Which language would I still like to learn? Do I have a favourite language? You can read it in this blog post!
1) Which language do you consider your mother tongue?
Dutch. However I am very curious whether I will still speak Dutch in the future. English is becoming increasingly more important for my work. I also use the language a lot in my private life. In future years, I would not be surprised if my first language will be a completely different language, that could be English or German. It will depend on where I live and what language my (future) partner speaks. It almost feels like Dutch will become a secret language to me in which I write when writing in my dairy or something like that.
2) What was your first experience with learning a language?
The language I learned after Dutch is… German! I grew up next to the border and regularly went shopping there with my mother. I can still remember that she taught me a nursery rhyme. As far as I know, my first German words were that rhyme that taught me to count in German. I think I was 3 or 4 at the time? I think I enjoyed it, but at the same time it felt very normal. It’s my moms second language, we have German family members, my grandfather worked for a German firm (I grew up partially at my grandparents house) and my first holiday was even to Germany when I was 2 years old. So it felt very natural that I learned the language too.
3) What languages have you studied and why did you start?
English: high school, but I was always very interested in learning the language, because from a young age I knew that I wanted to work abroad one day. Not that it was easy for me… I often failed. I can say that I am bilingual now. There is still some room for improvement in terms of grammar. I do think and dream in the language and I can read a philosophy book in English without any problems. I also work a lot in the language, like 90% of the time. I think young Katja would be very proud of what I have achieved within the language and that it is one of the main languages I work in.
German: at home and high school, that didn’t go smoothly either. No language except Dutch went smoothly for me. I even started to hate the language because I didn’t have a nice teacher for this class. I didn’t understand anything about the language and the teacher didn’t help at all.
Then I learned the language when I lived in Germany for a summer for work at the age of 17. I picked up the language without any trouble. However, the language quickly faded after I returned to the Netherlands. At the age of 22 I needed the language again for my work and I mainly learned to write in German. When my time at that company ended, the language faded again. At the age of 24 I made a new attempt to learn the language, but I got stuck when the course material itself didn’t interest me. At the age of 25, I made a new attempt and had work (reading manuscripts) as my motivation again and because I was temporarily moving to Berlin. Because I also lived in Germany I picked up the language quickly and nowadays I have a pretty high level of German. But still a long way from being fluent.
French: high school, and no, this language didn’t come naturally to me either. But I never needed it much. Other languages always had my preference. I speak it just enough to get by in France and I’m completely happy with that.
Korean: as a little girl I always wanted to learn an Asian Language. Back then I thought it would be Chinese, but times have changed and to some extent my interests have changed too. With my love for K-pop, K-dramas and webtoons, it’s not a crazy step to start learning Korean. I noticed that I started to pick up the language incredibly quickly by just watching and listening to those three things every day. And then I thought: why shouldn’t I learn the language? I love learning and I think it’s an enrichment for everyone as a person to learn a new language and discover the cultures that go with it.
4) How does your personality influence how you learn languages?
I would have liked to have known earlier that my personality plays a big role in how I learn a language. Because I am a very practical person, I prefer to learn that way. For example, it works well for me to be in the country of origin of the language for a longer period of time. I also love storytelling and culture, and I prefer to learn from those two loves. Watching TV shows in that language with subtitles, reading about the country and culture where the language comes from and/or just simply picking up a book. Sometimes it takes a long time for me to finish a book, but I learn so much during the process.
5) Do you prefer to learn languages in a classroom or individually?
From the answer above, I think you can guess that I prefer to learn individually. Self-study and immersion seems to work best for me. And I also learn languages thanks to the help of my friends I made all around the world due to my travels, so I don’t always do it alone.
6) What are your favourite learning resources for language learning?
That varies greatly for every language, but subtitled TV shows that are both in the language I want to learn are a very effective method for me. This method is also my favourite because it includes storytelling and culture.
With Korean, I notice that I also really enjoy listening to the podcast (like) lessons from Talk To Me in Korean.
7) How much time do you spend actively learning per day/week?
This depends on how busy I am with work and/or whether I am out and about a lot, but on average I think it’s about 5 to 10 hours per week spread out over the week. This also includes passive learning. If it’s only about just studying then I would say on average 2 hours a week. Some weeks I study 1 hour, the next 3 or even 4 hours.
8) What are your short-term and long-term goals for learning languages?
German: In the short term, I want to be able to have conversations at B2 level and read at C1 level. In the long term, I would like to reach C1 level in all skills.
Korean: I don’t really have any plans for learning Korean. Or at least not in the short term. By the end of next year, I would like to be at level 4 (there is no A1 or C2 in Korean, it has its own system).
9) What is your favourite language?
That depends entirely on the field. I prefer to write in Dutch and English, but I like my voice when I speak English or German. I like Korean TV series better and the more I learn about the language, the more it feels logical to me. I don’t have a clear answer, but I think my answer shows how much I love languages!
10) What is the next language you want to learn?
First I want to improve my French, but up next… It has to be Italian and Chinese (Mandarin). Oh and a bit of Japanese! I know this is a lot, but I don’t want to be fluent (as of right now) in any of them, I just want to gain knowledge about these languages, so I am able to have basic conversations and understand day to day life. Why these languages? It’s a combination of personal and work related goals.
11) What advice can you give to new language learners?
Do your own thing! Is the school system not working for you? That is perfectly fine. Nowadays there are many ways to learn a language, so don’t be discouraged if you get or have gotten low grades for languages at school. I used to fail all my language classes but now work in those languages every day and I really enjoy it. Nowadays I like languages so much that it has become my hobby and I want to keep on learning as long as I can.
Which language would you like to learn?
Love,
Felicia Follum, YouTuber, is the inventor of the Language Tag.
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