Dreamt of Becoming a Polyglot

It was always a dream of mine to become a polyglot. I have met and watched people who can speak several languages and find them awesome talking in languages I do not understand. I actually have the passion to learn a language, either in school or on my own, but I am always stuck in the beginner level - except for Tagalog and English since I have been using those my entire life.

The first language I have tried learning was Japanese. I have chosen Japanese as my elective in my last year in high school because I was addicted to anime, J-pop, and J-drama. I learned Basic Japanese for a year and I actually passed it with flying colors. However, I have no Japanese friends to talk to and I stopped watching anime and J-drama so I forgot all of it except for writing Hiragana and Katakana.

I've tried looking for a Japanese pen pal friend but I could not converse because they use Kanji

Then when I started my undergraduate studies, I had to choose a language course as it is required for Tourism students. I actually wanted to take French Language course but since the professor suddenly resigned, I ended up choosing Japanese - lucky me. I had Japanese Language courses for three years and I always get an "A" grade but still I cannot successfully use it. I remembered going to Japan - I was still in university and learning Japanese - and had to resort to English to talk to people as I was afraid they would not understand my Japanese. I also had Japanese friends in university but they always communicate in English or Thai so it was quite hard to converse in Japanese with them.

Since I left university last year, I have not gotten the chance to practice my Japanese so I have forgotten all of the things I have learned... again. I really do not have the motivation to learn Japanese once more but maybe if I have plans to visit there again, I might start learning for the 3rd time.

The second language I have tried learning and still wanted to learn is Korean. I guess everyone who might be reading this know why. Yes, yes, YES! It is because of Korean Dramas, Korean Variety Shows, and K-pop.

Though I am not really a K-pop fan anymore - not stanning any group for years now... oh except for Wanna One lol.

The main reason that really pushed me to learn Korean was when the members of SHINee’s fanclub (Famous K-pop Boy Group) went to a noraebang (Korean Karaoke). Almost all of the members can sing in Korean as they can read Hangul (Korean Alphabet) while I sang gibberish. That was the time I decided to learn the language.

I signed up for KoreanClass101.com, an online language training for people who are interested in learning Korean language and culture. The website has a 7-day trial to access the premium lessons so I spent my whole week saving all their PDF and Audio lessons. Then I asked my mom to print and bind together all the PDF lessons which saved me tons of money. I learned a lot of Korean words, phrases, grammar, culture, etc. from KoreanClass101.com lessons. I can easily read Hangul and sing in Korean even until now.

However, I started working a full-time job and did not really have the time to study or even watch Korean shows. I started forgetting all the words, phrases, grammar, etc. that I learned but fortunately I still can read Hangul. After three years of working, I decided to go to Thailand to continue my undergraduate studies. I started having interest in learning Korean again since Thai people and my newfound friends are fond of Korean Entertainment. We sometimes talk in Korean which is kinda weird because we are not in Korea but in Thailand.

But then, my sister and I went to Seoul last June 2016 for a 4-day vacation. During our first day in Seoul, I tried communicating in Korean to service staff at the airport, restaurants, and hotel but most of them did not understand me and their expressions were quite disheartening. Their expressions traumatized me and I was not able to communicate with any of them - even in English - for the remainder of our trip - my sister did all the talking in English. That was the time I realized I have not successfully learned the language. I was demotivated and have not tried to learn the language again. However, I still love watching Korean shows so I might still learn it, and since my sister and I are planning to go to Busan and Jeju soon, I will try to study it once more.

The third language I tried to learn was Thai. My sister and I decided to continue our undergraduate studies in Bangkok, Thailand so in preparation to study there, we decided to learn Thai on our own. It was a disaster! Thai alphabet was so difficult to learn as they have 44 consonant letters, 15 vowels, and four tone diacritics. Also, since Thai language is a tonal language, it is important to learn the tones properly or you will end up saying a different word. Although, the best thing about Thai language is that they do not have too much going on with their grammar. But still it was the hardest language I have ever tried to learn - except Mandarin which I totally dropped after few hours of learning.

During my university life in Thailand, I was able to learn few Thai words and basic phrases which my Thai friends taught me – since my pronunciation was so bad, my friends gave up on teaching me more words. I did not really have the eagerness to learn Thai because English is the medium of teaching in our program. I left Thailand without knowing much of the language although I can clearly identify if a person is Thai with the way they speak. Now that I am out of Thailand, I felt that it was such a waste that I did not learn the language so I decided that I will try to learn it on my own... soon.

The three languages above are the major languages I tried to learn, though I still have other languages I tried to learn with no success. First was Greek because I wanted to learn the language prior to our trip. I actually felt the Greek language was quite easy to learn even their alphabet was not too difficult but I was not able to use it when I was in Greece because people will automatically speak to us in English. Second language was Spanish because my sister thought it will be easier for us since our native language, Filipino/Tagalog was influenced by the Spanish language. It proved her wrong because we were confused most of the time we were studying Spanish. There are other languages that I tried to learn such as Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Indonesian, etc. but failed miserably.

I have not really learned another language for a year now but I might start again soon. I still have to decide whether I will study Thai or Korean... or maybe sign language. Maybe I will blog in the language I have chosen to study here on Steemit soon. I hope Korean Steemers or Thai Steemers will comment or upvote when that time comes. Anyway, this is the end of this loooooong blog post. Bye~