Where are the opportunities to use a second language?
I have dreams where I'm back in Korea. I miss using the language, but I can't say that I ever really got into an immersion environment even though I lived in Korea for 3 years and had at least 1000 words before stepping off the plane the first time.
The closest I ever felt to being immersed was in a week long class that I took as part of my orientation for EPIK (English Program in Korea). It was upper-intermediate and the content was the "your level + one" N+1 content that really stretched and pushed me. I guess I'm answering my own question by pointing out that a serious classroom is a great place to find the immersion I still pine after. But I also don't really want to spend an extended time in Korea ever again, unless the air quality really improves, ha.
I feel so frustrated that language is fundamentally a process that involves communication, yet all of my language pursuits have been lonely. I think I've been right to mark in recent times that I'm pretty terrible at building relationships in my native language, so it's not really surprising I've not done so in a foreign language.
Why do I pursue other languages? I want to expand my mind and studying a foreign language is supposed to be a powerful way to do that. Studying a foreign language is literally learning to think structured thoughts differently is it not? I also pursue them with the fantasy of communing with speakers of the languages. Studying a language should be a fundamental step on grokking another people, right?
So I go back and forth. Do I continue to study Korean with no real plans or opportunity to use it in a conversational setting on the visible horizon? Continuing to study it does fulfill some of my language learning goals, even though it's lonelier than I would like.
On NPR the other day there was an interview with two Mexican actors that have starred in films in English and Spanish and both of whom are fluent in English. They and lots of people seem to come to bilingualism and multilingualism naturally, and the languages all can play an integral role in their lives. The languages are living languages for them. Where are my living languages? Maybe this is a partial side effect of living in a relatively small town in the Midwest of the United States. English is king? Yes I hear other languages like Spanish and hell I even spoke a little Korean to some college students I saw at the weekend market recently, but to me it still feels like a desert.
I know I'm being whiny, but I've recently come to realize that it's better to put my ideas out there for others to criticize and engage with, rather than asking myself the same aged questions over and over that I've never been able to answer myself.
gemini://seldoncortex.com/gemlog/10-10-2024.gmi
seldoncortex.com/gemlog/10-10-2024.gmi
#fulfillment #language-learning #loneliness
Oct 11 ยท 5 days ago ยท ๐ ttocsneb, dragfyre
1 Comment
๐ stack ยท Oct 11 at 04:11:
In several months un NYC, where literally everyone working at stores and restaurants is a native Spanish speaker, I got to practice my clumsy Spanish twice, not a minute total. No one wanted to deal with my bullshit -- for most natives doing other things, talking slowly and simply is no fun.
Getting a boy- or girlfriend would probably do it, but I am too old and tired, and my wife would probably be annoyed.
Not much there yet but we have
โ bbs.geminispace.org/s/Language_Acquisition
Source