If you know me pretty well then you will realise just how strange the statement I am about to make is....
I enjoy learning/speaking foreign languages.
I'm not sure exactly how this happened as it never use to be true. At school I found French frustrating and frequently skipped German lesson by fanning regular illness [how NO one seamed to pick up on my regular Tuesday and Thursday stomach aches really is beyond me!]. Of course this was no doubt compounded by the difficulties I faced being dyslexic (though I don't use this as an excuse).
However since starting to teach English an incredible metamorphosis has occurred to bring me to the point of saying the statement above.
I suppose I had always enjoyed finding out the routes of words and debating post-modern logic of relative meanings of words for individuals rather than a fixed abstract truth [a position which I still hold to, though there are general rules]. At the same time I had also always enjoyed learning about people from different background and finding out about people and so I suppose being able to communicate in their language allows for this possibility to occur. In fact, If I hadn't learnt Russian whilst I was out here, then the circle of people I could communicate with (and the level) would be very limited indeed.
The moment of true realisation came when I saw that on facebook some of my friends had set "languages" as one of their interests and I started to think. At first my gut reaction was "Urrrg" and then as I thought I realised that I do love to speak in foreign languages and have in fact tried to revive my German and French [and even learnt some very basic Spanish] whilst I've been out here!
and so I will say it again.
I love learning and speaking foreign languages
