Day 242

I can't believe I am learning a new language.

I first learned English when I was six or seven years old. It was my mother who first introduced me to this 'mainstream' language. Ha-ha. She even invited my schoolmates to learn together after school. Back in those days, my primary school didn't offer this lesson until grade three. Eventually, my mother received more students and she (with my father's offer to help) established an English course for children and teenagers. My siblings and I learned English at her place until it was time for us to go to college. In short, it took more than 10 years to be confident (not yet proficient, though) using English more frequently and finally considered it as a second language, instead of a foreign language.

Besides English, I have also learned Mandarin in primary school and in high school for a few years and French for a couple of years. But I've never believed to be a person with linguistic gift. In fact, it's been about seven years since I was forced to contend with a language other than Bahasa Indonesia and English.

Once or twice, it occurred to mind the thought of whether or not I would be learning another language more seriously. Would it be French again? Or Spanish? Or something even more foreign like Arabic or Greek? More important questions are: do I still have the capacity to learn a new language, and what for?

Fast forward to this month, an opportunity to make that thought possible came. It still feels odd right now. In fact, sometimes I find myself staring at those sets of bizarre word, asking myself am I really doing this?

Then again, I must agree with this: Eine Sprache ist niemals genug.

Or, in my case, two are not enough.