My language struggles and connections

Well, to say this has been a difficult semester personally, would probably be the understatement of the century.

This week has been par for the course.  With losing a second person in my family since January, countless illnesses (both my own and my children’s) it’s starting to feel a bit like I can’t catch a break, but alas, onward and upward I suppose.

I feel like I haven’t looked at Mango in two weeks, let alone practiced with it.  I have managed to meet my daily goal for Duolingo, I have also continued to listen to French radio, and I would say my french conversations have been sub-par as I have not initiated them nearly enough this past week.  I have also failed to practice my french reading this week.

I did however find an interesting article which I  think my classmate Genna may appreciate given the discussion of benefits associated with being bilingual.  Unlike Genna, my daughter is monolingual, but I often question if we made the right decision when we opted to not put her in French Immersion.  She’s almost done grade two and I still question if it was the right choice.

CCO public domain 

While I don’t think I’ll ever be content with our decision, I am confident that she is a motivated learner and I know she would find a way to learn a language if it was important to her.

All of these questions and thinking of my daughter’s learning had me connecting to an idea I owe to my late grandmother, who immigrated from Germany and told me once that she didn’t remember when she stopped thinking in German, and started thinking in English.

I know that in my own language learning journey, I certainly think about what I want to say in English, and then I try and convert it to French.  This had me wondering, at what point does a second language become automatic?   How do our brains work to process more than one language?

I was happy to learn that language learning may increase the size of my brain!  Additionally, I have been reading that learning new skills at any age (however they were looking at language learning specifically), increases the density in brain matter.  Now I know that I can say I’ve been “working my brain out” on a daily basis I feel less guilty about “working my body out” at the gym consistently!

After watching Genna’s vlog this week, I was totally inspired to give it a try myself – and I accept your challenge Vanessa!  Next week – Disney show tunes en francais coming your way!