I always feel excited about learning a new language. Learning a new language is like an adventure in a new universe, because there will be full of brand-new things and surprises. What I enjoyed the most about learning a new language is that it can bring you into a new culture, which can bring you into a new perspective to see the world. At the beginning, I always believe studying and working make up basically all our lives. Our mission is to work harder than others and earn as much money as possible. If you don’t think in this way, you are regarded as a lazy person. In China, vacations are very limited, and people rarely visit their families if they work away from home. Even in weekends, lots of people need to work. But after I began to learn English and know American culture, I found people still focused a lot on working hard or making money, but they took it as a motivation, not what you must do. And they also valued personal time. People would make time to enjoy their lives in their own ways, such as travelling, learning a new skill or etc. Working is not what is most important, so working and personal life is more like half and half. After I studied French, I found people put their priority on enjoying life, so to them, working is just one of important elements of their lives. Their working time is shorter, and vacations can be more. They spent 1-2 hours on dinner, and they love taking vacations with families. So, in general speaking, enjoying their lives is more important than other things, including working. Also, I heard living in some other European countries can be even more free and relaxing. All in all, I don’t think any of them is problematic, because every culture has different society system, histories and customs, but these fresh new perspectives allowed me to know there are more than one way to live your life. However, when I was learning a new language, I always found remembering new words can be tough, I always got that messed up. I needed to spend lot of time writing and remembering new words. Also, I can be confused when getting to know a new grammar, because it is difficult to jump out of your language structure and adopt a new one immediately.
I’m the kind of learner who likes to compare different languages and cultures. I would like to have my language studying process with half language teaching and half cultural lecture, which is similar to the French class I took before. Because when I studied a new language, I would be very eager to know how language born in a specific culture and what is the connection between them. Also, I love to do exercises when studying grammar, because after doing excises you would know the pattern of it. I hope I can learn the basic Turkish and practical Turkish. I’m willing to do after-class exercises and in-class quizzes. I’d love to discuss the connection with other languages and to exchange cultural knowledge with my language learning partner.
Really looking forward to entering a new language and cultural world.
