Hi I am Mrs. Mar from over at
marspicsandmore.blogspot.com, I have been taking part in Amy’s color splash Sunday since nearly the beginning. She approached me to do a guest post on learning a new language.
I do speak 2 languages both accent free, English and German, Or should I say, Kiwi English and Austrian German. I did try and learn a new language French, but the reason a lot of people think that English is my second language is that I have dyslexia. So I have a very hard time remembering how to spell things. If you heard me speak you would never know I spoke two languages or that I have dyslexia. It’s just in my writing that I look like I don’t know what I am doing.
I grew up in New Zealand, my parents moved there when I was 10 months old, I lived there till just before my 17 birthday when I went to Canada as an exchange student.
This is the only place I actually have any concept of learning a new language. I went to Quebec in a little town called Windsor, about 20-30 mins out of Sherbrook. I would definitely recommend being an exchange student; it was such a great time, making new friends and learning a new culture and my attempt at learning a completely new language. I was there for 11 months, when I arrived my vocabulary of French was VERY limited, about Hi my name is…., the weather is…., left right. You get the point, nothing, not enough to talk or understand anything.
The family I lived with was GREAT. I really enjoyed it there, I had 2 younger siblings, though, all in all I did not learn as much French as I had wanted. Part was my fault, I just kept taking the easy way out, speaking English, second I got put in a family where from 3 out of the 4 people could speak English, now would of I been in a family where nobody talked English, I would have had no other choice but to speak and learn French.
After about 6 months there I started to understand what was being said around me, but only a very little bit. I was then lucky that we got a reliever in our French class, where I was definitely not following what was going on. She helped me A LOT, once she found out about my dyslexia and she found a way to
help me learn French and put a program together for me. I have a lot to thank to her for teaching me and taking her time to do this for me, even after our teacher came back, she took me out of class every French lesson to teach me.
By the time I left Canada I could have small conversations and understood most of what was being said, I could follow a conversation and know who was saying what, but not exactly what somebody said. It’s weird, once you start to understand what people are saying but not knowing exactly word for word somebody is saying. Dose that even make sense?
I think what also made learning French harder was me being dyslexic. And I also assume learning to read and write 2 languages at the same time has in one way or another made it even harder to really learn to write properly in either language. When I write something in German, most people think it is because I never learnt to write German, they don’t know my English is just as bad.
Guess this is more about me then learning a new language, but I am definitely not good with written
words. I am a lot better at visual things, taking photos, cooking, making stuff, like the personalized plates I make. I also do a lot of other little crafts. Most not too interesting, But I have a huge box just with MY art stuff.
I also should say my mother proof read this so it makes more since for others to read, as she totally gets what I write and understand it.
So if you are interested in my photography my life and my children please cheek out my
blog.
Mrs. Mar
