18th
Unexpected Premature Polyglot History
Once upon a time, arie spoke Bahasa Indonesia as his mother tounge since he was a baby. It’s not purely Bahasa Indonesia, though, it’s mixed with Samarindanese accent, so it’s not really Banjarese, nor really Kutainese. So by defaults, he got 3 languages by his environment. As we remember, Indonesia got 3,000 tribes officially, and from unclarified resource unofficially got more than 130,000 tribes. So, there should not be a wonder for any Indonesian people to be polyglot.
Arie started learning English seriously when he was at first grade Senior High School using autodidactics. He joined English Club called NG (Next Generation = Nothing Impossible) that consisted of various members from many different backgrounds. That way he practiced to speak English everytime he met his friends at NG Club.
At 2nd grade, he started learning French (also by himself). Then he learned Japanese.
But Arie didn’t become sophisticated in those foreign languages based on those foreign language standard (not based on Indonesian people who do not speak those languages).
He still struggled cluelessly practicing using many Japanese resources he downloaded from the net. (oops).
Now (2008) he’s in Kuala Lumpur, where most of people here speak English, he lost his confidence when the first time he arrived in KL, no one uses “R” in KL, but that’s only an unnecessary impression as he continuously gets his English better (still not perfect yet).
He met many blond friends, unfortunately he didn’t use French very much when he got a Native French friend :( Probably because of time….
Now he accidentally starts learning Russian, it’s seems very easy once he grabs an understanding of how to read those Russian letters (compared to English which doesn’t have a stable pronounciation unlike Indonesian language).
Probably the root of reasons why he learns Russian now because he’s afraid if he’s in Indonesia he won’t have as many access to resources just like abroad, although he’s 100% sure he will always go abroad easily.
He also wants to dive deeply in German, but hey, first things first. Russian is just for fun, besides after having a Russian friend could make him feel good, huh ;-) learning other cultures, etc. Who knows in the future he really becomes a guide in Bali *just for fun* and temporary. =))
He still wants to strengthen his English as his first priority though *seriously*. Speaking foreign language is easier than think, react, reflex, count in foreign language.
I like to see one object from different perspective. This is why I like learning many different languages.
Not limited to human languages, if it comes to computer languages, Arie is speechless, needless to speak, just see his source codes when any friends meets him!
