My Own Language Journey
If you are interested in how my language journey and my journey of becoming a mom of 4 children fit in together you will find some insights here and in the next blog ...
Language Journey In School
My own personal language learning journey started in school. It is common in Germany that you have to learn at least one foreign language in school, and that is the most widely spoken world language - English.
So, I learned English and Russian as my second foreign language from day one in school until the A-level examen. I experienced the language lessons on the one hand as very interesting, on the other hand, it was so abstract – this foreign language which was taught so artificial in school.
The only contact I had with English was by listening to songs with English lyrics, and we visited London a few times. It wasn't until much later that I had the opportunity to travel to St. Petersburg and lived there with a host family for two weeks.
Language Journey In A Boarding School
In the upper school, I took part in a student exchange. A girl from Casterton School, an independent boarding and day school for girls aged 3 to 18 in Kirkby Londsdale in England, came in exchange for my visit to our house. For six weeks I could experience the life of boarders and dive into the English language and into the beautiful nature of the lake district, where I went with my host family for a day trip.
What did I took away with me from this trip to England: My parents said that my English improved in some ways - I think so too. At least I had to eventually come out of my comfort zone for the first time. But being immersed in English for six weeks in total - well, it was like a drop in the ocean.
Challenges Of My Language Journey
When I’m looking back to the language lessons I see different challenges I had to live with
I had to get a feeling for the language
I had to understand the language and what the teacher was teaching us
I had to speak in that language - so challenging if you are shy and a perfectionist
I had to write in that language - I even had difficulties in getting all my thoughts in German on the paper, but in English or Russian?
I had to translate all my thoughts from my mother tongue into a foreign language which slowed down the process of speaking and writing extremely
Measured often by the mistakes you are making, being constantly corrected, it was overall more exhausting than enjoyable for me to learn a foreign language.
How Your Personality Can Effect Your Language Journey
To be clear at this point: I don't want to blame my language teachers. Reflecting on my own personality as a pupil, I have to admit that I was too shy, too introverted, and too afraid to make any mistakes.
At the End of my schooldays, I needed private tutoring in English and in Russian to gain better results for my leaving certificate and my parents had to pay for that ;-) With my school-leaving exams and my last exam in the English language, I promised myself never to speak one word in English again!
But then I realized, English is too important for banding out of the rest of my life, and so I decided very spontaneously to challenge myself and went to London as an au-pair for a few months.
Language Journey As An Au-Pair
And this really changed my way how to thought and feel about English as a foreign language. I took part in a small English language course for au-pairs and got this really good self-study grammar book „English Grammar in Use“. From that point on I started to fall in love with English - just a tiny bit. Why not completely? Cause
I was too still shy to speak
I was too inhibited
I still struggled with the grammar
I was still afraid to choose the wrong vocabulary
I missed a lot of vocabulary and had therefore problems to express myself
I definitely pronounced a lot of words wrong and everyone could instantly hear, that I am from Germany
So, to sum it all up: I didn’t feel very comfortable speaking English. I am more the perfectionist - so, before you say something wrong, its better to say nothing ;-)
Language Journey At The University
My next “coming together” with the English language was when I studied business administration. I found myself again in a classroom with lots of pupils, which could speak so well this foreign language. Some of them fluently cause they lived for some years with their parents abroad or had been raised bilingual.
This was the first time I thought: to be raised bilingual is not so bad – actually it would have been so much easier for me in school and during my time at the University of Applied Science to have the ability to just live the language ...
The Bright Side Of Speaking A Foreign Language
Then I challenged myself again and studied for some months abroad at the University of Karlstad in Sweden. The first time, I really enjoyed speaking English!
At this point, I'd like to thank my parents for being so supportive and for making it financially possible to have the opportunities to stay abroad during my period of education: “Thank you, mom and dad! I love you!”
Language Journey And Business English
After my graduation, I started working as a project and process manager at one of the biggest telecommunication companies in Germany. In our daily business, we had to write and speak in English to set up, develop, or optimize our processes and communicate with our headquarter colleagues from Italy or Spain.
Communicating In A Foreign Language
Today, my heart opens widely, when I have the possibility to communicate with my friends from Great Britain and Australia. I lost my anxiety about speaking a foreign language to a native speaker BUT I still have, from time to time, the problem to express myself in detail when it comes to intensive discussions.
In my next blog post, you will hear how I started my language journey as a mom. So, if you don't want to miss a single post sign up here for my newsletter.
So, let me know if you look back on your own language journey, how do you feel about it? What did you struggle with, what did you help learning a foreign language?
