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I've had a love of languages unknown to me since I was a little girl and my babysitter, a Spanish-speaker, would speak to my siblings and I in a Spanish that allowed us to eventually pick it up. We would go home, my mom used to say, speaking in Spanish after a a short time with her. Unfortunately, she didn't stay my babysitter all that long but luckily for me I was born and raised in New York City, diversity capital of the world. I've always been surrounded by so many languages whether it be on the bus, subway or street. 

I began academically learning Spanish in junior high school but my school's language program was not at all adequate and after 3 years of junior high school Spanish I had learned close to nothing. In high school I continued Spanish, however, being so far behind because of poor background I was only able to pass and not excel. My sophomore year I began Japanese which I have taken ever since even through changing schools multiple times. I absolutely love the language and found it extremely easy to get into and contextually understand. With Japanese simply through understanding the syntax of the language you understand more about the beliefs and ideas of the Japanese people.

To this day I am continuing Japanese under the instruction of Suzuki-sensei and it's getting tougher (I used to be the best in high school - they called me Smart-sama). I only want to move forward from here though and get as good as I can hope to be and possibly travel to Japan in the near future. Before even going through the fire model I can say that I learn the best through quiet study and then intense (but not too intense, still not that good!) drills. When I first began Japanese I was a few weeks behind because I had transfered schools and through studying and then participating heavily in class I managed to make it to the top of the class in a few weeks. I prefer to take good notes and go over them until they are smoothly in place inside of my noggin and then have a conversation using the very same points and previous material with a group.

Farsi has become my self-taught language of choice and I am not yet sure on how I should be approaching study habits and learning activities as I am not at all familiar with the structure of the language. It would be much easier for me if I could simply carry over my study habits from Japanese and hopefully I will be able to because the thought of forming new habits already with how busy my days have become just exhausts me. My roommate has also decided to take Farsi so we will be helping each other out in this process. Having semi self-taught myself Korean a few years ago I expect with proper guidance and some gung-ho learning strategies this journey of teaching myself Farsi will be extremely rewarding.

  I really enjoy learning new languages and my goal is to be fluent in four (excluding English) in the next ten years. I started learning Spanish at home in the fifth grade and  in school from seventh to eleventh grade. I picked up Spanish fast and was able to progress at a fast pace as well. I enjoyed the weekly dialogues we did because they strengthened my conversation skills and learn the flow of the language. Learning the new vocabulary each week was great as well and once I got to UR we began to watch videos in Spanish. Then, I enjoyed the drill classes that I took in addition to regular classes because we were only permitted to speak Spanish. 

    Last year, I decided to take Japanese. I had a terrible time memorizing the characters and picking up the language. Of course that is because I was not at all familiar with that language family. I did enjoy challenging myself to learn the dialogues so I could recite them in class. I feel I could have learned more if the structure of the class was similar to Spanish in its organization. 

     The FIRE model test informed me that I am equally rational and factual when it comes to the way I learn. The Learner Test refused to open for me. I'll check back periodically and will update when I receive a score. 

   I feel I can learn if we start from the bottom and move upward in a clear, concise manner. I prefer to take down notes as well as incorporate dialogues. I hope to get to a point where we can speak nothing but Farsi, but that will be a while from now of course. I can expand my learning activities by taking up suggestions from my language partner on the best way to learn the language.