Hi, I am Alessandra.
I am Italian and I am 37 years old.
Long story short, I studied:
French, Middle School, 3 years.
English, High School, 5 years.
Spanish, University, 3 years.
Danish, University, 3 years.
Romanian, University, 1 semester.
(You know it means 2 or 3 classes a week, plus homeworks to pass the final exams).
Kanji/hanzi has charmed me for the last five years, so I have studied:
Japanese, Private School, 80 hours.
Chinese, Private School, 20 hours.
(Plus hours of self study, srs, vocabulary lists, etc.).
I also learnt Hangul, Cyrillic and Greek alphabets for pleasure, but I quickly forgot the most because I haven't used them in any active way.
Last May I passed HSK1 (Chinese language certification).
They say it is A1, but you know is less (only 150 words and basic grammatical rules, no spoken skills checked).
Now I am slowly studying for HSK2 (next April or May).
It is only for fun because the first useful level is number 3, but I think it is easier for me to use HSK as a path to follow and to track and check my progress.
I also need to improve my English because I can't speak it.
I learned it when I was a teen-ager, years before the Internet era: I had access only to some music and many books. It means I've never use it actively, and worst thing I internalized wrong pronunciation, so I'm still mispronouncing many basic words.
My written English is really basic, but I read it every day because it is my window to the world (music, movie, other languages).
My problem with this language is I really need it to find a better job, but I don't like it. This pressing motivation seems to be not enough to make me study. I'd like to be a confident B2 speaker...
And now I am here.
I don't know if I will track my progress with Chinese and English, but after a year lurking your posts I thought it was a good time to tell you something about me.
Thanks for your time!
Statistics: Posted by shandra — Sat Nov 12, 2016 10:28 pm