How I Started Learning a New Language
Hello All,
Using language is the only way we communicate with other people, whether it is via writing or speaking. Most of us are familiar with our mother tongue, right? Because that is what we have from our DNA, right? Sometimes I think about how a small child speaks what their parents speak. I don’t know the exact answer some say they teach them, but I am still confused. Anyway, let’s come back. Most of us are familiar with our mother tongue. But if you think in a business perspective, we rarely speak or use our mother tongue, right?
English has become the de facto language, but for most of us, including me who is writing this blog, English is not the mother tongue. From our schools they teach English — the grammar, stories, essay writing, blah… But we were more focused on getting good marks in English by studying and writing everything in exams. Rarely do we think or try to communicate.
I don’t know about the person reading this blog, but this was my situation until I came to Bangalore. I rarely spoke English; most of my communication happened only in my mother tongue, Tamil.
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But as always, things will change. In my previous blog, I mentioned how my perspective on watching movies changed this year. The same way, I started speaking a lot more English.
The thing to note here is I didn’t go to any tuition or any online class. What I did was I started reading English books, listening to a lot of English videos, writing a blog, and more importantly, I started speaking in English no matter what my English level was. I tried. Even now, I feel I am speaking good. I started giving talks in multiple tech community events in front of a lot of people, which gave me confidence, and English has become my day-to-day language.
Also, another surprise for me is this year I went to New Delhi. I felt very bad about myself because most of them in Delhi or mostly in North India know only Hindi. But in South India, especially in Tamil Nadu, people don’t speak Hindi. I couldn’t speak even one Hindi word when I went to Delhi in August. I couldn’t communicate properly, and I traveled alone so think about the situation. At that moment, I decided that next time if I go to any North India state, I need to be confident enough to speak Hindi. I took this so personally. When I returned back to Bangalore, I installed the Duolingo app when I landed at Bangalore airport. From that day till today, I am learning Hindi daily some new words. Even before writing this blog, I completed a few exercises. It’s been around 94 days of streak in learning Hindi. Another advantage for me is that in my office most of them are from North India, and they communicate in Hindi, so I listen to them when they speak. So next year I will become confident enough to start speaking at least some basic Hindi.
So if you want to learn any language, please install Duolingo. They teach from scratch even if you don’t know anything. The app is really amazing one of the best apps according to me. If you ask me what is the best app you have used in your lifetime, my answer would always be Duolingo.
Most people learn new languages like French or Spanish from Duolingo. Please learn some new language apart from your mother tongue. It always helps in your long run. Just spend 10 minutes of your busy time; the future self will thank you.
Learning Hindi is the only thing I do right now every day because of Duolingo.
What is the next language you want to learn?
See you tomorrow.
