MY LANGUAGE LEARNING JOURNEY
I have always been fascinated with languages and took language classes in school.
In grade 3, the most spoken languages in Nigeria were offered which were Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, I studied them and will say we all had advantages as Nigerians because we could get input from so many places. Either our parents were bilingual or polyglots or had relatives who could speak them or literally anyone. Because there were lots of scenarios, instances, people and culture, we were surrounded by opportunities at every corner so it wasn’t hard to practice and figure these languages out plus most of us already heard these languages a lot of times and could differentiate them.
Right now, I can speak Hausa, understand Yoruba (but not speak), as for Igbo, I don’t think I was really into it. The main point is that I wouldn’t say I studied these languages but was around people who could speak them so I picked it up.
From grade 7-9, I took French and Arabic classes. I don’t remember anything about French, it’s like the school’s curriculum or way of teaching foreign languages wasn’t that understandable? Anyway, I barely studied the language after I left Junior Secondary School. Arabic was another language I had to study, until now I can still read and write Arabic but barely remember any vocab and grammar.
The point is studying a language and having input almost all the time, people to practice with and such not only trains your ears but improves your memory which in turn could help you be fluent or understand the language.
Also, these languages above were compulsory from the schools I went to while from here are languages I chose to study.
During Covid-19 in 2020, I stumbled upon a book on Wattpad with a title similar to “Korean Vocabulary” or “Words in Korean”, out of curiosity I took a peek but didn’t think much of it. I wouldn’t say I was into K-pop but I had been listening to a few artists (mostly BlackPink and BTS). There was a resin creator I usually watched called Jjomanhan on YouTube, whenever she spoke, I wondered how such an angelic language exists (at the time, I didn’t know it was Korean). I also watched some street interviews and short series on YouTube (I am more of a C-drama fan so I wasn’t that much into K-drama) and some other videos.
I don’t really know what it was but later that year, I started learning Korean, it was more of an on and off situation because I felt like I wasn’t improving and nothing was working for me. Vocabulary wasn’t sticking so well, I could barely hear anything, talk less of understand, at least I could try reading some simple sentences but it couldn’t be anything too much so I could be able to understand.
Even though it’s 2025, I’ll say I’ve been learning Korean for 2 years (both active and passive). I wasn’t really into Korean media nor did I get input. So, I put it off for a year twice.
I decided to try again this year but this time to try and listen more, construct more sentences, look for a language partner and be more active. Although its not been long, ever since I started listening to so many audios, I can now hear Korean, I don’t know if I’m wording this well, but now I can hear words and begin to understand things a lot more.
Because Korean was the first language, I studied by myself, I had a hard time trying to understand how to grasp a foreign language.
The second language I'm studying is Chinese. I've been involved in Chinese Media ever since I could remember whether they be movies, series, songs or interviews. When I was little, I always dreamed of learning Chinese so last year I picked it up.
When I started learning Chinese, I was surprised that I could start hearing basic Chinese words in sentences at 1-2 months of studying. I guess that’s probably because of all the input I’ve been receiving from consuming a lot of Chinese drama for over ten years. I often wondered why my Korean couldn’t improve even after so much practice while Chinese didn’t take me so long to get a hang of.
I decided that I’m also going to write short stories in both Korean and Chinese (I’ll post them here). My learning schedule for Korean and Chinese are also quite different as I’m prioritizing different things for each of them.
If you have any questions or something to say, don’t hesitate to comment!
Thank you for reading!
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