Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.
Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:39 am
Hello! My first post is a forum self-introduction and I'll post my estimated levels and experiences in each language, in future posts I'll discuss goals and what I'm actively doing now in a bit more detail. I love following other language logs and seeing feedback, and so I decided it would be fun to participate as well!
I am currently in my final year of internal medicine residency currently, and plan on specializing next year in Endocrinology, so that is demanding and takes up the bulk of my time, but with my spare time I enjoy language learning (my favorite hobby), reading fiction and nonfiction, music, and playing soccer/exercising. With all the hobbies I am realistic about my language learning goals. I know (and I've seen) that I'll make slow progress as long as I consistently put some time into it.
I'll estimate my abilities below and put them by categories (not completely language families... but how I organize them in my head).
Romance:
French C1-C2: The first foreign language I've studied. I spent one summer in Lyon doing an intensive French study program in college. Since I've used it while I was in medical school consistently and even worked as an interpreter, mostly interacting with West Africans and Haitians (when they spoke standard French, as I struggle a lot with Haitian). Lately I haven't used much French. I do love French cinema, literature, and traveling to France, so I foresee myself always coming back to it at some points and working to improve.
Spanish C1-C2: I learned Spanish after French. I took 2 University courses and then 1 writing in Spanish course. After English, Spanish is the language I use most professionally and in daily life.
Italian B2: I've worked in Milan in 2012 for a month, and travelled a bit that year in Italy. I love the country, and my wife has family friends who live in Tuscany. They are wonderful people and hopefully I'll get to visit them someday. I love traveling in Italy so I try to maintain my Italian at a comfortable B2.
Portuguese (Brazilian) B1-B2: Low hanging fruit after having learned the above languages. Not actively working on Portuguese, so it's a bit rusty. Like Italian my goal in Portuguese is to maintain at a B2.
Slavic
Russian B2: Probably my favorite language to learn. I love Russian history, literature, and culture. I also have a great group of Russian speaking friends in New York so I try keep my Russian active to use it with them (even though we all speak English as well). I really want to push Russian to full C1-C2, but my output (especially writing) is keeping me back at B2 right now even though my listening and reading comprehension are better.
Polish A1: I've done some basic Polish (studied in the past with Pimsleur and Asimil), currently not studying.
Czech 0: I bought a Colloquial Czech book for $8. Haven't opened it yet. One of my Russian friends lives in Prague. I hope to visit someday, and would like to learn some Czech before going.
Germanic
German B1-B2: I learned German because I wanted to read more German literature and philosophy someday. I practically used it to travel through Germany for 3 weeks in 2014. I've also been able to read Kafka's metamorphasis and short stories with the help of a dictionary. I would like to further my German in the future, but am not actively working on it at present.
Dutch A1-A2: I've studied Dutch with Duolingo and LingQ and traveled in the Netherlands in 2014 (when I was in Germany). I really like the country and bought a copy of an old Teach Yourself Dutch for under 5 dollars, but haven't studied it seriously yet.
East Asian
Mandarin Chinese A2: I've lightly studied Mandarin for 4-5 years now, and in all that time I have made some progress to where I can now read and write basic things and communicate effectively at a basic level. I love the challenge of it, I love Chinese history and food, and hope to visit China someday (preferably once I'm in the B1-B2 range). I've exhaustively been studying Assimil's Chinese with ease and completed Pimsleur 1-3 and have use LingQ, CCTV growing up Chinese, and many different mnemonic techniques for character reading/writing. My final ideal goal would be B1-B2 Mandarin, to comfortably travel in China and read basic things in Chinese comfortably.
Japanese A2: I started studying Japanese with a friend who loves Japanese culture. I am a huge fan of their cuisine and do like their culture (such emphasis on courtesy, respect, and customer service!) and history, but have never been into anime or manga. My friend quit Japanese long ago but I've stuck with it as I've come to learn to love the language as well, and enjoy studying it very slowly along with Mandarin. I'm in no rush to learn Mandarin or Japanese, and am enjoying it at my pace (recently ~10 hours/month). I've studied through Colloquial Japanese, done Pimsleur 1-3, and have been using a lot of Japanesepod 101, and also am using the Genki courses.
Middle-Eastern/South Asian
With so much on my plate right now I don't have time to begin another language, but in the future (hopefully before I'm 35?) I'd like to delve into learning more about this part of the world. I've accumulated a lot of Arabic materials that I've found at book sales over the years, and have a tiny bit of farsi material as well. The problem for these languages is I don't know which ones I will want to devote myself too, since I'm limited by time I know I could never learn them all. I'm torn between Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Pashto, and Hindi/Urdu.
I am currently in my final year of internal medicine residency currently, and plan on specializing next year in Endocrinology, so that is demanding and takes up the bulk of my time, but with my spare time I enjoy language learning (my favorite hobby), reading fiction and nonfiction, music, and playing soccer/exercising. With all the hobbies I am realistic about my language learning goals. I know (and I've seen) that I'll make slow progress as long as I consistently put some time into it.
I'll estimate my abilities below and put them by categories (not completely language families... but how I organize them in my head).
Romance:
French C1-C2: The first foreign language I've studied. I spent one summer in Lyon doing an intensive French study program in college. Since I've used it while I was in medical school consistently and even worked as an interpreter, mostly interacting with West Africans and Haitians (when they spoke standard French, as I struggle a lot with Haitian). Lately I haven't used much French. I do love French cinema, literature, and traveling to France, so I foresee myself always coming back to it at some points and working to improve.
Spanish C1-C2: I learned Spanish after French. I took 2 University courses and then 1 writing in Spanish course. After English, Spanish is the language I use most professionally and in daily life.
Italian B2: I've worked in Milan in 2012 for a month, and travelled a bit that year in Italy. I love the country, and my wife has family friends who live in Tuscany. They are wonderful people and hopefully I'll get to visit them someday. I love traveling in Italy so I try to maintain my Italian at a comfortable B2.
Portuguese (Brazilian) B1-B2: Low hanging fruit after having learned the above languages. Not actively working on Portuguese, so it's a bit rusty. Like Italian my goal in Portuguese is to maintain at a B2.
Slavic
Russian B2: Probably my favorite language to learn. I love Russian history, literature, and culture. I also have a great group of Russian speaking friends in New York so I try keep my Russian active to use it with them (even though we all speak English as well). I really want to push Russian to full C1-C2, but my output (especially writing) is keeping me back at B2 right now even though my listening and reading comprehension are better.
Polish A1: I've done some basic Polish (studied in the past with Pimsleur and Asimil), currently not studying.
Czech 0: I bought a Colloquial Czech book for $8. Haven't opened it yet. One of my Russian friends lives in Prague. I hope to visit someday, and would like to learn some Czech before going.
Germanic
German B1-B2: I learned German because I wanted to read more German literature and philosophy someday. I practically used it to travel through Germany for 3 weeks in 2014. I've also been able to read Kafka's metamorphasis and short stories with the help of a dictionary. I would like to further my German in the future, but am not actively working on it at present.
Dutch A1-A2: I've studied Dutch with Duolingo and LingQ and traveled in the Netherlands in 2014 (when I was in Germany). I really like the country and bought a copy of an old Teach Yourself Dutch for under 5 dollars, but haven't studied it seriously yet.
East Asian
Mandarin Chinese A2: I've lightly studied Mandarin for 4-5 years now, and in all that time I have made some progress to where I can now read and write basic things and communicate effectively at a basic level. I love the challenge of it, I love Chinese history and food, and hope to visit China someday (preferably once I'm in the B1-B2 range). I've exhaustively been studying Assimil's Chinese with ease and completed Pimsleur 1-3 and have use LingQ, CCTV growing up Chinese, and many different mnemonic techniques for character reading/writing. My final ideal goal would be B1-B2 Mandarin, to comfortably travel in China and read basic things in Chinese comfortably.
Japanese A2: I started studying Japanese with a friend who loves Japanese culture. I am a huge fan of their cuisine and do like their culture (such emphasis on courtesy, respect, and customer service!) and history, but have never been into anime or manga. My friend quit Japanese long ago but I've stuck with it as I've come to learn to love the language as well, and enjoy studying it very slowly along with Mandarin. I'm in no rush to learn Mandarin or Japanese, and am enjoying it at my pace (recently ~10 hours/month). I've studied through Colloquial Japanese, done Pimsleur 1-3, and have been using a lot of Japanesepod 101, and also am using the Genki courses.
Middle-Eastern/South Asian
With so much on my plate right now I don't have time to begin another language, but in the future (hopefully before I'm 35?) I'd like to delve into learning more about this part of the world. I've accumulated a lot of Arabic materials that I've found at book sales over the years, and have a tiny bit of farsi material as well. The problem for these languages is I don't know which ones I will want to devote myself too, since I'm limited by time I know I could never learn them all. I'm torn between Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Pashto, and Hindi/Urdu.