Hi!

[Saerlith]

Hi everyone!

Let me tell you a bit more about myself. I'm a Belgian student, going for a degree as a Dutch/English teacher. I'm 24, I have been living with my boyfriend for two years now (we've been together for three), I sing and play the violin, I'm head of the student counsil, and I do and like a bunch of other awesome things with horses, IT, herbs,... You name it! I actually have far too many interests to be able to do and learn everything I like to its full extent, on the other hand it makes me capable of making conversation about close to anything and it makes me capable of being actually interested in everything anyone has to tell me.

That said, I've recently come to the conclusion that it's about time I started focusing my time and energy. Since I'm to be a language teacher and I've always found knowledge of multiple languages a rather appealing idea, I've decided that there are a multitude of languages I would like to be able to express myself in. As it stands, I already speak Dutch and English. I can manage to produce some French if need be (my passive understanding of the language is much better than my productive skills) and I'm able to somewhat understand written German (though it's pretty much negligible).

Today, I've started with Pimsleur's Japanese I. I wanted to kick off with a language that I find beautiful and which I would love to be able to speak, but which is something comletely different from what I know. I don't want to risk skipping over things, assuming I already know or understand it and I really do need a challenge since I've been having a bit of a stuck-in-a-rut feeling lately. I've enjoyed my first half hour, it turned out to be a lot less scary and far more doable than I had imagined. The method suits my learning style extremely well and I do think I'm going to have a perfectly wonderful time reaching my goals.

I have my very own "language bucket list" if you will. It will never be possible to master all of them, though I would very much like to be able to express myself on a basic level in most. After I have worked through all three Japanese courses, I would like to perfect my French and get German up to at least an intermediate level. After that, it will be hard to chose and I'll see what best suits my needs and cravings of the moment. Among the list of want-to-learn are, in any case, Italian, Korean, Swedish, and Russian.

Hope I'll have a blast here!

Hugs from Belgium. :)