What I Didn't Know About Learning A New Language

What I didn't know about learning a new language

Learning a new language has it's ups and downs, but sometimes you just hit a learning wall face-first and don't know how to climb it over.

For me, this came about quite recently during my 3rd year of learning Chinese.

I'm at this frustrating stage where I can read and actually understand the nuances and more subtle points, but I can't for the life of me understand normal spoken Chinese. And I don't mean the classroom kind, where the teacher speaks slowly and clearly and doesn't use idiomatic expresssions or slang. In class 我没有问题

But when I'm talking with my Chinese classmates and friends, and they're excited or passionate about something they switch into rapid-fire Chinese mode and then they look at and I'm just frozen, staring blankly at them and not having the faintest clue as to what just happened this past minute.

I should be better at this, after all I've been studying and practicing like hell, and yet.

Maybe with time I'll get better, and be able to properly participated in a conversation. Language learning is a marathon, and not a sprint as someone once said.

In the mean time, all I can do is continue to practice and to just try get over this wall of frustration. Or alternatively grab a metaphorical hammer and just smash it.

✨Things that I'm looking forward to once college starts again✨

the cute notebooks and pens, with cat-shaped erasers

oats with yogurt and berries and black coffee in the mornings

spontaneous study dates at the tucked-away nooks of the library

sharing ootd on our group chat

seeing the campus spring back to the usual hustle-bustle

midnight snack runs to the 24/7 store

running and giggling around the campus garden at night, taking dumb selfies and snickering all the way back

"In chaos I find solace."

-Unknown

"Your name is the magic key To the gates of my universe Even the unwelcome Could use it as a password"

Galsan Tschinag, All the Paths Around Your Yurt

August Reading List 🌴🌺🍍📚🍹🌥

In progress: ⛔⏳

Go Tell It on the Mountain (James Baldwin)

A Room with a View (E.M Forster)

The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)

Done: ✅☑️🏁

The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong

Scarlet Women: The Scandalous Lives of Courtesans (Ian Graham)

The Runaway Jury (John Grisham)

Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

Wolkenhunde (Galsan Tschinag)

The Twins (Saskia Sarginson)

Love in a Mist

Artist: Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823-1903)