Parlez-Vous Francais?

Act 155:

“It’s never too late… To Learn A New Language

Think of it as a key to new adventures. A chance to look through different eyes. To explore new lands, and cultures, and people. A chance to expand your mind. To challenge old ways. To extend your boundaries.” – Patrick Lindsay

Quote in book: “The liberation of language is rooted in the liberation of ourselves.” ~ Mary Daly

I know (or at least are familiar) with three languages. English, Tagalog, and French. I wouldn’t say I was fluent in all three, but I know enough in all three to get by. I’ve always wanted to learn more.

One of my goals in life was to be able to learn how to say Hello, Good Bye, Thank you, and You’re Welcome and count to ten in at least 10 different languages. At one point I could say Thank You in about 15 and the rest of the list in about 8 or 9 different languages. I’ve since lost the ability past 5 or 6. However, if I heard the words I’d be able to recognize it.

That’s my problem. I have a great ear, but have a bad tongue. I have a great ability to pick up/learn words quickly, but I have a very difficult time speaking. It’s a lot easier for me to translate and understand than it is to think, translate… then speak. This is why I can understand Tagalog and a lot of French, but I have a very difficult time responding back in that language.

For Tagalog, I know why. It’s because my parents and other family members used to laugh at me when I was little, because of my American accent. Most of the time they were laughing because it was cute… but I think I got a little bit of a complex and didn’t realize it. So, the laughing discouraged me from speaking. The other reason is because I was also learning English and going to pre-school at the time, so my parents wanted me to speak English, so I would fit in at school. Watching home movies of myself as a toddler I would respond in English and in Tagalog.

In high school, I took French. Living in Cali, I remember getting strange looks, because here most people learn Spanish. I figure because I’m Filipino and a lot of Tagalog is based on the Spanish language that it would be easier to learn Spanish later in life and French. So, I picked French in high school to challenge myself a little bit. Also, French is the other official language of the Olympics and the other language most used throughout the world, so I figured it would be a better choice.

I’ve always wanted to be able to speak different languages. I have always imagined that the person I end up with will speak different languages than the ones I knew (except English) and when we would speak to each other it was a mix of about 5-6 different languages. How amazing would that be? As a kid (and even now) when my family didn’t want anyone to know what we are talking about, we would speak in Tagalog. However, all other Filipinos know what we’re talking about. Can you imagine mixing words back and forth between languages? That way only you know what you’re talking about…It would be awesome. In a sense, I kinda already grew up with this. My dad always made up words by flipping syllables and/or mixing English and Tagalog or just plain made them up. Some words that I thought were Tagalog… really aren’t. It’s just the language that he made up either by himself or w/ his family. haha

About 5 years ago, I wanted to re-engage my love for language, so I bought the poor man’s Rosetta Stone. Instant Immersion 33 Languages by Topics Entertainment. It basically taught you all the basics in 33 languages. Things like numbers, food, colors, body parts, telling time, countries, phrases and simple words like: cat, dog, dish, spoon, fork, hospital, toilet etc… things to help you get around. It was everything I wanted and I could learn 33 languages. It was perfect. It’s a CD rom set that I got from Costco for $29.99 (I still have the price tag on it. hehe) Here are the 33 languages from the back of the box: Arabic, Bengali, Brazilian (Portuguese), Chinese (Cantonese), Dutch, English, Farsi (Persian), Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Punjabi, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog (Filipino), Thai, Tibetan, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Zulu

I never really stuck with it, because I just lost focus and I didn’t have anyone to practice with. I didn’t have the discipline to stick with it. However, I think I can to it this time. I really want to get back to learning new languages. So, to fulfill this Act, I’m revising my goal from 10 languages to 33. =) I’ll start by installing one of the CDs on this laptop. Which one should I start with?