thoughts and expressions

I had an epiphany today that I feel very happy when I’m learning new languages or philosophical texts. It just makes me feel light-hearted. A sense of accomplishment while having no expectations of the end result.

In this instance, I was learning Arabic via Duolingo (and then later, with Pimselur) but this is akin to when I learned that English sentences’ adjectives have an order, a ‘formula’ if you will:

1. quantity or number
2. size
3. age
4. shape
5. color
6. proper adjective (often nationality, other place of origin, or material
7. purpose or qualifier

I’m still trying to understand how to optimally learn languages. Nevertheless my TikTok and Instagram feeds are filled with people learning languages and it’s a great support system.

I’m currently learning:

• Hindi via Duolingo
• Arabic via Duolingo and Pimsleur
• Sanskrit via tutoring
• Telugu via tutoring

Albeit, I’ve taken a pause on Sanskrit and Telugu via tutoring because I’m not putting much effort into learning the alphabet so it’s making learning pretty much moot.

Duolingo is just something for the sake of consistency and gamifying the learning but it does offer some reinforcement for both languages. Hindi because the script between Hindi and Sanskrit is shared. Arabic just for the fun and extra vocabulary while I learn conversational Arabic with Pimsleur. Once I feel more confident with Telugu, since it is my mother tongue, I will get tutoring for Arabic.

The goal is to go to the UAE for vacation at the end of this year and be able to speak with people in fluent enough Arabic.