A whole new language

I recently decided that it was time to learn a new language. I had learnt two languages in the last ten years, both in the first five. That is to say, I hadn't learnt a new language in the last five years. Not that I need to be learning a new language every five years or anything. It's just that compared to the preceding former five years, I could help feeling like I had somewhat stagnated in the language department. My brain was ready to take on a new language! But which? I had dabbled with French every now and again over the years but I'd be impressed if I can list 50 French words without assistance now.* I often think that it is a waste to have lost what I once could and that I should relearn it. Every time I am in Italy, I promise myself I would learn the Italian. Just for the sake of it. I could also improve my Chinese, and actually learn how to read and write. In a vague unresolved somewhere-in-the-back-of my-mind kind of way, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian are also on my list because it occurred to me that those languages together with English and Chinese would enable me to communicate with most (yes, I know, not all) of the world. But I have not felt strongly enough about any one language to motivate me to do anything about it, so nothing happened.

Then one day, I found my motivation - my wandering feet finally heard the call of the unexplored (by me, that is) continent of South America. South America had somehow never really been on my list. Of course if the opportunity to travel there had presented itself, I would have taken it. But of my own accord, I had no desire and made no plans. Then things changed, as I suppose they often do. It did not, of course, happen in a day, It took a while for the idea to sink in and take shape and a while more thereafter for it to take a hold on me. But that is a story for another day. In any case, it suddenly made perfect sense for me to learn Spanish.

And so it was that I found myself scouring language courses in the city, signing up, and sometime in September, starting the course. And I am so glad I did. I won't say that it has been all fun and games. It gets a bit dreary sitting in class in the evening after work. It takes effort and doesn't really all sink in and stick as much as I'd like it too. But I am so pleased to be doing it. As with German and Swedish before, I feel like a whole new world is opening up to me. Perhaps even more so than German and Swedish because Spanish opens doors to a continent. And the joy of reaching the point where I manage to string together a sentence on my own that wasn't part of the usual "my name is..." "I come from..." "I live in..." Mine was "No me gusta el Barça proque a todos les gusta el Barça."

I had previously written about how I believe my brain categorises the languages in its domain and the random connections and confusion which occur, so it's no surprise but it does amaze and amuse me nonetheless when it happens.

Firstly, no matter how comfortable I may be with Swedish, I still reach back to English as my basis for comprehension. I'd readily admit that my English is not what it once was. I have lost a lot of vocabulary and I am not as articulate as I once was, or as I would like to think I once was perhaps. Be that as it may, English is still my preferred language to learn in. And while certain words in Swedish or German (or Cantonese or Malay for that matter, though almost never Mandarin) might first come to mind in certain situations, English is still the language I think in. 

Which makes learning a new language in a foreign language complicated. It just adds levels to my confusion. It's a Spanish class. I think in English and I have a Spanish - English dictionary. The teacher explains stuff to us in Swedish. So my notes from class are a mishmash of Spanish, English and Swedish.

If that wasn't enough, true to the theory that my brain ranks languages according to my proficiency, I kept trying to speak French in the first few classes. I think it is because French is right at the very bottom rung of my language ladder, my brain being faced with a language recognised but did not know, reached into the French compartment. Though it didn't take long for the Spanish to over shadow the 50 French words I still know so that problem resolved itself soon enough.

Then I noticed that random Malay words kept popping into my head at unexpected times. Not often during class, although I did inadvertently utter a few Malay words during class. I think my brain also distinguishes between languages I have spoken since I was a child and the ones I learnt as an adult. So neither Malay nor the Chinese languages really came out to play during class either. Or maybe it is just because they are so different. But Malay and Chinese words just occurring to me randomly as I went about my day or in other conversations. It is as though the Spanish lessons had stirred up the "language barrel" and so everything was coming up to the surface.

The most present of all the languages was German. By a process of elimination, I suppose. Swedish was not an issue because I speak it all day and the class is taught in Swedish so my brain recognised that it was not what I needed during class. Malay and the Chinese languages were non-contenders. So my brain reached further back to the next one along the language chain, and found German. I had times during the class when I really struggled to formulate a question or comment because the German had just dominated my brain. And more often than not, when I made a spontaneous interjection, whatever language I was trying to speak, it was German that came out. That lasted about another two to three weeks then the barrel settled and order was reestablish. 

We've now had a few weeks break after the first course and I am about to start the second course.** I've not spent much time on Spanish during the break other that maybe 10 minutes a day on the Duolingo app, and not every day at that. So let's see how my poor brain copes in class when I go back this time around. 

*Hmmm... challenge accepted! And yes, it turns out I can remember 50 French words just off the top of my head, and without including words and phrases that have been adopted into the English language like bon appetite and bon voyage. And in hindsight, 50 is really not many. So French is still on the list as a "to learn... someday". 

**Beginner level A.2 - I am going places in a hurry... not!