My 30 Day Darija Challenge has been going so well, I plan on doing a 30 Day Language Challenge every month for the 27 months I'll be in Morocco.
"What inspired this idea" you may ask? Well, one of my sisters asked for me to interpret for a property owner who was Chinese and did not speak much English, and it was pretty rough. I have not studied Chinese in quite some time, so it's safe to say that I did not do the best. The man was very funny and understanding, though those stunts in communication really stick with me. They bring me back to a time where I didn't speak languages and much of the world was closed off to me. My world was small then and I don't miss that. They also bring me back to one of my core shames; not speaking Spanish. There is such a large chunk of the population that I can never say I understand since I do not speak their language (or not until now!). I want to talk, and the only way to talk is to practice talking. Also languages are my hobby. Studying them is what I enjoy doing in my free time, so a challenge like this makes perfect sense.
Which languages?
*Arabic (Darija)
*Arabic (الفصحى)
*German
*Portuguese
*Russian (I actually told myself years ago that I would never learn Russian because it was too complicated. However Russian is one of the six languages of the UN...that has little to do with me but I thought I'd learn it)
*Spanish
*Urdu/Hindi
*Chinese
*Swahili
Wolof
Tamazight
*The languages marked with a star are languages I plan on repeating. By age 24/25, I would like to speak English, French, Portuguese, Arabic(s), Chinese, German, Spanish, Russian, Urdu, and Swahili. It's a lot, but nothing I can't handle right??
What does it mean to be fluent? I used to say that fluency in a language meant that I was comfortable speaking with people in that language. Then I became comfortable speaking French and Portuguese, and realized that this did not mean I was fluent by any means; I couldn't read books easily, I still had trouble with understanding the news, and I could only write essays and letters online since my spelling was atrocious. Though I believe the definition of fluency really depends on the person, I think that my new definition of fluency is the ability to teach the language-- where you have such a strong mastery of a language that you are able to teach the vocabulary, the expressions, mannerisms, and grammar of that language to another person. This definition is pretty much true of all subjects in my opinion-- You don't know physics unless you could explain it to someone who doesn't know physics.
This is exciting! I'm excited to:
Record videos in Morocco to show my family and friends back home.
Capture a minute everyday during my stay in Morocco, so that I can have cool memories to look back on.
See my growth in skill levels over the course of the month, as well as over the years.
Speak these languages with people!
Begin a few languages from scratch again! The best part of learning a language for me is learning subjects by song (like numbers, the alphabet, etc.) because those are the fun subjects. They're the subjects that make language learning silly, where children, and I, can rejoice in our ignorance, mumbling through the L, M, N, O, and P until we got it just about right. The languages I'm beginning from scratch (that I have little to no background learning) are Swahili, Urdu, Russian, Wolof, and Tamazight.
Experience the news, media, artistry, and history from a different lens.
So here is the breakdown of what I'll be speak over the next 27 months (tentative):
Month 0 (Aug.2019)- Darija
Month #1 (Sept.2019)- Swahili
Month #2 (Oct.2019)- Mandarin Chinese
Month #3 (Nov.2019)- Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)
Month #4 (Dec.2019)- German
Month #5 (Jan.2020)- Russian
Month #6- Portuguese
Month #7- Spanish
Month #8... Urdu
Month #9... Tamazight
Month #10... Wolof
Month #11... Swahili
Month #12... Chinese
Month #13... MSA
Month #14... Darija
Month #15... German
Month #16... Russian
Month #17... Portuguese
Month #18... Spanish
Month #19... Urdu
Month #20... Swahili
Month #21... Chinese
Month #22... MSA
Month #23... German
Month #24... Russian
Month #25... Portuguese
Month #26... Spanish
Month #27... Urdu
Month #27.5... Darija