I am fascinated by languages. The fact that people communicate via sounds that may sound like gibberish to me but is clearly understandable to them has always been a source of fascination to me. English is my native tongue and the only language spoken by me during childhood.
I remember feeling envious of my friends and classmates who spoke other languages. During my elementary school years, I had friends who spoke Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Greek, and Hindi. I always felt left out and envious whenever they spoke with their parents other languages. I found it amazing how they could understand what sounded like gibberish to me.
I became quite good at imitating languages. I would find myself repeating things that my Greek friend’s were saying when speaking with their parents. I remember my friend’s mother telling me that I am good at languages and should learn to speak Greek because I was repeating what they said very accurately. Unfortunately I had no idea what was being said.
During my middle school years, I was exposed to even more languages. I now had friends who spoke Hebrew, Korean, Russian, Farsi, Chinese, and Japanese. The Japanese boy spoke very little English but we got along great. He had the coolest clothes and was a break-dancer.
While attending high school, I was exposed to Tagalog, Punjabi, Romanian, Arabic, and Spanish. You can see a trend here… the older I got, the more multicultural my environment became. This is one of the blessings of living in Toronto.
Fast forward to my adult years and I found myself working at an awesome software company and studying accounting at night. I still had the language itch and decided to enrol in Spanish classes at Don Mills Secondary School.
I really enjoyed the class. Our teacher was from Mexico and treated us to a night at an authentic Mexican restaurant at the end of the course. She contacted the restaurant in advance and asked that all staff communicate with her students in Spanish only.
It was an interesting experience. I learned that Mexican food is completely different from that which is served at Taco Bell. Taco Bell is American food. Everything I ate was incredibly delicious. I felt stupid looking for items that I was used to finding at Taco Bell.
I did not further my studies in Spanish because I became too busy studying accounting. I simply did not have the time between working full-time and attending accounting classes part-time. I no longer had a social life. These were pretty dark days.
Somehow around 2011, I started to study the Korean language. I was no longer studying accounting after work and had more free time. I met a girl named Jessie at a local bar. After introductions, I asked her where she was from. She said she came from Korea to study English and gain work experience. I was amazed to find out that she came alone. At that time, the thought of me going overseas without my family scared me.
Somehow I took an interest in her language and she started to teach me. I would visit her often to enjoy some cold beer and study the Korean language. She eventually changed job locations to another bar even closer to my home. It was there that I met her co-worker who offered to be my Korean language tutor.
I went to that bar every evening for my language lessons. Both of my tutors filled my notebook with all sorts of texts. One evening, one of them told me that she was returning to Korea in a couple of months. She said that I should visit. I quickly agreed then wondered to myself later that night, did I actually just agree to fly half-way around the world? I had only been on a plane once for only 2 hours to Nova Scotia. There was no turning back. I had agreed to go and could not chicken out.
I have since been to Korea several times and made an unbelievable number of Korean friends in both Toronto and South Korea. Although I am not yet fluent, I can proudly say that I am a speaker of the Korean language. I had accomplished a childhood dream by acquiring a second language.
I plan to resume my Spanish studies someday. I would also like to learn French and one of the West African languages such as Igbo, Yoruba, Efik, Akan, Twi, or Ewe. I am also interested in the Japanese language and Chinese. I know a little Japanese. I am currently learning Nigerian Pidgin English which in many ways is remarkably similar to Jamaican patios.
One positive side to the pandemic is that it have given me more time to put towards studying the wide array of subjects that interest me. I have spent most of the time since March studying various aspects of computer programming. Yesterday I decided it was time to add Chinese to the list. I will also resume my Japanese studies.