New Lessons Learnt

I was proven wrong with some of my conceptions recently. Let me explain. Because languages are one of my passions, my spirit had said, two things pertaining to languages are damn easy and strangely, my mind agreed to it. Woo-hoo, my heart and mind finally agreeing on a point! Most of my days end up with an irresolvable dispute between the two and that they both coming down for a reconciliation can be nominated as a wonder of the world! Forget their endless fights, for now. I hope to blog on them when I feel the time is right.

Number one. A thought that existed in my mind, not sure since when, is that language teaching is a cool thing. And to teach your own mother tongue to someone totally strange to it is not a daunting task, either. To merely perceive things when not putting them into practice, is easy, correct? And there came an opportunity to teach my mother tongue to a foreigner and I wanted to utilize it - not for money, I bet. Engrossed in setting up a teaching plan, I was enthralled at how difficult it is to teach someone a language, although the language has been blended so well with your life. I also got to know myself that each language is unique, beautiful and has its own toughness in learning. And at the end, I had to lose the opportunity, just because I was not a professional tutor. I am not regretting it, for it has got me a good learning, changing my perception. Some day if I were given a similar opportunity, I surely will opt for it again, but this time knowing that it requires patience and practice.

Number two. Whenever I watched subtitled audio/video or even movies, it never struck me that transcribing isn't easy. My recent experience proved me how difficult it is. Believe it or not, it takes hours to perfectly transcribe a simple audio/video of 5 minutes duration. Since then, the way I look at subtitling is reversed altogether.

The motive behind sharing these two experiences is just to reflect on how reality is different from imagination. Appearance can many times be deceptive, whether the insight is from your mind or heart otherwise sometimes from within both!