{"id":4386,"date":"2024-03-19T21:43:20","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T21:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.annika-zang.com\/?p=4386"},"modified":"2024-03-28T10:38:06","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T10:38:06","slug":"how-i-came-to-speak-6-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annika-zang.com\/en\/how-i-came-to-speak-6-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"My Language Story – How I Came To Speak 6 Languages"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My Language Journey: How I Came to Speak 6 Languages<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Summary: Over the years, I learned several languages through different methods and stays abroad. Although my experience with each language is different, there\u2019s one thing they all have in common: I learned them from the inside out. In this article, we\u2019re going to dive into how I learned each of my languages and talk about what learning from the inside out means.<\/i><\/em><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Hey ho! To celebrate that I\u2019m now also on the Instagram party, I\u2019d like to reintroduce myself and tell you a little about my language journey and the study methods I’ve been using to learn them.

Let’s dive straight into it!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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French<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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My language journey started at school, where I learned French for 4 years to a B1 level. On top of that, I did a 2-month internship at a hotel in Montpellier when I was 17.<\/p>

To be honest: I had no clue how to learn languages at that time, so my French never got past an intermediate level.

My relationship with French is a little on-off: I sometimes try to get back into it just to drop it a little later. Probably because I haven’t been to any French-speaking country since my stay in Montpellier, and therefore have had no good enough reason to do so. But you know what? When somebody approached me on the street a couple of months ago and asked for the way in French, I could still answer without any problem and even have some kind of conversation.<\/span><\/p>

Why? Because apparently, speaking French every single day for at least 8 hours a day for 2 months simply burned that language into my brain, and these mental pathways are still there 11 years later.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Spanish<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Photo by Mark C<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a> <\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Now, that\u2019s where my real language journey began. At the age of 16, I started my job training as a foreign language correspondent<\/strong> and began learning Spanish. After that, I spent a year in Ecuador<\/strong>, where I did a voluntary service at a school and lived in a fishing village.<\/p>

Even though I officially held that fancy job title that apparently made me a Spanish language expert, my ego crumbled pretty quickly when I arrived at my host family and didn\u2019t understand a single word of what they were saying.<\/span><\/p>

(Past Annika could have used a little research about Spanish accents before throwing herself into a world where people would swallow half of their sentences, so if you want to be more prepared than I was, check out my Guide to Latin American<\/a><\/strong> Accents<\/strong>.<\/span>)<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>

Anyway, I got used to the accent pretty quickly and learned Spanish as I lived, worked and travelled in Ecuador. Instead of textbook vocabulary lists, I learned words like \u201chamaca\u201d (hammock), \u201cmarea alta y baja\u201d (ebb and flow) or \u201cola\u201d (wave).<\/span><\/p>

What’s more, not only do I remember every single word I learned in Ecuador, but also every single situation I learned that specific word in.<\/p>

For example:<\/p>