Hello, everyone! I hope that you have all had a great week so far. For this week’s blog post, I wanted to talk to you about one of my favorite language YouTube channels: Lindsay Does Languages. Lindsay Williams is a British YouTuber and a full-time language blogger who has delved into language-learning for many years now. She has recently started a YouTube series called “Language Stories” and “Languages in Action” where she takes you on a journey to New York and its subway system, Havana, Montreal, el Salvador, and Mexico to show us many of the mysterious, yet innovative ways in which languages have been revived and preserved despite globalization and other factors that could do just the opposite—completely erase cultures and the knowledge, customs, and traditions that are associated with them.
Aside from these series, she also has many videos called “9 Reasons to learn (name of language.” I believe that these are some of her most popular videos, as she makes sure to talk with linguists and language experts before convincing us about the benefits of learning particular languages. I particularly love to watch these videos to learn some fun facts and to have a short history and cultural lesson along the way.
As she says on her website, “Lindsay Does Languages was born in 2012 as a local company in the heart of little old England offering private language tuition…Since then, Lindsay Does Languages has evolved to offering coaching packages and online courses both for language learners and online language tutors.” Her website is also an excellent language-learning resource for those who want to know about what they can do when they feel stuck in their progress, do not want where to start, or do not know what to do next.
She, along with Steve Leveene (mentioned in last week’s blog post about the podcast America the Bilingual), also grew up monolingually, but has become very fascinated by the ways that languages and cultures go hand in hand. She teaches, learns, and breathes everything related to languages. However, it is also important to keep in mind that she recognizes her own faults, as well as those of others, in this lifelong learning process. For those of you who can relate with them more-so than with me, since I grew up bilingually, I highly recommend that you check out both Lindsay’s YouTube channel and website. Let’s help spread the word about the ethnographic, linguistic, and cultural research and insights that she is giving to the world through podcast, videos, and documentary-type YouTube videos that deserve more views.
Hello, everyone and
welcome back to my blog! Today is a very special day, as it marks 2 years of
having started this language-learning blog. I am overwhelmed by the amount of
lovely comments and words of encouragement I have received over the years- it
truly makes writing for you so special and rewarding. I am humbled to have such
an amazing support system and hope to make all of you even prouder this
upcoming year.
As you may have
read in my first post of the year, this year holds many challenges, yet
exciting adventures abroad. On Sunday, I embark on my third study-abroad
journey in Yaoundé, Cameroon, where I hope to learn more about what makes
Cameroon so linguistically and culturally unique. With over 200 languages
spoken and French being one of its official national languages (the language I
will be speaking and studying in while I am there), I am sure that I will be
filled with many fun linguistic experiences that I cannot wait to share with
you.
That being said,
for this week’s post, I thought that I would share what my favorite
language-learning podcast is: America the Bilingual, a podcast that is “part of
the Lead with Languages campaign of ACTFL- The American Council on the Teaching
of Foreign Languages” written by Steve Leveen and its Mexican and bilingual
producer, Fernando Hernández. In 2017 alone, 20 episodes were launched that are
usually anywhere between 10-30 minutes long. In my opinion, every second and
minute is filled with many interesting anecdotes and personal stories of how
learning languages, or being reluctant to learn them has positively, or
negatively impacted monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual individuals’
lives.
This upcoming
year will mark its second year of being on air, so there is currently only a
minosode available in 2018, as far as I am concerned; however, Steve has
mentioned just how thrilled he is to launch their new episodes very soon. A few
of the episodes’ titles are: “The Lamp of empathy”, “With a little help from
his friends- and good French wine”, “Just call me Anna”, and “Mother Tongue”,
which instantly pull you in as a listener. I personally find this podcast in
particular to not only be worth your time, but to also be very informative. You
can learn anything from the cognitive, personal, and professional benefits of
acquiring a second language as a native speaker, or as an adult, of studying
abroad in high-school, or college, and of what kinds of career possibilities you
can have as a linguistically capable and informed global citizen. This podcast
does not just spew out facts giving you the number of speakers of x language,
or of y language, but rather takes the time to recount real human experiences
of the beauties, mysteries, confusion, and frustration that comes with having
multiple identities and personalities. It talks about our well-known eureka
moments when something finally clicks in another language and why languages are
not meant to be subjects, but rather tools with which we can more easily
navigate the complexities of the 21st century.
It also has the goal
to inform educators, learners, families, parents, and friends about why we
should invest in our children’s language education starting at a very young age
and what we can do to “reverse” that if we started “too late.” Ultimately, it
is a podcast that does not give you fluffy details to make it sound more easy
than it is- it speaks of the truth, of what people actually experience when
they are in their home countries and abroad. It will move you. It will inspire
you and it will hopefully make you want to pick up a language that has been
stored in some part of your brain, but has been out of use for years. To attest to this, I have listened to 16/20 episodes in just a matter of two weeks and will continue to listen to all of its episodes as long as it continues to air. As Steve
Leveene always says, you do have hope and can make it, even as a recovered
monolingual. Here is its link to download it on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/america-the-bilingual/id1219082864?mt=2
Hello, returning and new readers and welcome to my latest
post. Before getting into this week’s post, I wanted to apologize for my lack
of content these past few months. As a second semester sophomore in
college, I wanted take everything in and fully enjoy one of my last semesters on my college's campus before embarking on a journey to study abroad for an entire academic school-year. That being said, it is
now summer, which means that more consistent content will be on its way. I am
planning on posting once a week from now on and am excited to say that I will be writing blog posts about my experiences in France and Italy, in hopes to reach fluency in French and Italian, so make sure to stay tuned for them.
“Testing one two, one two, yeah, not one, but two, como tú. You know it’s true. Dos idiomas son más and it’s getting
big, we’re reaching critical mass. Nuestro mundo de dos mundos será el mundo.
When mundane is something unknown and nobody feels alone…”
I have recently been thinking about topic ideas for this
week’s post and have come to a realization about just how much being bilingual
has impacted my life. To this day, I thank my parents for every waking
hour spent with me speaking to me in their mother tongue. I thank them for
their patience, love, and dedication to never give up despite what societal
norms may be thought out to be. I thank them for taking me to music lessons
with a native Spanish speaker, for enrolling me in a bilingual elementary
school, and for prioritizing language classes above everything else. When I say this, I hope to not give anyone the impression
that I was not brought up in a household that valued a well-rounded education,
but rather am thankful for having parents who supported me to take three
foreign languages at my high-school and now two new languages at the college level when nobody else encouraged me to do so. At
my school and in numerous other occasions, being bilingual has been looked down upon, it
has been misrepresented, and, worse yet, has discouraged millions of once
bilingual Americans to give up their mother tongues in order to fit in, or so
they believe.
If you gain anything out of this post, I want you to know
that there are millions of other bilingual and multilingual individuals
out there who have faced some kind of discrimination throughout their lives, but who have persevered despite all odds and any obstacles that may have come their way. In
the society in which we live, it is almost impossible to not have a week go by
without having someone questioning you and your choice to preserve a part of
your culture that you hold so dearly to your heart. I am here with you. I am
here for you if nobody else is to tell you that being bilingual is beautiful.
It is a gift with which you were born, or that you have cultivated with so much
passion that you deserve to share with others and to to the rest of the world. If you
are bilingual, you know that you may not belong neither here nor there, but
rather to at least two different, yet completely unique worlds. As I have
mentioned in another one of my posts, one of my most defining moments growing
up was when I questioned my own identity. At that moment, my mom
reaffirmed my love for both my English (American) and Spanish (Colombian) self
and told me that I was a world citizen and she was right.
As a bilingual, you are prepared with the necessary tools to
have an open mind, an open heart, and most importantly, the ability to
understand others’ thought processes when nobody else can. I am still a firm
believer that the most thought-provoking, deep, and meaningful conversations of
my life have all been when speaking to another person in their native
tongue. Even though we have technology and dictionaries, I have never been able
to replace any of those tools with real human interaction. I will give you a
short anecdote of a recent experience that I had this past semester when
teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to a Salvadorian family. Despite
gaining more experience teaching English and practicing English with the family
with whom I worked, what I learned the most was the beauty that bilingualism
is. My most memorable moments working with them were not when I saw their
improvement in their English-speaking abilities, but rather when they asked me
questions about America, our way of life, and any doubts that they may have had
in their mother tongue. You could tell that any kind of barrier that that had
existed prior to that moment had been completely erased. The mother instantly
lost any kind of physical tension that had prevented her from speaking from the
heart. Those are the moments for which I live.
When other students, or adults ask me what my future career
path will be, I prefer to be transparent and say that I have no idea. On the
other hand, something that I do know is that if I could leave my footprint on
this world by doing one good deed, I would choose to be a mentor, a friend, and
a companion to anyone out there who has been negatively affected by the current
stigma about bilingualism, multilingualism, and multiculturalism. All of the negativity, the hate, and the hurt that
has brought millions of other bilingual individuals down should be replaced
with a constant source of love and support. My experiences teaching and
mentoring children, adolescents, and adults in Spanish, French, and Italian have
made me become a more tolerant, compassionate, and patient individual. I have
witnessed others about to burst into tears due to fear or confusion of what
was to come, because they simply could not express themselves as fully, or as
transparently as they could in their mother tongues as they could in English.
When nobody else encouraged my friends to continue to pursue a language
full-time, whether if it was through a job, or by declaring a language minor, I
was the friend to lend a helping hand. Whatever your life goal may be, let
the fire and passion within you transform your life vision and dedicate your
life to making that goal become a reality. You are our future. We are our future.
We need more bilingual individuals to share their
compassion, their understanding, and their creativity in order to solve some of
the world’s most complex twenty-first century problems. Mistranslations can
often lead to misinterpretations, tension, and uncertainty instead of mutual
comprehension, a genuine desire to understand other points-of-view, and most
importantly, the incredible ability to reach others’ minds, souls, and hearts.
Being bilingual is a feeling that you cannot describe. It is a way of life like
no other, allowing you to have full communication with family members and
friends around the world with little to no boundaries. I hope that you continue
to share your gift with others and to not be ashamed of who you are: every
living particle that makes up your being, including all of your mother tongues.
If you are interested in reading more of my posts about my bilingualism, make sure to give these previous blog posts a read:
One of
the most common questions that adults ask themselves regarding language
learning is when it is the best time to acquire a new language. Although most
studies suggest, and oftentimes scientifically prove, that the ideal
time-period is childhood, I hope that you are convinced that this is not always
necessarily true.
As the
video above explains, there are several theories that suggest that if you get
more exposure to a language at a young age, ages 2-13, you have more plasticity
in your brain, which is better at making connections and is more adaptable. On
the other hand, adults' brains are better at focusing and have complex thought
processes, making it faster when learning a new language. The main reason
behind this phenomenon is that you are using conscious systematic learning.
That
being said, I have met just as many bilingual and multilingual individuals who
have acquired a second, or a third language as early as birth up to their 80s.
I, myself, have a little bit of bias, as I have always been brought up
bilingually and have acquired the benefits that come along with it, but am just
as motivated and dedicated to my language studies as individuals who were
brought up monolingually. If you want to learn about my experience being raised
in a bilingual household and what it was like to attend a bilingual elementary
school, make sure to read my post "Raising
Your Kids Bilingually” in March 2016. For more information about
bilingualism, make sure to read my post “5
Benefits of Bilingualism: Why You Should Be Blingual” in February 2016.
I want to
assure you that age is nothing but a number and that anyone is capable of
starting from scratch, or of restarting language learning at any age. Due to
our incredible brains, we are able to acquire new information at a rapid speed
and have the possibility of communicating with all types of people. If you are
above 13 and are reading this, do not automatically beat yourself up and tell
yourself that you can never learn another language. Most importantly, try not
to get into the mentality that you are too old, or were not a good enough
student in your language class, and therefore cannot pick one up. My biggest
recommendation is to get into a positive mindset, and even trick yourself into
believing that you will reach a somewhat difficult goal sooner than you would
expect. It is all psychological: if you tell yourself that you can do it, the
motivation will come more easily. As the little blue engine said, "Can you
do it?"... "Yes you can."
If you were
struggling with motivating yourself to start, or to build up on your language,
you might benefit by reading my post titled "How to Stay Motivated When Learning a Language" in March
2016. Aside from that, make sure to watch inspirational YouTubers who were
monolingual a few years back, but have come to master, and to become fluent in
dozens of languages. My favorite polyglots from which to gain inspiration are:
Benny Lewis, Tim Doner (I have an entire post devoted to how he inspired me to
become a hyperpolyglot titled "Tim
Doner: The Hyperpolyglot That Inspired Me" in February 2016), and Luca
Lampariello.
