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Language Learning Log Week #1
I love watching/reading language learning content. This is expected for me considering my reasoning for wanting to learn a language in the first place. I started playing music because I heard it made you smarter. I hated high school band because I was not allowed to play (even in rehearsal - priority for the limited drums we had were given to upperclassman even though throughout previous years we were expected to bring our own drum, so I had one), so I decided, to keep myself sharp, I should start learning a language. I considered that the best language for this goal would be Mandarin Chinese since it's considered one of the hardest languages for English speakers, is the most spoken language, and I wanted to learn more about China.
I switched after about a year of study to Japanese for a few reasons. Firstly, I studied from the perspective that each character had a unique pronunciation and meaning. Now obvious to me, each character's pronunciation and meaning is highly dependent on the word. I felt that I held this perspective for too long and I that I had somehow screwed myself. Secondly, Japanese also has Chinese characters (also called a script) and 2 alphabets (also called scripts). I thought Chinese characters (hanzi) were super cool, so Japanese kanji (one of the 3 Japanese scripts), which are loaned from hanzi, were a fine replacement. Thirdly, once I got tired of Duolingo, I started using language partners. My language partners were very nice, and I believe helped me learn Chinese much faster than before. However, they were too nice and wanted to get to know me too well, which made me very uncomfortable and still uncomfortable about language partners to this day. So, when WeChat updated their terms of service and locked my account, I didn't go through the effort to fix it. Fourthly, I found it difficult to find engaging Chinese immersion material, but I found it really easy to find engaging Japanese immersion material (anime).
Switching to Japanese was difficult, but my knowledge of Chinese characters did help a bit. I have been studying Japanese off-and-on for almost 4 years now, and I have enjoyed it for more than just the technical aspects of the language that was really my initial draw.
Oh, I should also note I studied Spanish each of my 4 years of high school, but I wouldn't say I know Spanish well except for my ability to read to some extent (speaking, writing, listening - definitely not well).
Coming from my perspective though, I'm probably more interested in the science of language learning, figuring out what makes a language learning method effective and why. Generally, this is why, despite how long I've been studying for, I still only know maybe elementary Japanese (on the transition from N4 to N3 (JLPT (www.jlpt.jp/e/...) )/A2 to B1 (CEFR (www.coe.int/en...) )/upper beginner to lower intermediate - at least, that's what I'd like to believe). This interest is part of the reason why I've also been developing a language learning app, Tutor Engine (tutorengine.org) , for the past 5 years (heavily off-and-on with many rewrites to be clear).
This summer, I will finish it. Though, as you may think as well, I think, "how can someone who is basically monolingual possibly sell a language learning app?". I justify it to myself by considering that the experience of not knowing a second language could be lost to someone who already knows 2 or more languages and that I'm going to hire people to help create the actual explanations and exercises/teaching materal in general. However, I'm also aware that I'm just coping. So, this summer, I'm going to try to both get to at least B2 Japanese and finish the app. That may be unrealistic because that's like 2 full-time jobs, but university and trying to still have a life is also like having 2 full-time jobs, so I should be used to it.
I also read research papers (usually for school projects), but I don't really follow specific authors except for Professor Ryan Baker (learninganalyt...) . So, my favorite "pop" creators in the language learning space are Livakivi ( / @livakivi ) (my favorite, though I don't think I could handle his method), NativLang ( / @nativlang ) (not really learning focused, but really interesting), Xidnaf (www.youtube.co...) (also not really learning focused, but fun), Artifexian (www.youtube.co...) (used to do a lot more cool conlang stuff), jo renee languages ( / @joreneelanguages ) (vlogs about her learning), Jerry Registre (www.youtube.co...) (a little clickbaity with the AI st...
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