Fan of Language

Bonjour, privet, hallo and hi!

It's June 2020, and I've started a blog. Last time I tried to do this, it only lasted a few weeks, but that was three years ago, so we'll see if I can keep this one up! Why have I started it? Well, like a lot of you, over three months spent mainly at home has taken all purpose out of my life, and I've gone from a busy life full of deadlines, exam revision and social events, to absolutely nothi

ng. I've decided that I want to spend some of this new-found time improving my writing ability and researching the subject that I love most: languages.

It's no secret that a lot of people think that they're terrible at learning languages. Being dyslexic and having always been the student being taken out for extra spelling lessons, I certainly believed that for several years! How could someone like me, who could barely write a sentence in English without making a mistake, learn another language? How could I ever compete with the people who didn't have the same problems as I did? Well, the answer is that I can't, but that neither can anyone else; language learning isn't about exam grades or even about having perfect grammar - it's about translating yourself into another culture, and learning to understand yourself through new words. How? By knowing that there isn't a specific point on a scale at which a learner moves from non-fluent to fluent, and that the vocab that's useful for one person may not be as useful for someone else. Every word that you learn, every new piece of grammar that you study, will let you translate another thought into your target language, even before you've mastered their use completely. With this blog, I want to extend language learning to everyone, and demonstrate that it's not just geniuses who can become bi, tri or multilingual! We might not be there yet, but that doesn't mean that we don't have the potential.

In the coming weeks, I want to encourage you to learn by exploring the beautiful complexities of every element of language, from grammar to culture to ethicd. I want to learn and develop and encourage others to do the same. So pick up that grammar book that you've been too afraid to touch, or download the language app that you didn't think could help someone like you to succeed, and we'll learn together!

Bonne chance