Does English count?

First a word about English.

English is my strongest language. Your's too, probably, if you are reading this. However, it wasn't my first language. It was the second language that I learned (and the fourth. More on that later). In other words, I'm not starting out from scratch. For the sake of argument, let's say that I'm at the 99% level.

If that is so, then what ought to be the best way for me to get better?

Well, to me it seems obvious that the best way is by reading. It makes sense to read a lot, and widely. There are certainly other ways of going about it, but surely reading would be the core component of any English improvement program.

The ABCs of multi-lingual-ism

It happens to be the start of 2020 as I put pen to paper (well, it was). The time feels right to start a new blog. It's time for a New Year's resolution. It's time for a challenge. A language acquisition challenge.

Initially, I thought of setting a 365-day goal. But I feel that would be too gimmicky - it doesn't feel authentic. Plus, I have life that I'd like to live alongside of this project. Life-work balance and all that.

So I'll take it fairly easy. I've no problem with that - I've already opted to work only part time (0.6). And in a couple of years I'll be eligible to retire. All in all, I'm not going to turn this into a big deal. I wish to spend no more than a couple of hours per day on this exercise. In terms of language-learning, therefore, I'll see how I fare with just a few languages, not too many. I'll settle for an even dozen.

I've selected them according to the alphabet. They each start with a different letter, so that'll make it easier to name and keep track of them.

• A is for Arabic
• C is for Chinese
• D is for Dutch
• E is for English (which I don't count as one of the 12)
• F is for French
• G is for German
• H is for Hindi
• J is for Japanese
• M is for Maori
• N is for Norwegian
• P is for Polish
• R is for Russian
• and S will be for Spanish

I think that's a fair swag.