Remembering at a small library at my hometown/Carlos Pueblo

Remembering at a small library at my hometown/Carlos Pueblo

Other days, I was determined to read some Japanese children books and

went back to city libraries. I did run into difficulty to find the book by a

flooded library and another one without the inventory. I did find some

Spanish children books; however, the result was not as I expected. This

reminds me to think it over of my past learning languages in my life other

than my mother tongue, Amoy. 1945 was the determined year, Chinese

replaced Japanese as the official language in Taiwan and that put me in

an awkward situation, to learn a foreign language from the scratch. My

elder sister took me to a small library of the old sugar factory where my

father served. There were limited copies of Kanji children books in that

room and I did remember that I did check out some.

After my reading improvement at schools, I started the Water Margin, a

Chinese novel written in spoken language form other than the traditional

classical writing. I believe that reading books has helped me to learn Chinese

and English and I blame my slow progress in Japanese and Spanish to lack of

reading and making the composition. I learn Chinese and English due to needs

for schooling, immigration and work while learning other foreign languages

are simply of personal interests or hobby. I like to know the meaning of Japanese

songs and I like to speak to locals in Texas in their own language.

It has been to a conclusion that I must practice more and more to make it perfect.

Professor Nagamoto’s opinion is that if I can live in Japan for 6 months then I’ll be

familiar with the language. Now, I do have a hard time to understand the movie

and even a regular conversation. I can guess the newspaper. In Spanish, I am still

attempt to find the root form of a verb in order to check the meaning in the

dictionary. I know that is frustration.

I am very happy for the learning opportunity of foreign language. Every week

has been very occupied and sometimes even makes me to remember my home

town and childhood life. Both professors have decided to continue their classes

for another 8 weeks term and I have better to rearrange my schedule in Saturday

and traveling to the classes which I have had a feeling that I may have an eventually

breakthrough.