June 7, 2006
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Starting Over Again
Several weeks ago, I signed up for Introductory Chinese at the USDA Graduate School.
I’ve heard great things about their language-teaching methods, and so I
was looking forward to seeing that for myself with a language I’ve been
meaning to start learning for quite some time now.I’ve also been
looking forward to ‘starting over’ again with learning another
language. Really, the initial stages of learning a language can be
quite fun… There’s that first year or so where you’re learning things
real quick, and really expanding what you can do with the language on a
regular basis. Then you hit a plateau where you have to drill down on
grammar and finer points. Then you can understand enough to where you
take off again by being able to use the language in-context.Because
it’s been so long since I started studying either Japanese or Spanish,
starting all over with another language is actually proving quite
enjoyable. I mean, yeah, pronunciation and the tones are killing me,
but since the characters are incredibly easy to learn I got more time
to focus on those parts.Though my mother still now and then gets
on my case about not knowing Bengali. Me and my sister I think are the
only two people in the entire extended family who can’t speak a lick of
Bengali. Well, it’s next on my list…So one of these days maybe all these linguistic studies will help me communicate with my folks a lot better. KF
