#anyway feel free to recommend non-english songs and/or expand with your own song that you would say is gender idk!!!!

[uncanny-tranny]

Okay, if I had to simplify my gender into one song, it would absolutely have to be Libiamo ne' lieti calici. Like, I am going absolute feral right now. Do you see this vision of mine.

[janetvillanueva]

On Learning a New Language (+ tips & tricks!)

My fascination with languages began three years ago, in 10th grade. I was fifteen. It sprung up quickly; kind of like a patch of weeds amidst a garden filled with flowers. (This is dichotomy sucks, I know, but it’s the first thing that popped up in my mind and I really can’t think of anything else, try as I might - I’d rather everyone focus on how quickly weeds grow, anyways, and not on how weeds are almost always connoted negatively just because.)

I was enamored with Latin, a long-dead language now commonly spoken only by priests, linguists, teachers, and language enthusiasts. I honestly wished to learn it to the point of conversational proficiency; at the time, however, I believed that the only way I could do so was to find someone to teach me. I knew that I’d never be able to find someone who could do such a thing, and if I did find someone, I most likely wouldn’t have the means to pay for it. My parents wouldn’t be supportive of the idea, because what use would I have for a dead language that no one else within a hundred-mile radius could speak but I?

I could have just taught myself how to, I know, but it just never occurred to me at the time. For a while I familiarized myself with the language by reading adages and proverbs in Latin over and over again, with the likes of aere perennius, in vino veritas, alis volat propriis, and non omnis moriar stuck in my mind, ready to be uttered along with its English translation at a moment’s notice should anyone want to chat with me about the language. By the time Holy Week 2016 rolled around, I’d familiarized myself enough with the words and the sentence structure to understand the gist of the songs sung in Latin during Mass. I kinda lost interest soon enough, though, and started occupying myself with other hobbies - I still kind of ‘get’ Latin to this day, though, if you know what I mean.

Fast forward a few years, and I get the itch to start really learning a language after seeing people on Youtube successfully being able to speak foreign languages just by teaching themselves how to. It just so happened that during that span of time in my life I was genuinely feeling so mediocre about myself - I didn’t know how to play any instruments (I’d previously taught myself the piano, but there’s only so much you can teach yourself before having to need someone to guide you), I didn’t know any other languages but English or Filipino, I wasn’t in any school clubs (my old school used to be so academically-oriented, the only clubs we had were for sports and Senior High School students weren’t allowed to join JHS clubs like DebSoc, The Light, et cetera). In short, my life felt so... stagnant.

The realization that I technically amounted to nothing was enough to push me to start learning Spanish, the world’s second most-spoken language. Right now, while I am by no means proficient (proficiency is subjective, however, and it usually takes years before someone can truly be considered proficient) in the language, I can say that I understand 75% of written Spanish and can probably hold up a short (but slow) conversation in Spanish with someone who speaks it. I’m bad at listening to native speakers, which is probably because I haven’t really trained myself to think in Spanish (it’s a language that’s spoken rapidly, which is why translating while you’re listening to someone is a big no-no, as with any language). This isn’t a great feat, I know, but I’ve had to juggle learning Spanish with other languages, real-life classes, and online classes - and to be frank, right now I have 0 use for it except for watching telenovelas like Maria la del Barrio or movies like Volver (2006) and Y Tu Mamá También (2001).

I suppose that this post would mean nothing if I didn’t at least put a few of the things I did to learn a new language, so here they are:

Duolingo. Duolingo was a huge help when I began learning Spanish. I recommend accessing the platform on a laptop or computer because the mobile application doesn’t offer lectures, just the quizzes themselves with the words underlined to signify that tapping on them will show the word’s translation in English. Lectures are of utmost importance because they explain grammar rules, how verbs are conjugated, what pronouns should be used, etc.

Memrise. Memrise, like Duolingo, is free. I recommend this if you’re looking to expand your vocabulary, because it focuses more on words rather than fine-tuning one’s grammar.

Download a language-learning book online, or buy one. I read Easy Spanish Step-by-Step by Barbara Bregstein to better understand grammar rules and to increase vocabulary as well. I used this book hand-in-hand with Duolingo, because there are times wherein Duolingo doesn’t explain everything that well, which can be really confusing. The downside to relying solely on a book, however, is that you wouldn’t really know how some words are pronounced because you’re just reading them and relying on your own intuition.

I’m also using a book entitled Instant Spanish Vocabulary Builder by Tom Means, which I bought in BookSale for a mere P180.

Enroll in a class. I’m currently taking Basic Spanish 2 in la Universidad de Valencia in Spain. It’s an online class, and it’s completely free. While I believe that my Spanish skills have well surpassed what’s taught in class (because I only enrolled when I was in the last tier of my language tree in Duolingo), going back to the basics and mastering everything before taking on harder topics is essential and helps in language mastery.

Watch cartoons, TV shows, and movies in your target language. I recommend watching cartoons first, most especially kids’ cartoons like Peppa Pig and Dora the Explorer. It’s imperative that you watch these without subtitles - but if you do watch them with subs, the subtitles should be in your target language. I used to watch Rick and Morty in Spanish on Netflix and Los Simpsons, which I downloaded.

Keep a daily journal, which you must write in using the language you’re learning. I used to use my bujo for this, and I wrote daily - usually during class because I was perpetually bored. Writing in your target language helps you think in that language; it also informs you of what areas you need to improve on and the words you need to learn as well as grammar.

Immerse yourself in the language. You can do this by changing your phone’s language to Spanish (or your target language), reading news in that language (I usually read news from El País and CNN en Español), following Twitter accounts or liking Facebook pages that post in Spanish, looking through Spanish trends, etc. 

There are a lot of other things one can do to learn a new language - in the end, what matters is what works for you. This post is probably already way too long, but I guess it makes up for the three or so months I’ve been gone (?) hehe. I’m aware that I really do need to be more active on Tumblr, but sometimes there just isn’t anything going on in my life that’s worth writing about, and I fear writing and publishing posts that are absolute trash and aren’t beneficial to anyone in any way.

That being said, ¡adiós!