learntolanguage-blog

[learntolanguage-blog]

Who are we?

Hello world! You’ve somehow stumbled across us, and you’re probably wondering - who are we? At least we hope you’re wondering. No? Well, even if you aren’t, we’re going to tell you. But before we introduce ourselves, we’d like to share with you why we’re here.

 Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away, two people met in San Francisco (Hint; it was us). We quickly bonded over our love of Harry Potter (Slytherins, thank you very much), the best Indian food in the city (Pakwan on 16th and Guerrero), and our DEEP reverence for the film Clueless. Through the years life has taken us to different cities, countries, and continents - but our friendship has remained constant.

 On our travels, whether together or apart, we’ve discovered new things, people, and parts of ourselves we never knew existed. We’re here now to share with you the places we’ve seen (and continue to see) as well as the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of language learning.

 So hello! Hallo! Salut! Ciao! Hola! Welcome to Learn to Language. We hope you enjoy the journey as much as we have.

 Selfies with Einstein at the Einsteinhaus in Bern, Switzerland.

  Hi! I’m Beth. I’m from the California Bay Area, but have since relocated to New York City. My grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side came to the United States in the 50’s, and my grandmother’s family on my father’s side came here when she was a little girl. My dad’s dad immigrated to the USA in his 20’s from Switzerland and has since relocated back to Zurich. The concepts of language and travel have never been foreign to me - but, as with many immigrants in America, my grandparents never taught my parents or myself how to speak their native tongues. Instead, I grew up communicating with my extended family through gestures and awkward pointing - we may not have spoken the same language, but we made it work.

 Having family in Europe has meant I’ve gotten to travel a lot. I’ve had Mustafa’s in Berlin, said “when in Rome” in Rome, seen Edelweiss in Switzerland. I’ve also checked my bed for spiders in Australia, went to a sheep-shearing competition in New Zealand, eaten beignets in New Orleans, and much, much more. All my travels have proved one thing - it’s so much better when you can speak the native language.

 In highschool I took Spanish, like most Californians. I didn’t learn much because I was 16 and really obsessed with Justin Timberlake, Orlando Bloom, and some guy in my math class who wrote terrible poetry and played guitar badly, probably (definitely). I didn’t get back into language learning until much MUCH later - picking up Spanish again and forcing myself to SPEAK. I took classes and went to Spanish meetups and really just enjoyed, for the first time, communicating with other people in their native language. I still study Spanish, and have added French as well.

 Language CAN be fun and easy, I promise! Would I lie to you? AS IF.

Me being very important and smart in my office (also in Switzerland, weirdly)

Uh, hey. I’m Gian (pronounced G.N….it’s a long story) I’m originally from California but have been on a whirlwind world tour, running away from becoming a real adult. I’m currently working on a PhD in intercultural communication (aka stuff and things).

My story with language is a bit convoluted. Apparently I grew up speaking Spanish with my grandmother until I was about four and then lost all of it because good Murricans don’t speak anything but the Queen’s English. Also, being brown, my Mom wanted us to assimilate as much as possible so there’s that. After some obligatory high school Spanish classes, I didn’t really do much with language until  started learning German at age 20 because of a boy reasons and then moved to Germany to escape the aforementioned looming adulthood. After doing a Master’s degree that required that I do stuff and things in Berlin, Argentina, and India, I landed here in the land of chocolate, cheese, and dodgy tax maneuvers in order to further my education and eventually (hopefully) become a professor of intercultural communication.

 I’m currently learning Italian, after having learned German and Spanish and dabbled in Arabic and American Sign Language. I have to say, I’m not the most motivated (and motivation is 95% of language learning imo) but I’m making the most out of the classes offered by my university. After I’m done learning Italian, I plan to move on to French, which I have aaaalways wanted to learn. I think it should be chill and hon hon hon and whatnot, especially because I can probably scare up a native-speaker here at my university to talk with once I get good enough.

 AnTyways, this is just a bit of who we are as real, live, actual human persons, travel lovers (lovers of travel..not..uhh..each other), and language learners. So sit back and enjoy all those verbs, nouns, nouns-we-make-verbs, and other forms of wholesome language-related entertainment.