Becoming conversational in a language is hard work, let alone "mastering."
People want answers, and they aren't looking for long, nuanced responses about how everything is on a spectrum and "all is fluid." This is especially true for news stories where the headline must attract attention and draw in interest. I always understood this, but when the headline was about me, my willingness to understand lessened. "Mastering five languages," did I really do that? Did I ever say that? When I first saw the title for this article, I was not happy. I thought, "if the article doesn't tell the full truth, and I allow the article to be posted, then that makes me a liar." But after the back-and-forth process of editing this article written by someone I got to know over the phone for less than an hour, I knew there was no way for this article to turn out as I expected.
I later learned that in no way did my situation stray from the norm of article writing: journalists don't personally know the person who they're doing a story on most of the time, and I was extremely naive to think otherwise. I wanted to highlight the ways in which language learning could be a tool for empathy, change, social justice, all that stuff. But that's not why I was chosen, and that's not what the writer was hired to write about. And if you're not happy with an article written about you, try writing one yourself.
I will always be grateful to my school, especially to my college, for inviting me of all people to do an article. With that being said, here is my true background of the languages I claim to speak. I am not a master of five languages; I'm barely a master of English according to standardized tests. I break each language down in terms of how I got started learning the language, my methodology for learning it, and how capable I am at using it as of June 2019 (in order from most fluent to least):
French (le français): This is the first language that I "learned" to the point where I could speak comfortably, read, write, and orally comprehend. I now have a BA in French (which is fun to say a month post-graduation). Although I say that I started taking French in college, I technically started in my senior year of high school. I begged my school counselor to allow me to be in French 3 even though I had not taken any French prior to my senior year. Though he allowed me to enroll in the French 3 course, our school did not even have a French 3 class. What I did was I taught myself French with the French 3 book while my French teacher taught the other three students in the room French 1 material. Since this was a very abnormal class situation where my teacher didn't really teach me and I didn't really take tests, I don't talk often about this experience (but I loved French class- my teacher was hilarious and allowed me to use Duolingo in class which is awesome when you're in high school!). In college, I initially did not major or minor in French (it wasn't included in what I called my "priority languages" at the time), but I did take French class. I tested into the equivalent of French 2; but I quickly learned that college French 2 and high school French 2 could never be equated. My professor only spoke French and I was so ready to drop that class after the first week. But my interest in French grew when a couple classmates and I formed a French study group. Later, I started a French club so that I could practice the language more outside of class. This was also the period where I completed the French Duolingo tree, watched five insanely long videos titles "Learn French in Five Days," and wrote little skits and essays in French every single day that I had my professor check (when you're a freshman, you have all the time in the world). I literally made homework for myself because I was so determined to learn this language. By the end of the semester I declared French my major, I skipped a French class, and my momentum for French slowed down as I found passions for subjects aside from language-learning (such as literature, criminal justice, women's studies, etc.). By the time I graduated, I had taken 13 French classes, done a French homestay in Morocco, and tutored French for three years.
Portuguese (o português): This language has not ceased to bring a smile to my face. Some may be surprised to know that Portuguese is actually the second language that I "learned" to the point where I could speak comfortably, read, write, and orally comprehend. I may move to Brazil one day, even though I have never stepped foot in that country. My Portuguese journey is interesting. So I began dabbling in Portuguese in high school after watching a early video of Damon and Jo where Jo was teaching Damon Portuguese. I never really got passed the greetings or basic conjugation because I wasn't that interested. Fast-forward four years to 2018, and I became determined to learn this language over the summer. I completed the Portuguese Duolingo tree, found a conversation partner from Brazil on my campus who I could practice with, watched a Brazilian Netflix series called 3% twice (once with English subtitles and one with Portuguese subtitles), wrote essays in Portuguese, read BBC news in Portuguese, listened to Brazilian music and learned the lyrics; I did everything to learn this language fast! And I was more or less conversational within a couple of months. Over my very busy and stressful senior year, I still made time (maybe like, once a month) to have conversations with my Portuguese tutor on Preply (a site to find language tutors who don't charge $100/hour). I found love for this language after learning about Brazil: Brazil's population (over 200 million y'all!), Brazilian history with slavery and colonization, and how several Brazilians today embrace their African heritage. Brazil is so complex and with Portuguese, I can now discuss some of those complexities with brasileiros.
Arabic (العربية): I have no reason to tell anyone that I'm fluent in Arabic: I can't speak it comfortably, I can't read it comfortably, it takes me a while to write it, and my oral comprehension skills aren't the best. But somehow I have successfully tutored Arabic for two years and have taken up to Advanced 2. Complicated. I took my first Arabic class in my second semester of freshman year, when I realized that Arabic was a language spoken in North Africa, and French was also a language spoken in North Africa. I really love this language; it isn't my mother tongue, I didn't grow up speaking it, and Arabic was never on my radar of "languages to learn" before 2015. But taking Arabic class served as my introduction to a world I didn't learn much about in school: Africa! Arabic was literally a bridge from Europe to its larger southern neighbor. I enjoyed the process of becoming used to writing from right to left, the grammar, the challenge of not being able to guess an Arabic word based off of its English equivalent the way I often did for French. And I was always the best in my class; but this meant nothing since I couldn't speak Arabic the way I could French. I couldn't find a conversation partner easily because I was learning standard Arabic (MSA) and all Arabic-speakers speak their perspective dialects (it's a whole thing; if you want to learn about it, click here). I liked MSA because I liked the rules and its formal tone, but I needed to learn a dialect. Studying abroad in Morocco allowed me to further study MSA while also enrolling in a Darija or Moroccan dialect course and practicing it with actual people on the street or in restaurants. Using the language was great, but it's not so great when you leave Morocco saying "I speak Arabic" when many Arabic-speakers can't understand Darija. Also there weren't higher courses for me to continue with MSA in my university so my growth in Arabic was kinda stunted, and I'm still in that awkward stage (though I am currently taking MSA & Darija lessons with Preply and Italki!).
Chinese/Mandarin (中文/普通话): I like Chinese, it's as simple as that. I can speak Chinese, I can listen, but my reading skills are equivalent to a five year old child and my writing skills have gone out the window. I haven't taken a Chinese class in a year, and I have only taken three semesters of it spaced out over three years. I never had any particular love for Chinese; I had no desire to go to China, nor plans to use it in my career. I enrolled in Chinese 1 during my first semester of freshman year due to its practicality (globalization, economy, politics, etc.), and the cool factor of saying "I speak Chinese". And though I believe that my ability in all languages comes from hard work and dedication, it's possible that I had a gift for Chinese that I'm not using since I found learning Chinese to be pretty easy despite what people say about the language. Chinese was kinda fun; my friends in class made the experience hilarious. In class we made little skits, did a lot of listening comprehension, and were tested quite a bit. Though after studying abroad in Morocco my first semester of junior year, and not taking Chinese for eight months, I thought it would be chill to skip a Chinese class and take Chinese 4. My new professor was not happy about this and made it very clear over the course of the entire semester (I was accused of cheating a few times because my Chinese was so bomb so... I can't even be mad). I got a well-earned A in this class, the most impossible class I had ever taken. But I never went back to Chinese after that-- I had to focus on graduating. Even though I was a tutor for Chinese, maybe three students came to my sessions over the course of my entire senior year (so not much practice or review for me there).
Spanish (el español): "How do you speak Chinese and Arabic but not Spanish? Isn't Spanish like the easiest language to learn for English speakers?" You're telling me. For Spanish, I can speak very slowly as well as read Spanish, but I can't write or orally comprehend unless the other party speaks very slowly. This language haunts me because I can't escape from my failed attempts at learning it; I live in the U.S. Despite its similarities to Portuguese and French (and English), all accents of Spanish are tricky for me to understand when spoken at normal speed, and speaking Spanish requires me to constant question if I'm just speaking Portuguese with a different accent. I started Spanish way back in the 8th grade, where I remember getting a D or two during that year in the class. In 9th grade, I took Spanish 2 with a permanent substitute teacher (it's an oxymoron but the truth) and she did not speak Spanish. I didn't take Spanish in 10th grade, returned to it in 11th grade with a great Spanish teacher who I would later go to Puerto Rico with on a week-long school trip, and took it in the 12th grade. Safe to say that I only took Spanish seriously in my senior year because I had returned from a summer trip to Europe where my interests in foreign languages began. I did take one semester of Spanish in my freshman year of college where I received a C, so I vowed never to take a Spanish class again. Later during my junior year I did pay for this program called Baselang where you can get unlimited online Spanish tutoring from native speakers for just $100 (they increased the price since then). I did several hours of tutoring a day, everyday during my winter break and my Spanish sky-rocketed. But when the semester started I didn't have time nor money for all that so I stopped. That Spanish is probably stored in the back of my head somewhere, awaiting a trip to Cube inchaallah. I listen to music in Spanish all the time but I don't think of it as "language music" (where I'd learn the lyrics and their meanings to help me practice); it's just music to me. I'm hoping to live in Mexico for two months one day and learn through immersion. I honestly think that's the only way at this point.
German (Deutsch): This was this first language I took seriously, so how did it make it to the bottom of this list? Before going to Europe in the summer of 2014, I found out that on that trip, I'd be staying in an Austrian homestay for four days. I was ecstatic and thought, "what if I could speak to my host family in their language?" So I download Duolingo for the first time ever, and worked on my German during the four months leading up to my trip. I didn't get very far on my tree but my host family seemed impressed that I took an interest in learning some German. When I returned, I self-studied German my whole senior year of high school; I even took the AP test (I failed, but I did try). In college, I took one semester of German, German 3 (I was so pressed when I tested into that!). I also started a German club that semester where we watched German movies and practiced our language skills. But after one field trip to a German-speaking event in DC in 2015, I lost all interest in German until around two weeks ago. I tutored German for about two years but only up to the intermediate level because German, is hard (and not very fun for me; it's komplex with a capital K). The interest to learning this language returned when I found the rapper Namika. She's German-Moroccan and often raps about her Moroccan heritage in her songs. She is my only hope at the moment to re-learning this language so we'll see how it goes.
I've studied several other languages as well (Japanese, Turkish, Swahili, Wolof) but my skills in these languages do not rank high enough to belong in this list. I plan on writing about the benefits of language learning in a future post.
Hope this comprehensive breakdown was in the slightest bit interesting.