How To Practice Multilingual Worship

Hello, everyone and welcome back to my blog! Though it has been a while since I last posted on here, I am excited to talk about a topic that I hold very dear to my heart: practicing multilingual worship to grow in my faith as a Catholic. No matter what your religious background is, I highly encourage you to read this post in its entirety, as it may benefit you, or someone you know.

For those of you who know me, I am very involved in our Christian and Catholic groups on campus. In fact, I am currently a Worship Team leader for our Intervarsity chapter on campus. So far, our worship team has sung songs in Spanish, French, Italian, German, and many different African dialects, but I hope to make our space even more diverse and inclusive during my last semester at Dickinson.

I have found that my faith has been spiritually, physically, and emotionally healing over the years, especially this past year, as I have been suffering from chronic migraines. That being said, I found worship music and specifically contemporary Christian songs to be my saving grace.

While I was abroad, I lost one of my grandfathers in Italy and had to pray for over a month for my health to get better in Cameroon. Though both of these instances were very emotionally draining, music healed me. It gave me hope that someday I would be cured and that I would feel better.

Given that languages are one of the most important parts of my life, I find international Christian music to be even more empowering. Not only am I increasing my vocabulary, but I am also working on my pronunciation, cadence, and tone. As I am sure most of you have noticed, learning a language is hard, but singing an entire song in a language that is not your first language is even harder, but even so, if you push through the highs and the lows throughout your language-learning process, you will persevere. You can even learn how to change your voice and the rhythm of a song when you become fluent in a language. That is one of the most rewarding parts of the process for me.

A lot of you have asked me what means the most to me and that is hands down my faith, so if you are currently on a faith journey, feel free to join me in this journey together. You may just be in the process of understanding what Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, or another religion means to you and to your identity, or you may be comfortable with that part of who you are. No matter where you find yourself, I highly encourage you to start incorporating worship music into your life.

You may be asking yourself, "That's great, Laura, but exactly how can I do that?" The easiest way to do so is by typing up "([INSERT RELIGION] worship songs" in your target language. Start listening to some songs that pop up. They will most likely be some of the most recent, or popular worship songs for your particular religion and once you start feeling comfortable with some of the songs that you listen to, make it a goal to learn a song by heart. 

Start off by looking up unknown words to slowly build your vocabulary. Practice it consistently and take it as slowly as you need to. It may take you a day, or three months to fully memorize a song, but the point is to never give up. Who knows? Maybe you will even develop a closer relationship with God, or with a higher being in the process.

As a bonus, I am sharing the link to my favorite Italian worship song that I sang while I studied abroad in Bologna, Italy in Fall 2017 (SEE ABOVE).

Grazie mille per tutto,

XOXO, Laura 

Switching Languages- What Does it Mean to Switch Languages?

Hello, everyone and welcome to my blog! I have to admit that it has been too many months since I last posted on here, but I promise that I will be posting more regularly in the upcoming year. I wanted to get back on track by posting about what started this blog in the first place: the concept of switching languages.

Why did I decide to name this blog Switching Languages and what does switching languages even mean? Three years ago, I sat on our living room couch and had a conversation with both of my parents. I remember telling them that I had the idea of creating a blog about the relevance and importance of spreading my love for language learning, but had no idea what I wanted to call my blog. After some reflecting, my dad suggested to call it Switching Languages, because he knew that I had to switch from one language to another on a daily-basis without even thinking twice.

For me personally, switching languages is the ability to speak multiple languages without confusing them, or hesitating when speaking more than one language. You know that you can successfully do so when you hear your parents ask: “Niñas, están listas?” and then immediately talk to your friend and say: “My parents are asking me if we’re ready to leave.” I think of it like a puzzle, or a game. For bilingual or multilingual individuals, this ability is innate. We don’t have to stop and think about every single word we’re going to say before saying it. We simply formulate our thoughts in our head and then say them. It’s really that simple.

A lot of people ask me: “How do you not get confused when speaking 7 different languages?” and “Don’t they get mixed up in your head?” Just like any other human being, I’m not perfect, so there are times in which I forget how to say a word that is rather simple in x language that I have known for years, but, aside from those instances, the answer to both of those questions is no. All of the years of training and changing personas has led me to where I am today.

In other words, languages are not just subjects that I choose to take at university and they are also not just a hobby that I choose to do whenever I have a little bit of free time. They are much more than that. In fact, they have been incorporated into my daily routine for years. The friendships I have made and the people I have met live anywhere from Pennsylvania to Japan, so it is not unusual for me to send messages to my friends in their native languages to ask them how they are doing.

Similarly, all of the notifications that pop up on my feed on my social media are about dozens of countries in more languages than I can recognize, or speak. My family is bilingual, so calling them automatically ensures that I will have spoken, or written in at least 2 languages on that given day. Furthermore, I listen to music and watch videos and movies from around the world. Now that is what I call the power and beauty of switching languages.

If you liked this post and want to keep up with my travel and languages adventures domestically and abroad, feel free to subscribe to my blog by hitting the “subscribe” button on the upper right-hand corner of this blog. I’m looking forward to the third year since the launch of Switching Languages. Espero que tengan un buen fin de semana!

5 Secrets Polyglots Know About Learning Languages that Others Do Not

Have you ever wondered what polyglots do in order to learn many languages more efficiently? Have you ever been discouraged and have told yourself that you are simply “not as smart”, or “cannot retain” as much as polyglots can? If you have answered yes to either of those questions, I hope that you realize that anyone, and I do mean anyone, can learn as many languages as he/she proposes as long as effective methods are used and good time management skills are implemented into the language-learning process. For anyone who has ever told me that I am simply smarter, or better at language-learning than others, I want you to know that I have studied just as hard if not harder than others who have gotten the same results. I have put hundreds of hours of self-study in my spare moments throughout the year, which I will admit are far and few. Either way, I will share 5 secrets that, according to  Lydia Machová, are why poyglots are generally more sucessful than other language learners.

1. Polyglots do not wait for languages to be taught to them and learn them themselves

What makes so many polyglots unique is that they are generally very motivated and are dedicated to self-directed learning. Instead of being passive, they are active in all aspects of their language studies. For example, instead of waiting three years before they find native Swahili language partners with whom to practice their Swahili conversational skills, which may be hard to find depending on where they live, they may use iTalki or other language-learning sites to pay online tutors to practice talking to them. Instead of waiting to enroll in a beginner French class in the city, which may be a far commute, they go to a nearby bookstore, buy a French-learning book and start finding online resources to practice what they have learned. The point being is that they do not let time, lack of resources, or other factors get in the way from making progress and furthering their depth of knowledge in other languages.

2. Polyglots have fun

This point may seem somewhat obvious to bring up, but I believe that it is important to mention it. Too often do I hear my peers say that they are bored with their language classes, or that they feel like they are not progressing after months, semesters, or years of study in another language. I will admit that I personally find learning grammar and using textbooks to be boring, tedious, and oftentimes very frustrating, so, instead, I find ways to integrate languages into my lifestyle (read below to see what I mean). That way I enjoy the process and am motivated to continue with studies.

3. Polyglots have a lot of contact with the languages that they are learning

The expert in language-learning who is the guest speaker in the video above says that she has met many people who have gone to a lesson twice a week without ever reading a book in that language, or only doing what their classes require them to do. To put it simply, there are many language learners that make the mistake to not expose themselves to anything in their languages, not even reading a book, and expect to become fluent in another language by only going through the motions. I wish that doing so were that easy, but unfortunately it is near impossible for that to happen.

The reason for which your college-level language professor tells you “we always run out of time”, or “I wish that we had more time to work on this” is because he/she knows that there is not enough time to get in as much depth as he/she wishes in a paritcular topic in such a short amount of time. At my university, the more advanced you are in a language, the more that is expected of you, yet at the same time, the less amount of class instruction you receive. Therefore, the most ambitious students are the ones who listen to foreign music, read foreign books, and watch foreign movies, not the ones who seem to know what they are doing, or who procrastinate and try to mumble what seems to be a perfectly constructed sentence.

4. Polyglots do a little every day

Instead of setting unrealistic, big goals, most polyglots take little steps every day and see progress in the long run. A recommended amount of time to spend on a language is 15-25 minutes a day if you are busy and cannot do more language study than that. By doing so, you are constantly feeding and activating your brain to try to retain what you learned three years ago, as well as what you reviewed the previous morning. By doing a little at a time, you are more likely to retain information, you are engaging with several aspects of a language (ex: reading, writing, or listening), and you are training yourself to start thinking in that language, which is most of our end goals. I have made the most amount of progress when I have done less, but have been consistent and have followed a schedule (ex: by reviewing German every other day) and have managed my time in a way that has made me be more efficient in my studies. Remember the saying: “jack of all trades, master of none”? If so, that expression applies to language learning a hundred percent.

5.  Polyglots learn in a systematic way

The last secret that we have is that we follow a plan, as I mentioned above. Instead of saying that we are going to work on a particular aspect of a language and putting it off by telling ourselves that we will eventually do it, we do it. It is that simple. We try our best not to come up with excuses, and if we find ourselves trapped and confused, we ask those around us who have been able to do whatever it is that we want to do (ex: how to pronounce certain kinds of words). We also prioritize what we believe is most beneficial to us and practice on what we want to improve. As you can see in all 5 tips, the general trend is that we follow a routine and have self-discipline. Attitude is absolutely key.

If you are interested in reading more about hyerpolyglotism and what that means, feel free to read my posts: 

~~“Tim Doner: The Hyperpolyglot That Inspired Me” from 2/26/16

~~ “How To Learn Multiple Languages At A Time” from 3/23/16

~~“Taking Classes in Multiple Languages: My Experience and Advice” from 4/17/16,

~~“How to Speak Multiple Languages Without Mixing Them Up” from 8/9/16.

There you go! These were just 5 methods of many that polyglots use that most other language learners do not. I hope that you became inspired to start implementing a few, or all of these methods in your own studies. I wish you all the best of luck trying to better your methodologies in your languages in this new year. Remember that a new year means a new you. Which language goals do you want to set for yourself?