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Belated Introduction | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Members profiles |  | |
| Jappy58 Bilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 4628 days ago 200 posts - 413 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, Guarani*, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi), Arabic (Written), French, English, Persian, Quechua, Portuguese Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 3 21 June 2012 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey all, I've been registered here for a few months but it was until now that I found out there was a specific subforum for introducing one's self, so I thought I'd go ahead and do so.
I'm in my lower 30s; I was born in Paraguay (Asuncion, more specifically), and grew up there, living in Asuncion and Ciudad del Este up until I was 13 years old. As such, I grew up with Guarani and Spanish as my native languages. Furthermore, since part of one side of my family came has ties to Ecuador, Quechua was another language I learned at a young age, though it took time for me to get as comfortable with it as I was with Spanish and Guarani. At age 13, my family had an opportunity to move to the United States, and since then, we have lived in this country. Due to my moving, I had to learn English - alongside my parents - at that age. I grew comfortable with it within 5-6 years, thanks to my teachers at the time and from all the support I got, though I wouldn't say it's perfect. It was at age 18 that I embarked on my journey of learning Arabic (I had been developing an interest in the language since I was 16, but was focusing on English still at the time). I had been drawn to it because 1) I had three Arab friends at the time (one from Morocco, another from Egypt, and another from Palestine); 2) I saw the script and thought, "WOW! That looks like fun!" and 3) I listened to it often and found that I liked the way it sounded. As I studied Arabic, I grew to become very captivated by the culture, and as a result my interest in the language was reinforced. I started with MSA, simply because at the time it was the most logical (no resources, plus I wasn't completely aware there were so many dialects until months later). My first 18 months were only somewhat productive, since school kept me very busy and since it was my first language that I was learning for pure interest, but after that, I continued studying MSA for about 3 more years. Along the way, I would learn just a little about a few of the dialects and thought I'd go on to study the Moroccan dialect first, and then head for Egyptian and other dialects. Once that point in time came, I gathered some resources for the Moroccan dialect(s), but to my dismay, there were very few resources, and they only got me past the very basics. I had one Moroccan friend who was very willing to help, but he had to move elsewhere, so in a few months I wasn't going to have him around. As a result, after 4-5 months, I decided to save Moroccan for later and study the Egyptian (Cairene, in this case) instead. Resources were also not as common, but there was more than for Moroccan, so I pressed on. I luckily had three Egyptian friends at the time, so this was a great help, and the courses helped me get much past the basics. The transition from MSA to Egyptian was initially bumpy, but the commonalities soon came and I found that from there it went a little more smoothly. After five months, I had an opportunity from the university I was attending to visit Egypt, more specifically Alexandria. I just had to go. :D Although the dialect varied a little from Cairene, I found that the dialect was very useful, and with my command of MSA, I was having a great time. We were there for a whole semester, and at the end, I found that my command of the dialect greatly improved. About 13 months had passed since I had started learning Egyptian, and I felt that I would try Moroccan again. This time I had more luck, and later on, I had another travel opportunity (albeit a little shorter) to Morocco, and I grew more comfortable with the dialect as well. Afterwards, I started checking out Levantine, Iraqi, Gulf, Hijazi, and Yemeni as well. I had most success with Levantine and Iraqi, since resources were still especially scarce for the other dialects. After Arabic, I tackled Persian. I've also looked at Kurdish a little in between, but I only achieved a A2 or B1 level, due to poor resources. More recently, I learned French to a good level, and am now studying Portuguese. I hope to study (Modern) Hebrew later on, as well as Turkish, Aymara, Catalan, Berber, and...so on. :P I like travelling, love nature and culture, reading, writing, hiking, etc. I have found this forum to be generally interesting, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask. :) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5252 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 3 22 June 2012 at 1:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Belated welcome to the forum, @Jappy58! I've enjoyed reading your posts and look forward to seeing more of your contributions here. If I can help you with my experience learning Portuguese, please let me know.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jappy58 Bilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 4628 days ago 200 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Guarani*, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi), Arabic (Written), French, English, Persian, Quechua, Portuguese Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 3 of 3 22 June 2012 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks! I'll certainly ask you for help whenever I have questions regarding Portuguese. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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