I have always wanted to master a foreign language. Being proficient in just one or two languages is not adequate at all. In fact, I signed up for Japanese and French lessons as extra-curricular subjects after my PSLE, but at that point in time, I was too lazy to go for classes. :-p So now I am paying the price. :-(
I wish I did attend though, as my friend who took up Japanese as a third language was offered a scholarship to Tokyo University, where he studied all the way to his Masters, and is now the foreign diplomat in Japan. Perhaps if I have mastered another language, I will not be so linguistically inadequate right now.
Most of my friends know at least Japanese or French, not just at beginner’s level, but proficient enough to do translation. Not much of a problem if they go travelling, especially to certain French-speaking countries or to Japan. I will so like to go Japan again, but was afraid of my lack of linguistic ability to communicate properly.
My British pen-pal is a linguist. He majored in languages at Cambridge University, so he is proficient in French, Spanish, Latin, Russian, Italian, German and English of course! Ironically he scored ‘A’s for all the languages yet ‘B’ in his own native tongue.
I wish our education system can incorporate a foreign language into the school’s curriculum, like some countries, where the students can take up to two foreign languages besides the mainstream language(s). If we want to take up a foreign language here, we have to pay and go to private schools.
Not that the language schools here are that bad. My friends who attended some of those language courses rave about them, saying that the syllabus is structured, and the schools hire native teachers to teach the language.
Unlike the language elective courses in the university, where the students can choose which language to do a crash course in, students of those language schools complete the course really knowing how to speak the language.
If time and chance allows, I will want to take up formal lessons in Bahasa Indonesia, Japanese, French and Korean. I plan to start with Bahasa first as I think that is the easiest. At least now, after the crash course my friend gave me, with a little help from my Indonesian relative, I can understand a bit of what people say if they speak Bahasa to me.
I want to be able to go up to the level where I can at least read books or watch the shows in the native form of the language, instead of the translated version!
I wish I did attend though, as my friend who took up Japanese as a third language was offered a scholarship to Tokyo University, where he studied all the way to his Masters, and is now the foreign diplomat in Japan. Perhaps if I have mastered another language, I will not be so linguistically inadequate right now.
Most of my friends know at least Japanese or French, not just at beginner’s level, but proficient enough to do translation. Not much of a problem if they go travelling, especially to certain French-speaking countries or to Japan. I will so like to go Japan again, but was afraid of my lack of linguistic ability to communicate properly.
My British pen-pal is a linguist. He majored in languages at Cambridge University, so he is proficient in French, Spanish, Latin, Russian, Italian, German and English of course! Ironically he scored ‘A’s for all the languages yet ‘B’ in his own native tongue.
I wish our education system can incorporate a foreign language into the school’s curriculum, like some countries, where the students can take up to two foreign languages besides the mainstream language(s). If we want to take up a foreign language here, we have to pay and go to private schools.
Not that the language schools here are that bad. My friends who attended some of those language courses rave about them, saying that the syllabus is structured, and the schools hire native teachers to teach the language.
Unlike the language elective courses in the university, where the students can choose which language to do a crash course in, students of those language schools complete the course really knowing how to speak the language.
If time and chance allows, I will want to take up formal lessons in Bahasa Indonesia, Japanese, French and Korean. I plan to start with Bahasa first as I think that is the easiest. At least now, after the crash course my friend gave me, with a little help from my Indonesian relative, I can understand a bit of what people say if they speak Bahasa to me.
I want to be able to go up to the level where I can at least read books or watch the shows in the native form of the language, instead of the translated version!
3 comments:
If you're really serious about it, you'll not wait for "if time allows". You'll make time. The only thing stopping me from formally learning Spanish now is to find a more affordable way to do so. (That, and the fact that I'm not that 'on' to learn the language yet.)
Yes, what's stopping me mostly is affordability as well. Most language scholls are quite expensive.
Here are some links that I believe will be interested
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