Well, I kept my word…
A while ago I had the idea of learning Dutch. And after a few weeks of struggling along by asking Uka or Cabby for random words on msn etc, I thought, ‘this really isn’t working. If I’m going to learn Dutch, I’m going to do it properly.’
To me, there is only one way of learning a language, which is to teach yourself. Sure, you can study at school and take a course in it, but at the end of the day, no matter how good a teacher you have for the subject, it’s down to self discipline and making the effort yourself.
I don’t know what it is about them, I just really enjoy learning languages.
I find it really interesting how they work, how you can say exactly the same thing but in a different tongue and you can reach out to more people. When I started French at high school I instantly loved it. It came really naturally to me, and when I started German a year later I found that even easier than French. Nobody else in my family is language-y so I dunno where I got the ‘inspiration’ from for studying these. Maybe it was just because I wanted to be better than my brothers at something. Who knows, it doesn’t matter 
My plan is to be fluent in five languages by the time I leave university. Sounds a lot, but really, I think it’s very achievable. I’m including English in this, so that’s one down already. French and German are what I’ll study in-depth at university and I am very confident in achieving complete fluency in the next four and a half years til I graduate. I also plan to pick up either Chinese or Japanese when I start uni, so that’s another. And then there’s just one spot left - now being filled by Dutch.
It’s challenging, but so refreshing to learn a new language. I see being multi-lingual as remarkable, because to completely master a new language is quite a challenge, and definitely a lot harder than it appears. Which is why I am determined to do this. I have started now so I can’t really give up. I don’t think it’s fair that Europeans all have to learn English to such a high degree, whereas here in England it’s not even compulsory to do a foreign language GCSE at school anymore. I hate how people think that we don’t have to bother with French/German/whatever because they can all speak English. Laziness!
In other news, Stars have announced a UK tour! I need to buy a ticket and then I’m off to see them in Manchester in January! Cannot WAIT.
Also, I HATE New Super Mario Bros. Well no I don’t, I’m utterly addicted to it. But I’m just so terrible at it it’s frustrating!
Also also, Uka is published in What Digital Camera? magazine! :
Also! This video is AWESOME:
November 11th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
[…] Listening to : Porcupine Tree - The creator has a mastertapeI was thinking about this entry that Alice made a little while ago, which linked to this video just now as I did some more job […]