Saaaame boat except my parents dont know it either. My grandma stopped the language at her to help her kids assimilate easier and I am bitter af!!
Yeah, it's very silly. Would have been a great skill to have. And like, MY MOM IS WHITE AND SHE SPEAKS IT, why couldn't they just teach us, come on! The only time they did speak it in the house was if they didn't want us to know what they were talking about
Lol yeah all of my mexican-american friends had parents who only allowed them to speak Spanish in the house and I've always been jealous. They all want me to learn Spanish so I can smack talk with them lmao but it's hard to learn as an adult. I've tried on and off and I listen to Spanish music/shows and I can pick up some but obv not close to fluent. I try to remember it was a different time and speaking Spanish back then was less valued in US society and more grounds for discrimination but I'm still bitter lol.
yeh my parents only let us speak Spanish at home until I was decently old enough to grasp the language well and they needed my help to refine their English. I hated it at the time but v thankful now
Interesting, I love hearing all the varying view points. My ex's mom was from peru and I always thought it was so sad and almost disrespectful that none of her kids made any effort to learn spanish. I know it should have been on her technically but it's her first language so she's obviously more comfortable with it, and her mom only speaks it, so if I was her kid I would have put the effort in to learn it so I could converse with them and the rest of my family.
Bumping a very dead thread but was curious if anyone here spoke Japanese? I've been learning on and off for a few years and even took a class at a local college when I was in high school, but it'd be helpful to have a speaker to practice with. Kind of hard to find Japanese speakers where I live lol. I really need a way to reinforce what I learn.
Like, if I were in a Japan I could still introduce myself, ask how much stuff cost, and stuff like that. But my memory is basically shot. Never practiced. I plan on teaching English there tho so I know eventually I’ll be forced to pick it up but right now I’m lazy
Jet program? I want to do something like that too but I have my SO to consider, so picking my life up and going somewhere on my own for a job that pays less than what I make now seems selfish. I think I am gonna apply for the MEXT scholarship this year though and try to go for my master's in Japan because that at least feels like it'll be a better sell to him...
Yeah, I plan on doing JET. I feel that. The prospect of moving to Japan put a strain on one of my relationships (though it certainly was not the only thing ha.) That’s partially why I’m intent on being single for awhile lol. But as I told my gf at the time, I would rather go and have it mean the end of our relationship than stay and eventually be resentful, ya know?
I don't blame you. I didn't apply for JET the past 2 years I've been eligible and I admittedly feel a bit down about it. I did talk to him about this and told him that it's my dream to live there at least for a little while. If I was on my own I'd have applied to JET or just moved there somehow already. He is in the military so it makes it pretty difficult to plan a life overseas when he is contractually obligated to be in the states once a month. But he's also incredibly understanding and would not stop me from pursuing my dreams if I got accepted into a program. MEXT is very competitive though. So is JET! You're still in school, right? Will that be what you try to do afterwards?
friendsinjapan.com It’s made for penpals and I’ve been friends for over 6 years with a person I met on it. Many people on that site want to practice languages with English speakers. Help them English and they’ll help you with Japanese. A considerable amount of Japanese girls use tinder to practice languages with guys that they match with instead of pursuing relationships. Being that you’re outside of Japan, you’d have to pay but Friendsinjapan requires payment as well.
Thank you for the suggestion! I am getting this when I try to go to that website: I don't mind paying but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable using Tinder for that since I am in a relationship and I'm not sure I could explain my inteions well enough.
That’s odd that friendsinjapan isn’t working. You can try Oh My Japan | Learn Japanese.Make lifelong friends. I haven’t used it but the homepage states that 71% of users are seeking to advance their language skills through the site. r/LearnJapanese on reddit might consist of users looking to speak Japanese with others. I would also recommend downloading the app LINE if you want to have lengthy conversations with people who live in Japan. It’s used more than any other form of social media there.
Ahhh, I see. Well, I hope y’all can work something out! And yeah, originally I had planned to go right after school but I wanna take a break from life and do some traveling and stuff. Probably looking at 2021-22 for Japan
Thank you, I signed up for that site, hopefully it's not creepy lol. I do go on reddit but mostly just browse, I should dig deeper. Thanks I will check out LINE! Sounds awesome, take the time while you're single lol.
Just stumbled across this thread. I’m fluent in Dutch, English, German and Swiss-German. I also took Spanish, Latin and French over the course of my life, but sadly my skills in those aren’t worth mentioning, haha. Lately I have been thinking about learning Italian, because I have a Ticino background from my father’s side of the family, but the language was more or less lost to the family when his mother died when he was a kid. Learning a language is such a pain though.