Don’t we all look at someone from a different country speaking a language we don’t understand and wonder “Wow.. So this might be how it feels like to others when they hear me speak my language”. It's so weird, isn't it? But it also fascinates me. Every time I hear a new language I feel like I want to learn it except maybe Mandarin given that it's already titled the hardest language to learn or maybe if I hadn’t had found that out on the internet I might have given it a go, who knows! But me being the lazybones (which is most of the time), procrastinated when it came to learning a new language.
When I was a kid, I was particularly interested in one specific language which was introduced to me by my dad and that was Spanish. Naaah... my dad is not from South America nor is he from any other country with Spanish as their official language but he did work in Spain, a long time ago, during which he learned a few phrases in Spanish that intrigued us – me and my brother. Hearing dad speak Spanish was the coolest thing to my 6-year-old self and all I wanted was to learn it. My dad did teach me those phrases which I chanted every single day for absolutely no reason. Seeing my enthusiasm to learn the language my dad asked me to enroll myself in a Spanish class but unfortunately due to the heavy syllabus at school and the coaching sessions afterward and the tuition and all those (not trying to cook up absolutely ridiculous reasons to cover up my laziness ;) ), I didn’t enroll myself in one.
And so the years passed by until one day I graduated high school and found myself some time on my hands. The long-lost fondness to learn a new language resurfaced in me and I found myself installing Duolingo to finally learn the love of my life – Espanol !! (By the way guys, this is not sponsored).
So I had my first few lessons, set some daily goals, practiced my lessons every day, and maintained the streak. I got to say, they do get you hooked to the platform with their motivation, daily reminders, showing you your progress, awarding new badges each time you accomplish something, putting you on the scoreboard with tons of people from all around the world learning the same language, even Duo appearing on the screen a few times you make a mistake (I mean who wouldn't love that cute green owl that pops up every now and then). This continued for a few months till I got into college. I learned certain basic words/phrases in Spanish (most of which I have forgotten since it's been a long time since I’ve used it) like Hola! mi nombre es Winter! Or Como estas? Or that pan means "bread" and leche means "milk" and agua is "water" and senor is "mister" or lunes is "Monday"! Yeah... Not much but I did enjoy learning whatever I’ve learned and I do intend to get back to it sometime soon.
Every time I learned something new in Spanish, I'd go speak the same to my mom or dad both of whom enjoyed it otherwise I wouldn’t have ended up giving them Spanish lessons every evening while they cooked dinner.
Learning a new language also helped me with my memory (given that usually, I have a 70-year-olds memory power) but what I was stoked to find out more than anything was that Minionese was part Spanish! No wonder why I love those yellow capsule-shaped beings.
So anyway, all that aside, tell me, don’t you want to learn a new language? It's really fun, not kidding. Don’t you want to be able to understand that local guy who doesn’t speak English during your trip to your favorite country? / be able to understand your Kpop idol when they speak Korean? / Or watch a foreign film without subtitles and still understand what they say?
No matter how old you are, be it 10 or 85, it's never too late to learn a new language... in fact, it's never too late to learn anything or do what you always wanted to that will make you happy.
Hasta luego amigos!
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