My Language Story
I started learning 3 languages in parallel when I was little. These were English, Hakka and Cantonese. I feel privileged to have been in this situation but when I was younger, I found it hard to be truly excellent at any of them. I could never give them 100% of my focus.
As I entered primary school, language subjects came naturally to me. I formally registered for weekly Cantonese classes at a Sunday school in Birmingham, my home city. I decided to take French, then Latin, then German. It turned out to be a wise decision as my best exam performances were in those subjects every year. I even managed to score a top 10 in the country for GCSE Chinese (to be honest, this is probably primary school level in China). I carried on taking classes until I was 18 years old, when I completed my A-Level in Chinese.
Years later, I began to ask myself whether I should take up Mandarin Chinese. After all, I had the grounding of the written Traditional characters so Simplified characters should in theory be fairly straightforward. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for someone who can already speak native Hakka and semi-fluent Cantonese by then?
Please click here for the story of my Mandarin learning journey until the present day in 2022.
Timeline
Chinese: Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka
普通话, 廣東話, 客家話
"爸爸去哪儿", "廁所喺邊度, "涯係客家人"
Hakka was my first language, I began learning it naturally shortly after I was born. I formally started Cantonese classes when I was 7 which I continued until I was 18. It wasn't until university that I started self-learning Mandarin.
Who knows, maybe one day I will start learning Shanghainese, Sichuanese or any of the other ethnic languages.
French français
"J'ai visité la France trois fois"
I started learning French at the age of 7. Perhaps this was symbolic as I visited France with my parents in 1992 and 1995.
French later became an optional subject, but I continued to study it until I gained a GCSE certificate in it. I should be pretty fluent right?
Eh no, I have hardly used it since then except for the couple of French friends at university. Next time, I go to France though...
German Deutsch
"Ich studiere seit fünf Jahren Deutsch"
I started learning German at the age of 9. This continued until I was 14. I ranked top 3 for my year for most annual exams. I found it to be a most interesting language but unfortunately I did not choose to continue German.
I did finally visit Germany in 2019 where I got to use my very basic speaking skills in ordering food. One day, I'll have to sit down and study it again. It should all come rushing back, hopefully...
Latin latīnum
"Carpe diem"
People always react with surprise when I say that I have studied Latin. For 7 years too. I started learning Latin as a compulsory class at the age of 8. It fascinated me because it was the ancient language of the Romans where many European languages have evolved from. I also knew that it was used widely in medicine and law. Actually we see it in a lot of places.
We concentrated mostly on reading, writing and listening. Speaking was mostly an afterthought. I finished my education in Latin by gaining the top grade certificate in the GCSE exam.
Japanese, Korean, Russian and others
"おはよう" "오빠" "Спасибо"
I don't claim to be a speaker of any of these languages. These are for the future.
That said though, I actually started subconsciously with Japanese and Korean in the 2000s. I can understand a little largely due to my exposure to online media from these countries. Target is conversational level.
I would like to learn more European languages like Spanish or Italian but it's time for a change.
At least I can say hola or grazie (ahaha)