BU’s College of Arts and Sciences requires four semesters of a Foreign Language to get your diploma. Some students continue with the language they were learning in high school, while others try something totally unknown. I am taking Arabic this semester, a language with a completely different alphabet than English. Here are the thoughts that go through everyone’s head multiple times in their first semester of a new language.
1. I can do this!
Your teacher is talking to you as if you are two years old and you’re a little annoyed. “Surely this can’t be that hard?” you think to yourself. “I’m a college student. I’ve got this!
2. What is going on?
Suddenly there are letters that look like scribbles and your teacher’s laughing at the sounds you are attempting to make. It feels like you have been transported to another planet.
3. This isn’t so bad
Your class progresses pretty slowly and it’s going okay. You are still confused, but you feel pretty confident you understand some stuff.
4. How can it take this long?
Then one night, your homework doubles and you feel totally overwhelmed. How can a 10 question exercise take you two hours? How can you have studied for so long and only remember three words? You just want to sleep!
5. I don’t understand anything
You feel consumed by this language, desperately trying to fit in time to study, but you are you still so confused. You want to cry, you feel like throwing something and you want to give up.
6. I remember something!
Just as you are about quit, you are able to write a sentence without looking at your book or ask someone a question with decent pronunciation. You feel like you can conquer the world and for a second, everything will be okay.
Until you get the next vocab set that is…