Life is full of ups and downs, doubts, and decisions but having a strong interest or passion for something can bring stability and familiarity in an ever-changing and chaotic world. Even when work or school gets stressful, coming back to something you love can keep you sane. After all, it is your unique interests and hobbies that make you the person you are. Everyone is passionate about something. If you’re reading this blog, you probably like languages. Maybe you’ve just started learning your first foreign language and you’re not sure how to feel about the hobby yet. Don’t worry this website will guide you through how to learn a language with fun resources, and if you decide to stick with it, learning a new language will be a life-changing decision. Maybe you’re a seasoned language learner here to gather new resources and hear about someone else’s journey. In either case, it’s your interest that brought you here, and it’s your interest that will keep you going through the trials and turbulences of following your passion.
Nice to meet you. I’m Sabrina. I was born in Northern California and grew up in a rural area with two Swiss parents. My childhood is what laid the foundation for my two primary interests: biology and languages, and it’s these passions that inspired me to create this website. I decided to start a multilingual blog to merge my interests and discuss topics that interest me in various languages. This website serves as a platform to not only enhance my language skills but also to help others with their language-learning journey.
My first exposure to a foreign language was hearing my parents speak Swiss German as a child. They primarily spoke in German to each other but spoke to me in English. They did this because my mother was concerned I wouldn’t learn English properly if only she spoke to me in German, and she didn’t want me to pick up any of her bad habits as a non-native speaker. Even though she only spoke to me in German occasionally, I still slowly learned to understand the language, mostly because I wanted to know what they were saying behind my back. However, while I could understand them when they spoke German, I still struggled to speak the language. Although many people think children automatically acquire their parents’ language, learning a language requires time and effort. My parents weren’t able to put in the time it took to teach me properly, so it wasn’t until I began to self-study German at 16 that I could speak more than a few simple sentences.
However, my language journey didn’t start with self-study. My mother attempted to teach me German when I was in elementary school using programs like Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur, but it never stuck. Additionally, I took a year and a half of high school Spanish and learned almost nothing. At the time, I thought languages were difficult and disliked studying them. Eventually, after a summer trip to Switzerland to visit my grandparents, I decided to dedicate a little time to learning German, so I could communicate more easily with my family. I watched YouTube videos such as Learn German with Anya and Easy German and turned the sentences into flashcards. I also began reading in German with my mother. This was the main thing that improved my German. The first book we read together was the German version of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. I would read aloud, and she would correct me. Despite these efforts being sporadic, my understanding of German improved dramatically. Unfortunately, my motivation to invest significant time into learning German was still lacking.
Around this time, I also began taking college classes at the local community college. I knew I wanted to do something with animals, but I wasn’t sure what yet. I was always known as the animal girl, and growing up in a rural area, I spent a lot of time outdoors, exploring the forest near my house. I often borrowed field guides from the school library to look at the pictures of animals over and over again. In high school, I began volunteering at the local zoo, where I helped to care for the animals and delivered presentations to the public. My favorite part of volunteering was engaging with the public and educating them about wildlife and the animals we took care of since most were rescues that couldn’t be released back into the wild. During one summer, I also received the opportunity to assist with research in Guyana, where we surveyed native wildlife. It’s these experiences that made me decide to pursue a career as a biologist.
As I advanced in college, I started working as an English tutor and began to interact more with international students because the English tutor’s desk was right next to the English as a Second Language desk. I quickly found out that a lot of our foreign exchange students came from Japan, and one of my co-workers also worked as a Japanese language tutor. At the time, I liked anime, and I had considered learning Japanese because I wanted to understand it, but I thought it would be too difficult to study a language like Japanese. One day my co-worker explained the basics of how Japanese hiragana worked, and I was immediately hooked. I was determined to learn how to read hiragana. I dedicated an entire day to memorizing all the hiragana characters, followed by another day for memorizing all the katakana characters. I also purchased the Japanese From Zero textbook and began working my way through it doing two lessons every day and creating flashcards from the sentences and grammar patterns. Japanese became my gateway language, and I quickly made progress, absolutely falling in love with the language.
Eventually, I moved on to using Genki before switching to native sources. However, this is where my Japanese stagnated. I struggled with the shift to native sources. Despite having a decent vocabulary and a good grasp of grammar, I had difficulty understanding even simple conversations and texts. Reading books in Japanese did not offer the same ease of comprehension as in German. Even when I knew all the individual words and kanji, I still struggled to understand the entire sentence. After about a year of studying Japanese, the Japanese tutor I worked with approached me and asked me to take over her role when she graduated that semester. At first, I was hesitant. I had spent a lot of time studying Japanese, but I still couldn’t speak and I’d never taken a Japanese class. However, she assured me that just understanding the basics would be good enough. I would be working with a native Japanese speaker, and I would mostly be there as English support, so I eventually agreed.
When the next semester started, I assumed the role of Japanese tutor. However, the experience didn’t unfold as I had anticipated. We had few students, and the tutoring sessions lacked organization. Typically, we would meet once a week in a classroom as a group to discuss Japanese language and culture. While the Japanese exchange student I worked with was enthusiastic about being a tutor, the topics he chose were often uninteresting and text-heavy. I ended up changing the structure of the tutoring session to start with a game before moving on to a reading exercise and speaking practice. The tutoring session quickly became much more popular, and we had a lot more regular students. Our most memorable meeting was when we made sushi for our end-of-semester session. Around half a dozen Japanese exchange students attended, but to our surprise, none of them knew how to make sushi, so one of the American students had to show them how to do it. This moment brought a sense of vindication for me because they had laughed at my chopstick skills.
During this period, I wasn’t studying much Japanese in my free time due to the heavy workload from my classes. Nonetheless, my Japanese still improved through exposure and because I became good friends with one of the Japanese exchange students. I learned a lot from him, and we would occasionally practice speaking Japanese together. However, I still lacked a lot of confidence when speaking. I struggled to make sentences and made a lot of mistakes that at the time I was very self-conscious about but now find funny. For instance, I once mistakenly said, “I like to eat knees” instead of “I like to eat pizza,” and on another occasion, I remarked that “eating children is good for your health.” If I had made another mistake like that, my friend might have started to think I was a cannibal. Unfortunately, a year later, I transferred to a different university to continue my degree in wildlife biology and had to give up my role as a Japanese tutor, but I enjoyed the experience and look back on that time fondly.
As I progressed in my education, I had to set aside my Japanese studies due to the heavy load of my classes. After completing my degree in wildlife biology, I found a job working with predatory mites. Although my studies primarily focused on birds and mammals during university, I decided to give invertebrates a shot, and three years later, I’m still happily working with mites. In my free time, I enjoy going for hikes, where I photograph birds and mammals, as well as rehabilitating injured and orphaned birds. Despite my passion for vertebrates, I will likely continue focusing my professional career on invertebrates for the foreseeable future.
I still find great joy in discussing wildlife and various biology topics with others, so I aspire to work in science communication one day, even if it’s just on the side. I believe that sharing knowledge about the natural world is essential for fostering appreciation and conservation efforts. Wildlife will always be a part of my life, one way or another, shaping my personal interests and professional aspirations.
Once I settled into my new job, I started to have more time to return to languages. I worked in a lab where I was able to listen to podcasts and music most of the day, so I listened to a lot of foreign language content. My Japanese friend, who had moved back to Japan about a year previously, also reached out to me because he wanted to restart our group tutoring sessions online. This motivated me to pick up Japanese once again and continue learning. Although it had been over two years since I had regularly studied Japanese, I was surprised at how much I still knew. I immersed myself by listening to podcasts, watching YouTube, and talking to Japanese people on Conversation Exchange. My Japanese improved faster than ever before, and I could finally have conversations. The first time I spoke for an hour straight with a native speaker was an amazing feeling. It felt like I had finally got somewhere. I was comfortable in the online tutoring sessions we organized and I enjoyed my interactions a lot more than previously. I still had anxiety, but I knew I could talk. Eventually, we stopped doing the online tutoring sessions, and I lost contact with my language exchange partners due to my busy schedule, so it was time to push Japanese to the side and focus on a new language: Mandarin Chinese.
I didn’t initially develop the same passion for Chinese as I did for Japanese. I attempted to learn Chinese multiple times before committing to the language. My first encounter was when my partner, who is an American-born Chinese, tried to teach me how to count. Unfortunately, I struggled to hear or pronounce the tones correctly, and I found it challenging to understand his feedback. As a heritage speaker, he can not read or write, but he speaks very well because his mom doesn’t really speak English. However, it also means he can only understand Chinese if it’s pronounced correctly. He has a very hard time understanding what is said from context if the tones are wrong, so from the beginning, he would correct me a lot. It was very frustrating because I couldn’t tell what I was doing wrong and would have to repeat words over and over again. Pronunciation proved daunting, and the vast number of characters and homophones added to the challenge. Additionally, I doubted whether I would find Chinese media interesting given the strict censorship in China. I tried studying with textbooks and apps, I even got a tutor at one point hoping to make some progress, but I would always drop it again after a few weeks.
I contemplated revisiting Spanish and found myself torn between Spanish and Chinese. Initially, I resumed Spanish, which I hadn’t studied since high school, and on the side, I decided to get some Chinese exposure, so I began watching the TV show Heaven Offical’s Blessing on Netflix. After watching the show, which only had one season out at the time, I decided to read the book and from there I was hooked on Chinese media. Now that I knew there was media I wanted to consume in Chinese, I was much more motivated to continue learning the language. I used an app called DuShu to learn new words and characters as well as the website Mandarin Bean to learn grammar. I flew through these and soon began reading manhua on Bilibili and watching TV shows like Keep Running on YouTube.
Despite a slow start, Chinese gradually became my favorite language. I found its logical characters and simple grammar appealing, and I cherished the diverse expressions and beauty of the language. While mastering tones posed an initial challenge, consistent practice significantly improved my abilities. Comparatively, I found Chinese easier than Japanese, primarily due to its straightforward grammar and consistent writing system. It took me about two years to have a conversation in Chinese, whereas it took me four years to reach a similar level in Japanese, although different learning techniques definitely played a role in this discrepancy. When I started learning Chinese, I already knew how to approach learning an Asian language, making the process much less painful than learning Japanese. Chinese is spoken by over a billion people, many of whom are also interested in learning English, so it is easy to find a conversation partner. Additionally, Chinese media is much more interesting than I initially thought, and there is a wealth of high-quality content to consume, which makes the process of learning the language enjoyable.
Finally, after reaching a point where I could speak Chinese, I felt I could focus more of my time on Spanish. After two Asian languages, a European language was a nice change of pace. The amount of Spanish I could understand in four months is similar to what took me almost two years to understand in Chinese. The Spanish language is beautiful and fun to speak despite the sometimes complex grammar. I really enjoy the many different cultures and media of the Spanish-speaking countries which are very colorful and full of life, and I look forward to what this language brings. I’m currently at an intermediate level and hope to quickly progress to a point where I can speak with my Spanish-speaking co-workers.
When I approach language learning, I always designate one primary focus language, while the others are kept in maintenance mode. For my main language, I ensure daily exposure by listening, reading, and actively studying grammar and vocabulary. As for my passive languages, I rotate through them based on my mood and preferences. For instance, if I want to listen to an educational podcast, I opt for German. If I feel like playing a video game, I switch to Japanese. Integrating language learning into your daily routine is critical. I deliberately avoid using English sources for entertainment because I recognize that time could be better spent gaining valuable input in another language. I only watch English movies when I’m with other people, and I’ve noticed significant improvement using this approach. Although I haven’t actively studied German in years, my proficiency has still improved considerably because I regularly watch and listen to German content.
Time spent immersed in a language is paramount to achieving fluency. Consider how much time you’ve devoted to your native language. How many movies have you watched? How many books have you read? Everything you do in a language contributes to your fluency. I’ve heard many people complain that they just can’t learn a language because they’re too old, children are like sponges that can absorb language. While children may be better when it comes to learning sounds, they aren’t necessarily better at learning a language. They learn through consistent exposure. For example, if a child hears their native language for six hours a day, every day, by age five, they’ve accumulated over 10,000 hours of listening time. With 10,000 hours of input, you’ll undoubtedly speak a language better than a five-year-old child. The difference lies in willingness—children are forced to absorb input, while adults may become frustrated and give up when unable to understand a new language. Persistence and consistency are key to language learning, but it doesn’t have to be boring. Consider all the activities you enjoy in your native language—you can do them in another language too! The most effective learning tools are those that genuinely interest you. Though they may seem distant initially, with the right resources, you can achieve your language goals. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about my language journey, and I wish you success in yours!
