Language Learning I

Learning new languages is completely different to any other academic subject. In almost any other subject, spacing out for a while wont throw you completely off track. If all else fails, you can start pretty much afresh when the class moves into a new area. The opposite is true when learning languages, something which I learned the hard way. Back in England, I started learning French as a compulsory subject. For about a year I actually understood something. However, my studying practices at the time were hardly spectacular, and as time progressed any French I had previously learned began to spiral down into a black hole in some corner of my mind.

I soon found the French teacher had began talking gibberish, and as listening seemed like a waste of time, I thought I would instead do something constructive, such as building small catapults and pellet guns from ball point pens. Most of my diabolical contraptions failed miserably and only resulted in an ever increasing layer of debris at the bottom of my pencil case, not to mention a peculiar shortage of ball point pens.

Once I managed to make a deceptively simple pellet gun (ball point pen casing) which a boy sitting next to me promptly picked up; fired a shot at the class fatty, and thus paused the class for several minutes while the teacher lectured us on matureness. Meanwhile I sat terrified knowing that my tools of violence had made their way into the hands of terrorists, rather than being used to fight for freedom, prosperity, and entertainment.

My only comfort was that upon returning to Finland I would have the option to stop studying French. We returned to Finland and the day of reckoning arrived; I sat with the new school's French teacher and my parents. I told them I want to quit French. They told me that it would be an invaluable future asset, that I would regret quitting it forever, that I would have wasted all my previous French studies. Didn't have the guts to tell them I had already made sure of that. The French teacher said girls like guys who speak French. I would hate to admit that somewhere in my desperate 12 year old mind I actually considered that. Nevertheless, under mounting parental pressure, and perhaps the teacher's corny comment, the obedient little me obliged.

I regretted it, my god I regretted it. I don't think there was a single day, when after an afternoon French lesson I didn't come home complaining what a load of crap it was. After about another two hellish years of French (during which all of the remaining French in my head was sucked into the black hole) I made the decision to end the suffering. I wrote a letter to the principal. One morning, my mother had a phone call from her, asking if I was allowed to quit French. "Ah yeah, I sent a letter to the principal" I said while brushing my teeth. Dazed, my mother agreed. More than anything I felt relief, mixed with the comic foolishness of knowing I could have wrote the letter a year earlier.

When I cycled home an hour early that day, my conscience felt as though I had skipped school. Then I realised I could be in French right now, trying to seem invisible to the senile old teacher. This wasn't very hard, considering her age. I felt sorry that she had to put up with a class where only about half the people were learning anything, while the other half entertained each other by causing chaos and mayhem. I imagine the only thing that kept her going was impending retirement.

Teacher: "Blah blah blah..."
Guy1: "G 2!"
Guy2: "YOU SUNK MY BATTLESHIP! HAHAHAHA!"
--Repeat from top about 10 times.---
Teacher: "No more sinking battleships! I will kill you!"

Delighted with my success, I made sure to share my joy with everyone else, reminding those poor suckers whenever they shambled to another French class.

So ends the first part of my epic, language learning adventure... almost. This year I started lukio, or senior high school as it is to many of you. Having recovered surprisingly quickly from my French induced trauma, and hoping that the laws of physics might have been at least somewhat flawed, I began French again. I began from the very beginning (For your information "Bonjour!" is officially the first word in the French language.), hoping that perhaps something had not been sucked into the void. Unfortunately the laws of physics held firm, and I had no advantage whatsoever compared to the other first time French learners. However, this time I was armed with experience, not only did I know what not to do, by this time I had studied Japanese for almost a year and in the process had learned many techniques useful to learning a new language. I had also been inspired by how useful even a little language skills could be during our Tour de Europe.

My first French test is next Monday, and I am confident that this time, I will be the victor! Bwahahaa!! Then, I will have one more course of French after which I doubt I will continue, despite having been thoroughly pleased with my success so far. I realised again today what an annoying language it is. "What the hell is that word doing there? I swear it wasn't there before!" This has happened to me several times so far, and I don't think I will be able to take it much longer. Also if the teacher shows us any more of that horrid 80s, epilepsy inducing learning cartoon ("Muse" or something) I may well hang myself before I have a change to learn any more French.