From being a bad boy in the school lessons
to enthusiastic language learner
For the first 5 paragraphs of my blog please read my YouTube video description. I could only write up to 5000 characters there. so the rest can be read here.
In my YouTube video description (and also here) you can read a lot more than I covered in the video. Bellow the video on YouTube I wrote about these topics:
The Beginning: Who just acted the fool in German lessons ...
I did not always pay attention at school as having fun with my friends and filling in the really important role of Class Clown were my main priorities...LOL!
The following pictures prove that I really had a great time at secondary school, he-he :D
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The fourth guy from the bottom left corner in the white and black patterned pullover is .... well, let's just say I know him very much...:DIt was so good not to be a teacher way back then...:) |
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| Middle finger in the air, like you just don't care!...Rudeboy '91, LOL! |
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| Here is the proof that at least I passed my final exams at secondary school, ha-ha! |
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| Where am I? Right hand side, second row from bellow, the third from the right. Do not be fooled by the bit serious look, hah-hah! |
Why did I start German again?
How my student motivated me to restart learning German language
Practice brings the knowledge smoothly
I found out that not focusing so much on inflexions improve fluent speaking ability.
What else did I learn in addition to languages with Duolingo?
Could have started anywhere else, but I made a point of practising blind typing when I did my German lessons on Duolingo. At first it was not a big amount, that is why I could endure the at first very challenging task of not looking at the tastature when typing.
Strict teacher and weird punctuation ... I just hated Russian in primary school so much!
Being forced to learn a difficult language with Cyrillic characters and a very strict teacher made most of us kid dislike Russian pretty much way back in the 1980's. This also changed after a few decades.
Here is the content not written in the YouTube video description:
How did Russian language come into the picture?
For many, it may seem a Mickey Mouse-type of reason for what I started to learn Russian in Duolingo again. One of my favorite movies triggered it. The Arrow is a superhero series of DC Comics. It has to do with Russian to the extent that the main hero, Oliver Queen has become a member of the Russian Mafia of 'Bratva' (Brotherhood) during a secret phase of his life.
I like the way he speaks to the Mafia boss and mobsters in Russian, and I decided that I wanted to understand this and that was all. Shame also was fumbling in me for not doing anything with Russian language after I had never been forced to learn it after primary school. I looked up the English-Russian course on Duolingo and I completed it, later combining Russian with German and Spanish and then backwards. I mean, I did the "reverse-tree" on Duolingo. This means that, for example, if German is set up as a native language and Russian is the target language I want to learn, the reverse tree is Russian-German, that is, Russian is native language and German is the language to learn. The name "tree" comes from the structure of the lessons of the course that can be compared to a tree with some
imagination.
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| Solntsevskaya Bratva captain Anatoly Knyazev and Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow |
I like the way he speaks to the Mafia boss and mobsters in Russian, and I decided that I wanted to understand this and that was all. Shame also was fumbling in me for not doing anything with Russian language after I had never been forced to learn it after primary school. I looked up the English-Russian course on Duolingo and I completed it, later combining Russian with German and Spanish and then backwards. I mean, I did the "reverse-tree" on Duolingo. This means that, for example, if German is set up as a native language and Russian is the target language I want to learn, the reverse tree is Russian-German, that is, Russian is native language and German is the language to learn. The name "tree" comes from the structure of the lessons of the course that can be compared to a tree with some
imagination.
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| Oliver Queen, the Arrow, vigilante of the city |
The melodic Spanish language: rap music, Lowriders, movies
Warning, again 'very academic and intellectual' (these 2 words, in my opinion, are not necessarily positive in every case otherwise ....) motivations follow.
I always found it cool and slick when beside English Spanish was spoken too, especially in my favorite American street gangster kind of films. In addition, it is also used in American rap music. One of my old favorites, Cypress Hill, also uses Spanish words, phrases in his lyrics, which I know from inside-out, yet often only surmising what they mean. In the summer of 2017, I practised my BMX Flatland tricks on a beautiful sunny day to one of Mr Criminal's albums and got into some mind-blowing California-state of mind from it on my concrete court. All these exciting things just kept coming to me and once I told myself I do not know what I'm waiting for, there is Duolingo, today is the best time to start anything, I've been wasting too many years. So, the gangster films, gangsta rap and the Lowriders, the American classic cars equipped with bumping hydraulics and unique paint-jobs have motivated in Spanish language learning. Lowrider is the apple of the eye of their owners mostly of Mexican-American origin. Many times their lives and families are reflected in the art-level graphics of the cars.
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| California-state-of-mind with Lowriders and English-Spanish Hip-Hop |
Foreign language knowledge and international mushroom coffee business
I guess it's an open secret now if you've been watching my videos that ( for now only in my spare time, as a part-time job) I am building an international Ganoderma coffee Network Marketing business online. Should not talk in riddles anymore ?! .. :) So, in simple terms: I sell mushroom coffee on the net. The business opportunity offered by DXN does not have any country boundaries, I can sponsor a member in any country who can become either a regular customer if she likes the products or can even "descend" to trying herself out in DXN MLM business. I know, Master Yoda: "Do, or do not, there is no try." I deliberately used ’trying’ because ganoderma business does not have any obligation, it does not require any investment, so it can be paused (or quit) at any time, and at any time (even after several years of omission) can be started again from the same level.
So, international business and foreign languages. I would add that there is no need for communicational knowledge in a second language for DXN business, but I do not need to say that it is a huge advantage. Actually, besides the above-mentioned motivations, this was also in the background, but this was not the main reason for me to study German, Russian and Spanish beside English.
Thinking in a foreign language
I noticed that often German, Spanish, and even – for me the most difficult - Russian words amd phrases come to my mind during the day. I'm really happy about it because I'm starting to think in Spanish, for example, to describe things I see. I even speak to my dogs in foreign languages and they are fond of it :) 'Mis buenos perros pequeños' – My good little dogs, 'Mis hermosos perros' - My nice dogs, 'Mis lindos perros' – My cute dogs, hehe. When my pill rolls away (I get angry) - which is often the case in my trying life in a squirrel-wheeler as an apartment dog-dad - then Hungarian is still the most eloquent language to ’speak my mind’.
You are as many people as many languages you speak
My grandfather said this long ago: " You are as many people as many languages you speak." This means that if I speak English as a Hungarian, I am possess the knowledge of two people: a Hungarian and an English. So I will thrive when I go abroad, where they speak English. As for knowledge, this is what I mean, of course, not that injecting something that one knows from his own brain to someone else’s by using some crazy professor's method.
'' Speak English, or die '
This does not have to be taken seriously, nor does S.O.D. band’s of song with this title. I find this short phrase correct and I interpret it in a way that in today's world, one who does not speak English is in great disadvantage, especially when traveling abroad. Of course, this also depends on one’s goals, but this is another topic.
I think that's worth thinking about. Nowadays if somebody knows English is not a plus, but a basic thing. In many workplaces, there is a requirement for communication skills in another foreign language in addition to English, if one want to earn money too, not just go to work.
Learning languages for free
Paid private lessons or free internet language learning on Duolingo?
I suppose you have a friend who is a teacher and gives private lessons or you know someone who goes to a private teacher or his children do. This has its financial implications. I've fallen out of this circuit, but today I would not give lesons bellow 2000 HUF per hour, and it's still very cheap. I was teaching 60-minute lessons, but many adjust private lessons to the time frame of the 45-minute school lessons. It is not rare to ask 5000 Hungarian Forints for a 1-hour private lesson.
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| The price of private lessons is not very cheap in Hungary |
Of course, you have the advantage of being tutored in person by a teacher or coach. There are some who - though are good learners - are lazy if someone does not push them and test them from the material of the lesson.
Duolingo is completely free and accessible to anyone on the Internet. With my knowledge and experience today, I say that if one is not the laziest guy in the world and not a rebellious teenager of any age anymore, can easily learn a foreign language on the internet for free. Of course, you have to talk to ’flesh-and-blood’ people and have the courage to speak to others, but I think Duolingo gives an excellent foundation for life, as far as language learning is concerned.
We could go on discussing grammatics and afflixion here too. These are also excellently written down at the beginning of the lessons. I find that in today's fast-paced world it is not necessary to learn the rules, especially if one already has some basic skill in a foreign language. This is also a matter of personal taste, I considered myself a bit of a grammar-zealot, but now I feel different. I consider it important to use live language efficiently, and of course you have to speak it correct. It may be achieved by reading rules, or just practicing sentences as smoothly as I do on Duolingo. It is also a good feeling when I come to realize grammatical rules myself.
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| Duolingo: a fun and free way to develop languages skills |
Try Duolingo, there's a good chance you will like it!
Go for it! ;)
