When I was a wee lad, I was mystified by the idea of learning a second language. It seemed like one of the most difficult things imaginable, and I envied kids who grew up in bilingual homes because a second language came to them so naturally. It turns out learning a second language is not quite so hard, but it does require a lot of dedication and persistance, and language learning is now one of my life-long passions.
I began learning German in Seventh Grade when I was twelve years old. It was either that or Spanish, and I chose German solely because my then-best-friend did. Funnily enough, we never had any German classes together, and he quit after just a year or two, but I stuck with it and went on to eventually earn a German Business Language degree.
When I was in high school I rediscovered Japanese animation. (When I was younger I hadn't realized that some of my favorite cartoons had been imported from Japan.) I liked the way the Japanese language rolled off the tongue, so I started teaching myself Japanese. In college I took Japanese classes just for fun and ended up minoring in Japanese.
I started teaching myself Chinese while I was in Germany. I later took only a year of classes in college because the courses were added during my last year before graduation.
I also took a semester of Spanish and college and taught myself a little Korean. I twice started teaching myself French but didn't get very far with that before diverting my attention to more interesting things. I've also dabbled in Thai and Tagalog, and one afternoon I took the time to learn the Greek alphabet.
Language learning is a lot of fun. It expands your understanding of the world and opens up a lot of opportunities. I would encourage everybody to learn a second language.
This section of my website does not contain any full course materials, but rather tools to help facilitate and encourage your language learning, whether your method be self-taught, public education, college, or private courses.
