I am a huge foreign language enthusiast.
I am proud to know that I grew up in such a diverse country. My parents are not from the same ethnic group, nor the same island. Their native language aren't the same, and not really similar to each other. My mother herself is a daughter of Sundanese father - the largest ethnic group in Indonesia, and Sleman mother - an ethnic group from the province of Yogyakarta. She prefers to be called a Sundanese, considering she was born, grew up under significant Sundanese culture. In fact, Sundanese - the second largest regional language of Indonesia, is her first language.
I was born in Jakarta, a city of 10 million people. Although people all over Indonesia mostly do not speak Indonesian as their first language, and speak a certain regional language first instead, this kind of linguistic tradition is not that common in the city of Jakarta.
Indonesian is my first language.
...and Sundanese is my second. Well, I don't actively speak Sundanese. I understand it real well. Starting to get in touch with my Sundanese-speaking relatives so early, it is clearly reasonable to say that Sundanese is my second language. Plus, I formally learned Sundanese at school when I was in elementary school.
Then the first foreign language I learned was Classical Arabic. A language of my religion's holy scriptures. A language that I use in my prayers. I started learning English when I was in first grade when I took a class after school at my neighbor's. But I didn't keep it up. It was one of the worst decisions I've made. Later in fourth grade, English became one of the subject I should study at school. Holding in mind the fact that I've been learning this Germanic language for eight years and my ability to nail it is below the ability of Spanish Immersion student in the US to speak that Spanish, I feel sorry for myself. Moreover, the accent won't go away. Sometimes I blame the foreign language education at school in my home country for being ineffective and impractical compared to my experience learning Spanish at American school. Sometimes I blame the truth that Germanic language like English is closely related to Romance language like Spanish, than Malayo-Polynesian language like Indonesian. If my first language had been Germanic, my English would've been like that of native speaker. If, at least, my native language had been that of Romance or Slavic, it would've been more interesting for native speaker to hear and to understand. How if Dutch wasn't banned and it remained as the official language of Indonesia along with Indonesian? It would be awesome. But as I said before, I'm proud that I come from Indonesia. The truth that my first language is Indonesian is not lamentable. Although then I wish that my language would be more prominent on international level, or at least Malay, or maybe Tagalog, or even Hawaiian or Tahitian, regarding their similarity to my first language.
It is a begrudging time to watch Eurovision 2011 on the internet last week. Oh, those blessed Europeans, who grew up as multilingual. They are the walking google translates. Those German-hosts speak English fluently and French facilely. Then they spoke Italian or Spanish or Hungarian and kept me jaw dropping.
And not to mention my fellow exchange students from Europe. A Spanish who speaks Galician, Catalan, German, Portuguese, and of course English. A German who speaks Spanish, Portuguese, English, and currently learning Mandarin. A Slovakian who speaks Czech, English, and German. And I have to stop this list because it makes me disappointed of myself.
and that's right. I am a multilingual-wannabe; the desperate kind.
I enjoy learning Spanish so far, and definitely I'm gonna continue learning this beautiful language until I become fluent and I can go to one South American country and go local, and quench my thirst of traveling through that continent, which is not really popular among Indonesians.
I am a huge foreign language enthusiast.
I memorize some useful phrases in different languages just because I feel like it.
I read cyrillic, and sometimes I wish I could continue studying Russian which I started when I was in fifth grade. But then I'm thinking about "smaller" language like Finnish or Italian. Or maybe Asian language? Tagalog does grab my attention, but people say that it's not that important and useful since most Filipinos understand English very well. Or even pacific language like Maori.
And I might need French. I learned a bit when I was in middle school, than I continued when I was a sophomore. French is widely-used and pretty popular. No doubt, it sounds very beautiful. One of the official language of the UN and considerably intellectual. definitely needed for an ambassador-to-be like me. and the fact that it's a Romance language makes it a little bit easier, since I've learned Spanish.
Do I have to keep up with German? The Europe's largest language seems to be pretty widely-known, but two-years-learning I've been through at my school back home didn't turn out well to make me speak this language. And yeah, a lot of my friend here in the US doesn't like the sound of this bold language.
Constructed languages has been in my consideration too. Language like Esperanto sounds pretty nice and is clearly easier to learn - duh, it was constructed!
My father, with his stereotypical high expectations type, wants me to learn Arabic more. Too bad I don't find the same love I share with Spanish language with one of the hardest language in the world, along with Latin. Speaking of Latin, this language is language of intellectuals, undoubtedly. Many important text books was written in Latin. Well, unfortunately I don't like the fact that some people consider it as a dead language. And along with Vietnamese, Hungarian, and Chinese, both Latin are Arabic are intimidating. But, don't get me wrong, I like to challenge myself.
Now, I'm pondering "I've been wasting 18 years of my life not being a multilingual" and the disturbing fact that it is harder to learn language at certain age and it's absolutely easier for a child aged 0-5 got me frustrated.
Then I'm crossing my finger. "I hope it's not to late"
I am proud to know that I grew up in such a diverse country. My parents are not from the same ethnic group, nor the same island. Their native language aren't the same, and not really similar to each other. My mother herself is a daughter of Sundanese father - the largest ethnic group in Indonesia, and Sleman mother - an ethnic group from the province of Yogyakarta. She prefers to be called a Sundanese, considering she was born, grew up under significant Sundanese culture. In fact, Sundanese - the second largest regional language of Indonesia, is her first language.
I was born in Jakarta, a city of 10 million people. Although people all over Indonesia mostly do not speak Indonesian as their first language, and speak a certain regional language first instead, this kind of linguistic tradition is not that common in the city of Jakarta.
Indonesian is my first language.
...and Sundanese is my second. Well, I don't actively speak Sundanese. I understand it real well. Starting to get in touch with my Sundanese-speaking relatives so early, it is clearly reasonable to say that Sundanese is my second language. Plus, I formally learned Sundanese at school when I was in elementary school.
Then the first foreign language I learned was Classical Arabic. A language of my religion's holy scriptures. A language that I use in my prayers. I started learning English when I was in first grade when I took a class after school at my neighbor's. But I didn't keep it up. It was one of the worst decisions I've made. Later in fourth grade, English became one of the subject I should study at school. Holding in mind the fact that I've been learning this Germanic language for eight years and my ability to nail it is below the ability of Spanish Immersion student in the US to speak that Spanish, I feel sorry for myself. Moreover, the accent won't go away. Sometimes I blame the foreign language education at school in my home country for being ineffective and impractical compared to my experience learning Spanish at American school. Sometimes I blame the truth that Germanic language like English is closely related to Romance language like Spanish, than Malayo-Polynesian language like Indonesian. If my first language had been Germanic, my English would've been like that of native speaker. If, at least, my native language had been that of Romance or Slavic, it would've been more interesting for native speaker to hear and to understand. How if Dutch wasn't banned and it remained as the official language of Indonesia along with Indonesian? It would be awesome. But as I said before, I'm proud that I come from Indonesia. The truth that my first language is Indonesian is not lamentable. Although then I wish that my language would be more prominent on international level, or at least Malay, or maybe Tagalog, or even Hawaiian or Tahitian, regarding their similarity to my first language.
It is a begrudging time to watch Eurovision 2011 on the internet last week. Oh, those blessed Europeans, who grew up as multilingual. They are the walking google translates. Those German-hosts speak English fluently and French facilely. Then they spoke Italian or Spanish or Hungarian and kept me jaw dropping.
And not to mention my fellow exchange students from Europe. A Spanish who speaks Galician, Catalan, German, Portuguese, and of course English. A German who speaks Spanish, Portuguese, English, and currently learning Mandarin. A Slovakian who speaks Czech, English, and German. And I have to stop this list because it makes me disappointed of myself.
and that's right. I am a multilingual-wannabe; the desperate kind.
I enjoy learning Spanish so far, and definitely I'm gonna continue learning this beautiful language until I become fluent and I can go to one South American country and go local, and quench my thirst of traveling through that continent, which is not really popular among Indonesians.
I am a huge foreign language enthusiast.
I memorize some useful phrases in different languages just because I feel like it.
I read cyrillic, and sometimes I wish I could continue studying Russian which I started when I was in fifth grade. But then I'm thinking about "smaller" language like Finnish or Italian. Or maybe Asian language? Tagalog does grab my attention, but people say that it's not that important and useful since most Filipinos understand English very well. Or even pacific language like Maori.
And I might need French. I learned a bit when I was in middle school, than I continued when I was a sophomore. French is widely-used and pretty popular. No doubt, it sounds very beautiful. One of the official language of the UN and considerably intellectual. definitely needed for an ambassador-to-be like me. and the fact that it's a Romance language makes it a little bit easier, since I've learned Spanish.
Do I have to keep up with German? The Europe's largest language seems to be pretty widely-known, but two-years-learning I've been through at my school back home didn't turn out well to make me speak this language. And yeah, a lot of my friend here in the US doesn't like the sound of this bold language.
Constructed languages has been in my consideration too. Language like Esperanto sounds pretty nice and is clearly easier to learn - duh, it was constructed!
My father, with his stereotypical high expectations type, wants me to learn Arabic more. Too bad I don't find the same love I share with Spanish language with one of the hardest language in the world, along with Latin. Speaking of Latin, this language is language of intellectuals, undoubtedly. Many important text books was written in Latin. Well, unfortunately I don't like the fact that some people consider it as a dead language. And along with Vietnamese, Hungarian, and Chinese, both Latin are Arabic are intimidating. But, don't get me wrong, I like to challenge myself.
Now, I'm pondering "I've been wasting 18 years of my life not being a multilingual" and the disturbing fact that it is harder to learn language at certain age and it's absolutely easier for a child aged 0-5 got me frustrated.
Then I'm crossing my finger. "I hope it's not to late"
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