Language Bubble

About Language Bubble: Language Bubble has been put together as a kind of portal for both language learners and language teachers. There are plenty of blogs that focus on one or the other, but they rarely focus on both. I decided to try to make a difference and create a place where both students and teachers could come together and find common ground; learn from one another.

About Andee: My name is Andee, obviously… I’m originally from the UK of Polish heritage and we emigrated to Australia when I was a child. I hold degrees in Asian Studies, TESOL and Applied Linguistics. I have been involved in TEFL/TESL since 2005 in both Australia and Korea and currently lecture at a university in Korea.

When it comes to language learning, I’ve been interested my whole life. Coming from a multilingual background exposed me to the possibilities from a young age and my grandfather is a man I greatly admire; he was an interpreter during the war and was almost flawless in Polish (native language), English, German, Russian and Czech… they are the ones that at I’m aware of. The military even wanted to relocate him to the US before my mother was born for some reason… but where would that leave me?

Sadly, we were never raised in a truly bilingual fashion with Polish because of my grandfather’s fear of reprise after the war. So it was up to me to study on my own when it came time. My first opportunity actually came through primary school where because of some form of academic achievement – or the teachers just wanting to get rid of me for a few hours a week – I was offered the chance to take part in an extension program outside of school with classes ranging from astronomy to chess…. I chose French because I had been to France as a child before coming to Australia.

Language History: I studied French for that final year of primary school (age 11-12) with the most memorable lesson being when a classmate tried remembering ‘mardi’ and said ‘merde’. I still recall my Mauritian teacher fondly and in some strange way, he’s still a man I wish to emulate in the classroom.

Starting high school meant starting a different language as my school – a sporting college – offered Italian or Japanese. I chose Japanese and loved the first semester. We learnt how to write in something completely alien to us and I had a thirst for more. Although, the problem with sports college is that it’s uncool to enjoy anything outside of phys.ed… so I faded into the background. And by age 14, Japanese was no more.

My grandfather passed away. We went back to Poland via Germany.
I loved being in both countries as it meant I had to speak something other than English and that sparked my enthusiasm. However, when returning to Australia it was a ridiculous notion that you could actually study a language without a teacher, so that was crushed.

I secretly read the French, German and Polish books that littered the shelves from my parents own language quests in their foolish youth. But not speaking destroyed me inside and the reading slowly stopped.

Come age 21 and I thought it about time to pick up French again. I studied sporadically on my own with no idea of how to actually study on my own. I failed again but languages remained the ultimate quest for me. Somehow, somewhere I would learn. I very nearly booked a one way ticket to France and spent all my hard-earned savings on language school. I partially regret the decision not to, but if I did do that, my life would be vastly different… and I’d regret not having my life as it is now.

So, by age 22 I couldn’t hold back anymore. I escaped from art school with the intention of studying language at university… Naturally, the dream was French with a hint of Spanish. My university offered both French and Spanish but I wanted a change of scenery… I transferred universities with the hope of rekindling my relationship with Japanese and starting a new one with Mandarin. The university wouldn’t let me take both simultaneously… I was distraught.

After much thinking and reading about varying situations I decided that Mandarin would be my main focus but which other language? Indonesian or Korean? I chose Indonesian but one day before class started I switched to Korean. I couldn’t even place Korea on the map!

So, one semester into my quest and Mandarin was disagreeing with me passionately. I just couldn’t dedicate enough time to memorisation of the characters. If it was a spoken course I would have succeeded, but alas… I didn’t have enough hours in the day to work and study Mandarin in conjunction with Korean and the rest of my linguistics study, which included Tok Pisin. I withdrew to solely focus on Korean; which ironically was my last choice but became my number one in every other way.

In 2004, I was a little bored so I participated in an Arabic short course, which whet my appetite for that monumental challenge down the track.

2005 saw me first taste Indonesian, which I am also deeply in love with and have continued studying on my own on a low light since. 2005 also saw me become an exchange student for the first time in my life when I attended Yonsei University in Korea for a semester of language and cultural immersion. It was magnificent and consolidated my love affair with all things Korean.

My time at Yonsei was heaven for me as it had me meeting a lot of foreign students and had me attempting to communicate in French, German, Polish and Indonesian. Regarding Korean study, my teachers were amazing. I did test poorly on the entrance exam in the listening section and as a result was put into a low level class where I learnt little new material. The area where this helped me the most was automacity in speaking and pronunciation. And I just hope that someday I can be as well informed about English as my main Yonsei teacher was with Korean.

I returned to Perth in 2006 via Malaysia with the realisation of just how similar Malay and Indonesian really are. I studied intently but in reality… studied very inefficiently. I had 3 years of serious language study behind me now but with no knowledge of how to actually do it. University opened the language door for me, but it didn’t furnish the house. I spent the next year refining my techniques and not really learning anything other than how to study. During this time I made a lot of Korean friends and while I didn’t open a textbook per se, learnt a lot of intricacies that aren’t taught.

In 2007 I needed a kick in the pants so did a lot of travelling. I spent a bit of time in Indonesian living with a friend and her family and travelling around Jawa. I spent a good deal of time in Singapore with Chinese and Malay-speaking friends. And also tasted Korea in the form of a holiday to visit friends and see if I could make the permanent switch over there.

So.. 2007 until the end of 2008 saw me move to Korea with my Korean partner. I taught kindergarten students bilingually and everyone else almost English-only. I studied a lot of grammar and drank a lot of colloquial conversation out in Gangwon-do. This year didn’t see me make great leaps and bounds in my speaking ability compared to before, but my ability to follow a full-speed conversation increased significantly.

My first visit to Japan in mid-2008 had me loving Japanese from the moment I stepped off the boat and I promised myself that Japanese was my next mountain to conquer. Upon my return to Korea I began studying a little, just as I also studied Spanish a little. My main focus in Korea was still Korean.

My partner and I returned to Perth in December 2008 for me to conduct post-graduate research and we began studying Japanese together. Japanese became my main focus and took a lot of my time. French, Spanish, Polish and Indonesian/Malay took up a little of my time and all progressed slowly-slowly.

Today, in April 2011, we are happily living in Korea where I use Korean daily but not yet at a level that I’m happy with. I continue with my active studies in Japanese and French, and also use Indonesian and Malay on a regular basis online. My main challenge these days is German; a language I have come to understand is what I need for my professional development in the next few years. I study intently and am aiming at sitting the C2 level certification later this year.

Languages studied: Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, Polish, French, Spanish, Tok Pisin.
Languages studied somewhat: Mandarin, German, Malay, Arabic, Italian, Thai.