Oui...
I mean it! I shouldn't say I am learning French, I am rather trying to learn French. I do believe that if you want to learn something, you can. There's no age as "too old" to learn something. I had to choose from French, German and Spanish when I thought of learning a new language. Spanish was discarded for reasons I should not openly disclose. German got cancelled because it is too difficult to pronounce. That left me with French. Also, my end goal is to converse in French and read French literature as is, so my grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation all need to reach a certain standard. Bon jour and merci are ok, but those would only take me till a certain level.
Why have I started learning French now? Well, a few things have contributed to it:
1. At work, we are learning to use two horribly difficult tools. One is just all over the place with its gazillion UI bits and pieces. I do want to meet the team that created the requirements of it to figure out what went on inside their heads to come up with such a convoluted thing. The other one doesn't even have a UI. It thinks that we are all Linux geeks so we would be fine with just a command prompt-ish little black thing. Well, as I have to suck those up and be quiet, I thought why not try my hand (read brain) at learning another new thing as well. I mean, if I can manage these, I'll probably be able to manage French as well.
2. There was a man named Surja Roy (from Syed Mujtaba Ali's famous Chacha Kahini). He spoke German so well that on the phone that even a linguist could not understand that he was not a native German speaker. Roy did not learn German from when he was a boy, for sure. But he still could master it to that level. Which means age is not a bar...with YouTube and free online resources that are available to me, Roy could have learned the language in weeks I guess. So there's no reason for me not to try.
3. I learned to knit and crochet on my own. I learned to cook some tricky dishes too without any human help...so why not a language?
4. Yes, there's this thing about another stressor. I know that. In my already overflowing life, why am I adding another thing in my to-do list? But you know what? People of Type A personality perform well under stress. I want to see if this keeps me more disciplined and focused.
5. Finally, I don't remember when I learned English, how I gradually conquered the Rat, Mat and Bat to write simple sentences, translating paragraphs to becoming a bilingual person. Now if I learn a language, I can go through the dark passages of my mind and see how we learn things. That's also something wonderful to know about!!
Au revoir. A tout a l'heure. :-)
I mean it! I shouldn't say I am learning French, I am rather trying to learn French. I do believe that if you want to learn something, you can. There's no age as "too old" to learn something. I had to choose from French, German and Spanish when I thought of learning a new language. Spanish was discarded for reasons I should not openly disclose. German got cancelled because it is too difficult to pronounce. That left me with French. Also, my end goal is to converse in French and read French literature as is, so my grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation all need to reach a certain standard. Bon jour and merci are ok, but those would only take me till a certain level.
Why have I started learning French now? Well, a few things have contributed to it:
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| legende |
1. At work, we are learning to use two horribly difficult tools. One is just all over the place with its gazillion UI bits and pieces. I do want to meet the team that created the requirements of it to figure out what went on inside their heads to come up with such a convoluted thing. The other one doesn't even have a UI. It thinks that we are all Linux geeks so we would be fine with just a command prompt-ish little black thing. Well, as I have to suck those up and be quiet, I thought why not try my hand (read brain) at learning another new thing as well. I mean, if I can manage these, I'll probably be able to manage French as well.
2. There was a man named Surja Roy (from Syed Mujtaba Ali's famous Chacha Kahini). He spoke German so well that on the phone that even a linguist could not understand that he was not a native German speaker. Roy did not learn German from when he was a boy, for sure. But he still could master it to that level. Which means age is not a bar...with YouTube and free online resources that are available to me, Roy could have learned the language in weeks I guess. So there's no reason for me not to try.
3. I learned to knit and crochet on my own. I learned to cook some tricky dishes too without any human help...so why not a language?
4. Yes, there's this thing about another stressor. I know that. In my already overflowing life, why am I adding another thing in my to-do list? But you know what? People of Type A personality perform well under stress. I want to see if this keeps me more disciplined and focused.
5. Finally, I don't remember when I learned English, how I gradually conquered the Rat, Mat and Bat to write simple sentences, translating paragraphs to becoming a bilingual person. Now if I learn a language, I can go through the dark passages of my mind and see how we learn things. That's also something wonderful to know about!!
Au revoir. A tout a l'heure. :-)
3 comments:
now this is what I call 'spirit'- keep it up!
Kuntala-di, ha ma-o shune prothomei tai boleche - tumi tahole Agatha Christie'r french word gulo bujhte parbe. Er modhyei bujhechi Poirot'r "bien" mane well ba good. Uchharon ta oboshyoi "bNiya".
Ami onek din i bhebechi je bangla script e bhalo french lekha jaye, ekhon seta kaje lagachi pronunciation gulo shekhbar jonye :)
Mao, hmmmmm phone e amar English shuneo amader remote location er Canadian ra amay amader team er Carissa bhebechilo :P
Ore babare! reincarnation of 'sujji raay'!
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