When
I was growing up and thinking about my career, everything came to my mind from
being an actor till becoming a pilot. I never thought of learning a language
and earning money through it. The movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD) released
in the same year (2011). I saw them traveling through Spain and having a
conversation in Spanish, just a random thought of traveling to a country and
speaking their language came to my mind. It was luring but I had no idea how to
do it. The same year I joined merchant navy and forgot about it completely. Things
didn’t go well and I quit my job after some time. I was back home with no
career and just Rs.1 lac savings with me. I was sitting on a couch and ZNMD was
playing, the same thought came and this time looked more believable. I had
nothing to do so I went online and searched for the best Spanish Institute in
Delhi. The page displayed Instituto Cervantes & I was there within next 2
hours for the enrollment.
I
got enrolled the same day and got to know that Spanish is divided into levels, starting
from A1 till C2. Each level had 2 sub levels and further classifications. If
you want to know the entire learning process please let me know in comments. I
will make a separate blog on duration and tips on learning Spanish. Coming back
to the topic, it took me approximately 1 year to complete my B1, I was able to
find a decent job with this level and further completed level B2 while working.
I
was able to prove myself that you can earn through your passion, this made me
do some more research on languages. After the research I decided to learn
Portuguese which again is a romantic language and it shares approximately
60%-70% of the vocabulary. I was excited again and it didn’t take me long to be
an intermediate in the language. To be honest it took me just 6 months to reach
very near to the fluent level Portuguese. Career prospects started to become
even wider and few companies offered me even better package. One thing was sure
that I was never sitting idle, my curiosity grew & I was so excited to know
that I could talk to the American continent after learning Spanish &
Portuguese.
After
Learning Spanish & Portuguese, I wanted something challenging. Sitting
between the language folks I was watching a Japanese movie, I heard them saying
Japanese is very tuff and you can’t do it by yourself. That was the time I
thought of challenging myself and learning Japanese. By reading about the
language I got to know about the culture & I found it very interesting. I
was working at a BPO, graveyard shift and I studied Japanese by myself. Within
a year I was able to clear level N3 which is intermediate. I got a job which
paid me even better.
Something
which looked like a dream, I was in Japan and talking to the natives in
Japanese. This was a moment where you feel all the hard work that you did was
worth it. I was able to read the scripts and understand the announcements. Till
now I have traveled to 15 countries by myself. I am studying German now & I’ll
continue to follow my passion of learning languages.
I
hope I could convince you a little bit on learning languages. If you liked my
journey, please put the comment down below. If you have any question related to
any foreign language just ask in comments. I will definitely try to solve all
your problems.
Cheers!
