Me… Duolingo

[arthur_p_dent]

Today has been a bit of a roller coaster. A decent start, some annoying but necessary responsibilities, and a couple things that really pissed me off. So, let’s see if we can end the day on a bit of an upswing. 

Duolingo / languages / language learning is not on my list of interests. Frankly, I had been relatively apathetic towards the subject for the bulk of my life. But a little over a year ago I decided that it was time to broaden my horizons a bit. I am learning Dutch.

Why Dutch, you ask? Well, like so many of my anecdotes, this one has its roots far in the past. But not just my past - this time I have to start all the way back when my father was a lad.

My dad was born in a small rural town in the Netherlands. When he was 3 or 4, just after his first sibling was born, the family moved here to Canada, and over the years four additional siblings came along. Now, all of my aunts and uncles, having grown up entirely in Canada, embraced their Dutch heritage. Several married with other Dutch-Canadians, and all passed along varying degrees of that heritage to their own children. At least half of my cousins are fluent in Dutch (Frisian, actually), since they were raised speaking both languages.

However, my dad was the anomaly. He arrived here at almost school age, and in order to fit in with the other children, he made every effort to be as Canadian as possible, as quickly as possible. Learning English and eliminating his accent were a big priority. Outside of the house he never spoke a word of Dutch, he married a very Canadian woman, and during my entire youth I can’t recall ever hearing him speak a word of Dutch. In fact, it wasn’t until my grandmother’s 65th birthday party that I heard him speaking with the rest of the family and realized that he was still fluent after all those years.

That realization had been sitting with me for a lot of years. But growing up prior to the technology boom of the 21st century meant that learning a new language came with a lot of obstacles and commitments, which I could never resolve myself to overcome. Then came the “free time” afforded to us all by Covid, and my introduction to Duolingo. I figured if I didn’t take that opportunity to start, then I probably never would.

So I started last August, and hit the 1-year mark a few weeks ago. I’m honestly extremely surprised that I’ve made it this far without giving up on it. As of tomorrow I will have fully completed section 5, and I’ll start working towards my level 2 golden owl. I’m by no means fluent, or even conversational for that matter. I can generally understand what’s being conveyed by most written sentences, and that’s likely about as far as I’ll progress. But I’m OK with that. Sure, if I had my druthers I would have wanted to learn it from childhood, but last time I checked time travel still isn’t a thing.

For now, I’m quite happy with the progress I’ve made, and we’ll see just how far it ends up going. =]