problems in school, but we just learned that less english. That was the zeitgeist of my primary school. We knew the difference between tomato and potato. We knew how to write some actions like "to go", "to swim"..., but we were not yet able to speak full sentences. That changed in the Gymnasium, where I have been from the fifth to the tvelveth grade. And After 4 more years, i grade eight I could articulate myself in a way that I was able to have small conversations with friends in America via skype or via the phone. But I could not understand a word in a movie.
Let us move back in time two years. Grade six. We were allowed to choose between two subjects: French and classical Latin to learn in school from the sixth grade on. I chose Latin, because since I was a child, I loved history. I read a lot about the greek and roman mythology, about the roman empire and about history in in general. Another reason whas the French-teacher. Latin classes were very interesting, but else than i expected, that was not about speaking, but only about reading, writing and translating. And exaclty there lies the whole problem of Latin classes in general. But never the less I liked Latin and i am glad of having chosen it. It just influences you in so many different ways and areas of your daily live. Furthermore you obtain a huge advantage in learning other Indo-european languages, especially Romance ones.
Like every young boy in the teens I started beeing interested in social media. I began watching youtube videos and soon explored the English side of social media. That was the point in my life when language learning became an interesting topic to me. Even though In my entire school life I disliked language learning. Because now i began learning passively. Unlike in school, i did not do any exercises, did not learn any lists or grammar tables, but I used the language. I just heard a lot of people speaking the language. That was when i was about 16 years old. And it became an advantage to me, because afterwards, when i was in the tenth, eleventh and tvelveth class I moved from an B/C-Grade student to an A-Grade student.
And this is the point in my life where I began to think about language learning. I became interested in linguistics, in language genetics an in learning in general. I wanted to learn now. Learn a language, learn everything. So i began learning swedish.
And from now on, I want to let you participate on my progress in learning new languages as well as in the literature I am reading, the music I am hearing, the movies I like and all the other hobbies. I want you to be part of how I learn, maybe you will be inspired.
"A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning." - Brad Henry
Thanks. Alex.
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