We’re almost at the end of the decade and it’s time to reflect on my language learning, not only from this year, but from the whole decade!
A decade ago, I could only speak English, Scots, fluent Spanish & Italian, good Portuguese and basic Norwegian. Fast forward another 10 years and I have learned several more languages that have enhanced my life in many ways.
Which New Languages Have I Learned?
In the last decade, I have been able to learn a range of languages. As well as maintaining my existing languages listed above, I now speak French and Catalan to a good level, intermediate level German, Afrikaans and Greek in addition to learning enough Arabic, Chinese, Slovak and Russian for my travels. I also did 3 month language challenges in Sicilian, Gaelic, Napulitano, Greko (Calabrian Greek) and Welsh and made 15 minute conversation videos with my teachers. One summer, I did a challenge to take one lesson in 11 new languages and I made a video at the end. I also read more about historical languages and went to London to learn Old English. You can read about that trip here.
I have travelled to over 50 countries, most within the last decade, and put my language skills to good use. Being able to speak these languages while travelling in the country has definitely made my travel experiences very rewarding.
Changes in Technology
This decade I learned so much more than in the previous decade purely because of language lessons on skype which I can book on websites such as Italki and Verbling. Smartphones have also been a huge help in my language learning. I can now learn languages on the go, watch foreign language videos, use apps, even take skype lessons on my phone. I created an online Scots Language Course with Language Boost which comes with audio and built-in Anki flashcard decks.
Language Events
This decade saw the launch of worldwide language events that I attended. The Polyglot Conference where I gave a presentation on Scots and Gaelic in Japan, Langfest in Montreal where I presented on Gaelic and ‘The Other Languages of Italy‘ and the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin and Bratislava where I did 6 week challenges to learn Slovak and Urdu. The last year of the decade saw the very first Scots Language Awards held in Glasgow.
UN Year of Indigenous Languages
2019 was the official UN Year of Indigenous Languages. These languages were promoted, taught and celebrated far and wide with many events big and small taking place. I asked my friends in the Polyglot Community which indigenous languages they had been learning, writing and recording. You can read about that and watch some of our videos over HERE.
The Next Decade
My plans for the next decade will start by learning some more Egyptian Arabic and Russian for travel purposes. I will continue regularly using my best 7 languages: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Catalan, German and Afrikaans as well as continuing to learn Greek. I also plan to complete another Old English course.
I will also continue promoting and writing in Scots, my native language, and learning more about the other Scots dialects that are different from my own (eg Shetlandic). As for new languages, who knows? I doubt there will be as many as the last decade but that depends on my travel plans.
The Most Useful Website For Me
Italki is the website where I find my tutors for my Skype lessons. Some lessons can cost just $5 for 30 minutes. You can register on this link here and after taking your first paid lesson, you will receive $10 of credits to use towards another lesson.
Which languages have you learned in the last decade? Let me know in the comments!
The Bilingual Backpacker 
You have done well on improving those languages. Yes, podcasts, foreign drama on Netflix etc, we didn’t have those a decade ago either!
Great news! I hope you can manage another trip to Asia!
Great accomplishments for the decade!
I didn’t really start any new languages this decade. I spent the whole decade improving some languages I had started previously. This decade I worked on improving my Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese. I had some forays into improving Classical Chinese. Finally, I dabbled a bit in improving Spanish. As the decade progressed I was really amazed at all the new resources I was able to use to learn languages online and the breadth of languages that were increasingly available to study.
Mandarin was mostly in maintenance mode for most of the time, but I improved it a lot through using it in my work and to a lesser extent in my personal life. I was probably B2 when the decade began and now I’m more like C1. I especially improved my listening skills. I tried to do occasional activities in Mandarin such as attending lectures and screenings of movies and I went to Toastmasters in Mandarin for a while. For example, I just went to a lecture on Chinese e-commerce in Mandarin yesterday. I also occasionally listened to podcasts in Mandarin and I went to church in Mandarin for a while, like in the previous decade. I did not actually ever finish reading a whole book in Standard Chinese until this decade. I read three books when I had to travel to Vietnam for three weeks in 2015. They weren’t really difficult to read. I haven’t had much time to read since then. I did do some sporadic reading from literary journals. For my work, of course, I read lots of stuff, but mostly short articles. I went through periods where I was listening to radio dramas online and listening to news broadcasts.
Cantonese was probably A2 when the decade began and maybe now I’m B2. After pausing live one-on-one Cantonese lessons with turors and language exchange partners around 2008 I began again with iTalki in 2014 and I continued for about 2 years. I restarted doing passive learning of Cantonese in 2012 when I discovered Innovative Language’s Cantonese site and thought it looked just like what I had been looking for for years. I practiced listening to Cantonese learning dialogues and podcasts. I did language exchanges on Tandem. I got a lot of experience in my daily life starting in 2016 when my in-laws moved in with my family. I have watched numerous movies and some TV dramas in Cantonese this decade. I also has gone through TV main periods where I watched the news in Cantonese or listened to the news on the radio.
My Vietnamese was not even A1 when I began the decade, but now it’s probably B1. I don’t get to speak Vietnamese on a daily basis but I do my best to use it when I can. Sometimes I would travel to areas nearby where there were lots of Vietnamese, although usually I couldn’t really get a sustained conversation going. I didn’t really start working on Vietnamese again until January of 2014. I have done online lessons in Vietnamese since 2014. I have also done many language exchanges in Vietnamese, both on Tandem and arranged through other sites to take place on Skype. I have watched numerous Vietnamese learning videos on Youtube, listened to numerous Vietnamese learning podcasts, and I have watched vlogs and other things. I have read close to 100 newspaper articles in Vietnamese and started reading some simple stories in the last few months.
Classical Chinese is kind of hard to rate on the CEFR scale, but I did improve it by reading more prose, as opposed to poetry which I had spent the previous decade on. It was fairly sporadic. I got through about 3/4 of the Art of War.
Spanish I didn’t really improve any, I think, although I sporadically dabbled in it.
I never really took up Japanese again after I had set it aside more most of the previous decade.
Similarly, I did not do any studying of Hokkien during this decade after I quit it in the middle of the last decade.
What a picture!
Hi Máirín. Nice to see your blog. To answer your question. I’m still working on Japanese, Chinese and Spanish. I’m considering to throw Russian and French into the mix, if I can find the time for them. Emmanuel reignited my interest in Chinese, and I’ll likely soon start some Chinese practice with my old teacher, who also happens to be my friend.