I have grand plans for this linguistic obsession of mine. Some may say foolish plans. It seems to be en vogue these days to want to learn an absurd number of languages and I’m no exception to the absurdities.
Instead of listing the why and the how, I’ll just list 20 languages that are on my possible hit list… in a rough order of interest (but some are just pipe dreams)… The ones already crossed off are done so because I’m happy with the level achieved and have no plans to actively further myself. As for the remainder, some will be culled, some will be encouraged… others may be late additions… but for now, my top 20:
- English
- Tok Pisin
- Korean
- Japanese
- French
- Russian
- Mandarin
- Polish
- Spanish
- Arabic
- Indonesian
- Malay
- Catalan
- German
- Hungarian
- Turkish
- Italian
- Portuguese
- Persian
- Taiwanese
In reality, I can see the next 4-5 years of my life being dedicated to language learning before I tackle my PhD… and the plans are to cross off Korean, Japanese and French from the list at the very least as these are well are on the way already. Aside from these 3, my main focus will be on either Russian or Mandarin.
Through my language learning I attempt to will detail things I try out; successes, failures, notes of interest, material reviews, and the sporadic target language entry – written, oral or maybe even video.