Language enthusiast Darren: “with the uTalk Challenge you find yourself part of a whole new world”
Another day, another great story from one of our fantastic uTalk Challengers. Darren’s experience sums up exactly what uTalk is all about; you don’t need to learn a lot of a language to make someone’s face light up! Some of the languages Darren’s learnt over the last 12 months include Italian, Japanese, Polish and Icelandic. Read more about his uTalk Challenge adventures, and the brilliant local project he’s setting up in Bristol.
I’m a lover of language. Whether it’s a spoken language such as English or Polish, one of the many sign languages, an ancient unknown script or a fictional language like Klingon or Elvish; if I can find a way, I’ll study it.
When I heard about uTalk Challenge in January of 2016, there was no possible way I wasn’t going to take part. The first language I took was completely random, I asked one of the organisers to choose for me and she chose Polish. Ok, so my first language wasn’t the most difficult as I had studied Polish at Bristol University, but it still took me the whole month to complete – I wasn’t used to the time aspect of the harder levels! I was sure I was going to fail as February reared its head; I couldn’t complete the time section no matter how many times I tried! It was in the last weekend of January that I locked myself away and dedicated hours on non-stop attack on the troubling section until, thankfully, I completed it. And so I was through to round 2!
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My next couple of choices were selected depending on who I was learning with or working with at the time. February was Czech because I had just met someone who agreed to help me learn the language. March was Romanian because I had recently made new Romanian friends and April was Italian because my friend and I had started to learn it, and so on. The longer I remained in the Challenge, the faster I became and the more I found that my ability to remember new words improved. After the first six months it was only taking about half an hour to learn all the words for each new section of a language! The later months’ choices were purely a challenge to myself to see if I could reach outside of my comfort zone and conquer something completely different so I chose Klingon, Korean, Icelandic and Xhosa, among others.
The greatest thing about this particular Challenge is that you suddenly find yourself part of a whole new world. I remember I was collecting my children from school and I overheard someone speaking Romanian so, as I walked by, I said “Good afternoon” in the language. The shocked look on their faces, followed by their smiles and replies made every minute of the Challenge worthwhile. I’ve done similar things in about half the languages I’ve completed now.
I would recommend the Challenge to everyone whether you’re a language nut like me, or just fancy brushing up on some helpful phrases for a coming holiday. With the huge range of languages available you’ll never have trouble finding something you will find interesting and, hopefully, rewarding.
I started looking around Bristol for speakers of other languages and I found a newspaper article about the 91 languages spoken in the city. This eventually led me to starting a project called The 91 Languages of Bristol (imaginative, no?). The main aim of the project is to find out about those people who live in the city and don’t have English as their first language; how they’ve integrated into society, how they view the city, and how they keep their mother tongue alive. It will also give me the opportunity to use some of the things I have learned over the last year and to continue to improve my language skills as well as teach people more about the diversity of this amazing city.
Now it’s your turn! The uTalk Challenge 2017 is open and you can find out more and sign up for free at utalk.com/challenge. This time next year, we could be sharing your story…
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