(Fleiri) hlutir sem ég hef tekið eftir um Íslandi - (More) things I've noticed about Iceland

Hey guys!

So in continuing my little series about July in Iceland this past year, today I'm going to be making my first ever addendum to the "things I've noticed" series about a country I've already written about. There are a few more elements of Icelandic culture and history that caught my eye while I was there last summer that I wanted to share really quickly. Hope it's interesting and enjoyable!

1) Just how important swimming pools are in Icelandic culture.
This was definitely something which had been mentioned multiple times during my first Icelandic program in 2016, but I didn't quite get the extent of it until this past summer. Sofia and I were living less than two minutes on foot away from Sundhöllin, one of the main swimming pools in the city, and we also payed a visit on one occasion to the lovely Vesturbæjarlaug over on the other side of town. But Sundhöllin became a true staple of our experience, a place that we'd go up to four or five times a week at points, to relax, blow off some steam, take our minds off of things, hang out with friends, or just chat. And that's very much how swimming pools are in Iceland.
Even the tiniest of far-flung, windswept fishing villages will proudly sport a swimming pool, and they are important community meeting points across the country, the Turkish hamam, Finnish sauna, or Chinese tea houses of the situation. Retirees catch up on the latest gossip while they swim laps early in the morning; children energetically make use of the diving boards and slides in their first hours off of school; families make weekend afternoons together out of it.
Most Icelandic swimming pools consist of hot pots (usually around 38-40 Celsius/100-107 Fahrenheit), cold pots (around 12 Celsius/53 Fahrenheit), and the main swimming pool itself (around 26 Celsius/80 Fahrenheit), with the idea that patrons will move between the different temperature extremes and benefit from the related circulatory aid, much like in Finnish saunas. It's truly refreshing and can even leave one feeling pretty tired afterwards!
Also, let me take a moment here to say that the rumors are true - you have to shower naked at the pool before you go in. The water all comes from natural geothermal or glacial sources, and it is treated with extremely limited chemicals, so it is trusted that everyone will do their part in turn to keep the water clean - which is to say, thoroughly clean themselves. I know for some people this can be super nerve-wracking, but rest assured that the showers in Icelandic swimming pools are extremely non-judgemental and relaxed places. One of the benefits of this is that Icelanders grow up very comfortable with their own and each other's bodies, and discomfort in these environments is nearly non-existent.

2) Iceland and Finland have many parallels in their historical control by mainland Nordic powers, but it has resulted in two very different contemporary linguistic situations. 
For context, Iceland and Finland were ruled over by the monarchies of Denmark and Sweden respectively for periods of several hundred years, which was hugely influential in their development, and their ties to the rest of the Nordic world. Whether or not these periods of control could be considered colonialism is a subject of much debate in Iceland and Finland alike, including among Icelanders and Finns themselves. But suffice it to say that these periods were important.
However, in contemporary Finland about 5% of the population, particularly on the southern and western coasts, continues to speak a unique Finnish-influenced dialect of Swedish as their native language, which enjoys equal official status and state protection as the Finnish language. In Iceland, though a more pan-Scandinavian influenced version of Danish was a required subject in schools until recent decades, no significant portion of Icelanders use Danish amongst themselves or as a native language anymore.
I thought of several reasons that could have contributed to this: for one, the simple matter of population. Finland's population has never been huge, it's only about five million today. But Iceland's contemporary peak population is about 350,000. With numbers that (relatively) low, which have historically been even lower, it's simply difficult to maintain a minority population with a distinctive identity, using a different language than the main one.
Another is geographical isolation and logistics. Finland is much closer to Sweden, particularly the areas that retain high numbers of Swedish speakers today, and so creating cohesive transportation and trade routes and spheres of influences from Stockholm was much easier, compared to the thousand or so miles (2,000 or so kilometers) which separate Iceland from mainland Europe, especially with the duration of transportation during those days. So laying down comparably solid influence was difficult.
Then, Iceland has had a tremendously rich and strong literary tradition throughout its history - even while the vast majority of Icelanders lived in poverty for many centuries working in nearly squalid conditions on turf farms across the country, people were educated to be literate, so that they could read epic poems and sagas aloud to their families while they worked, particularly during the kvöldvaka (evening-wake) during the long winters. This literary history and inadvertent country-wide standardization of the language gave it a uniform legitimacy. In Finland, in contrast, Finnish remained a spoken language only until the 14th century, when Protestant monk Mikael Agricola published a Finnish translation of the New Testament of the Bible, and was not standardized until the nationalist Fennoman movement became prevalent during Russian control in the 1800s.
And finally, Icelanders have historically been distrustful of the higher classes, and sought to make themselves as distinct from the upper echelons of society as possible. Not to say that Finns historically were more differential, but the aristocratic caste system was something which was more entrenched, enforced, and therefore accepted. So it stands to reason that Danish, which was largely used by and associated with the higher classes and colonial administration in Iceland, would be largely shaken off and often resented in the years following independence (it is important to note, however, that not all Icelanders hate Denmark by any means; in fact many continue to study Danish in school even without being forced, as many jobs require proficiency in a mainland Nordic language, and large numbers of Icelanders live and study in Denmark, particularly in Copenhagen).

That's all I could think of for now. I will add anything else that comes to mind.

Best wishes and good vibes to all!
Nico

The fulfillment of another Nordic dream: Iceland July 2018

Hey guys!

So as I've mentioned a bit in recent posts, I had the privilege and honor to be able to return to Iceland for a month this summer, which will be the focus of this post.

I returned to the U.S. from Finland on May 31 after nearly nine months abroad, and spent a much-needed month doing nothing at home with my family (more to follow on that soon potentially). As needed as the month of down-time was, by the time I'd been home for a month with next to nothing to do, I was feeling pretty antsy and restless, in need of a bit of direction and adventure - feeling quite ready to head to Reykjavik.

I arrived on the morning of July 1, and after two years of absence from one of my favorite countries, which was host to such a beautiful formative experience, I can't accurately explain in words how it felt to break through the clouds, see the green of the Reykjanes Peninsula jut through our view of the North Atlantic, and touch down.

My dear, dear friend Sofia from Bologna, who I met on our first Icelandic program in the Westfjords two years ago, had also gotten into the Árni Magnússon Institute's summer program, and so a dream of many years was made even better. We got to room together in a beautiful, cozy, perfectly-sized little apartment on Leifsgata behind Hallgrímskirkja, and walked together to class every morning about twenty minutes away at the Institute, located on the main campus of the University of Iceland.

On our first day we were sorted into three different levels based on our Icelandic language backgrounds; since Sofia and I had both completed the A1/A2 level program in the Westfjords, we got to sit in the third and most advanced level, spending a month studying Icelandic with people from Switzerland, the UK, the Isle of Man specifically, Ireland, the U.S, Brazil, and Germany, which was a fantastic group that made for thought-provoking and stimulating conversation, in Icelandic, English, or whatever else. As fate would have it, our teacher was actually one of the teachers from my program two years ago (though not the one that had taught my own class)!

Recognizing that being immersed in Icelandic can be somewhat difficult in a place like Reykjavik, which sees so much tourism (particularly in the high summer) that the center of town can get rather flooded with English, every possible measure was taken to ensure that we'd have as immersive an environment as possible in the classroom, and with great success. I didn't realize how much progress I was truly making until the end, when I realized just how many new things I was able to say. A particular moment of triumph was meeting my friend Unnur, an Icelander who my dear friend Salma met at a European Youth Parliament event in Vienna a few years ago and put me in touch with. We got coffee together at a delightful little place called Stofan, and started out speaking Icelandic almost jokingly...and then spent almost two whole hours speaking Icelandic, in which I only had to resort to English a few times and made few grammatical mistakes! Aside from being a way to finally meet up with a great human, it was also a pivotal and defining moment in my Icelandic learning experience, when I found new confidence in my own abilities and felt unspeakably proud of the progress I'd made.

Overall I was immensely satisfied with the organization of the program and how everything was set up. We had a couple of excursions outside of the Reykjavik area, day trips which took us mostly to saga sites in the countryside, where we heard all about these tales of strife and conflict which are so important to Icelandic literature and culture. Dramatically beautiful natural spaces are never too far away in Iceland, and as compact and comfortable as Reykjavik is as an urban area, it was still wonderful to escape into the lava fields and flowering cliffs that make the country so unique and beautiful.

We also enjoyed a number of academic lectures at the Institute itself, by far my favorite was a private lecture with Jónína Leósdóttir, a prominent Icelandic writer and playright, wife to Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the first Icelandic female prime minister and the first openly lesbian head of state in the world. Jónína's literary work is well-known and very important, as much of it centers around coming-of-age stories for LGBT protagonists that have been unprecedented among Icelandic literature. But it was most incredible of all to hear her talk so openly and candidly of coming to terms with her identity in the early '80s in Iceland, having to hide the relationship that developed between her and Jóhanna for FIFTEEN years, and the euphoria of coming out and being eventually accepted by her family, buying a flat with Jóhanna, and eventually tying the knot as Iceland legalized same-sex marriage in 2010. Even though only Jónína was present, their love was so strong and perceptible to every person in the room, just by virtue of the way that she told their stories, and talked about her wife.

It's stories of queer perserverance, triumph, and representation like Jónína and Jóhanna's that provide so much hope, inspiration, and solidarity for the future, and showcase the beauty and bond of what it means to be part of the queer community.

Overall I did my best to make this a trip of establishing rhythms and routines in the city, fully immersing myself in to the experience. Although I didn't stay in Reykjavik for the actual program that I did my first time in Iceland, I was there for four days at the beginning and another at the end, so I still did most of the staple touristy things and got to know the city quite well. I went for long walks in different parts of the city that I didn't know. I tried different coffee shops when my wallet would allow, trying to find ones that were a bit off the beaten path tourist-wise. I went to the pool with Sofia nearly every day, as there was one less than two minutes away from our apartment on foot called Sundhöllin, and we also visited several others with program friends. Given the relationship that I have with Iceland, and the comfort that I feel in the place and its general atmosphere, that month was, in many ways, just as, if not even more restorative than the month that I spent with my parents in St. Louis prior.

Leaving Iceland is never easy, especially when it was such a calm and wonderful experience as this one. I miss it very much, but am hard at work on a Fulbright application which will hopefully allow me to go back and study Icelandic at the University of Iceland for at least a year if I get selected. Ég vona að þetta reddast.

Thank you all for reading, and stay tuned for more about Iceland soon.

Best, Nico

Language learning advice

Hey guys!

Because of my linguistic passion and the different experiences I've had putting it into practice in various ways, I've often found myself with people coming to me for language and study abroad-related advice, varying from how I've found certain aspects of specific languages and general tips and tricks to essentially asking "what do you think would be a good language for me to learn?"

Let me preface this by saying that I am by no means any sort of qualified language teacher, and my word should by no means be final on any of these pieces of advice I give here. At the end of the day, everyone is motivated by different things and learns in different ways, and should pay attention to and listen to those things.

That being said, I do have some thoughts and feelings on certain things that have helped me across the boards, and may help others as well. Hope you enjoy!

1) PICK A LANGUAGE YOU'RE INTERESTED IN (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD). 
In my humble opinion, far too many people base their language learning off of criterion that are far too impersonal and practically-minded. Essentially, what will look best on a resume, be the most economically profitable, what's spoken by the most people. NO. It is my fervent belief that anyone thinking of learning a language should do a bit of research and exploration, and then choose one that sparks a genuine interest at a personal level, which touches something inside them, whether it's one spoken by their ancestors, offered in school, or which simply draws them in. And it honestly does not matter whether it's spoken by ten people in some isolated mountain village or a billion in the world's most populous country - no language is useless. Again, I will repeat - No. Language. Is. Useless. Every single one is a unique and irreplaceable lens through which to view the world, a defining facet of the people who speak it and every corner and iteration of their multifaceted histories, which grants access to an otherwise unavailable set of music, literature, stories, feelings, and sense of home. Thus I urge everyone to ignore numbers, statistics, and ground covered when choosing a language to learn, rather than forcing yourself to learn something you don't care for for "practical reasons." If you do, you'll have no passion for what you're learning, and likely come to resent it. 

2) Music will become your best friend.
Music has proven to be an incredibly valuable tool for me in my language endeavors. If you're good at memorizing song lyrics and imitating melodies especially, it can be an excellent way to improve your pronunciation and comprehension. For instance, if I'm about to speak a language that I haven't used in a while and feel nervous about pronouncing it badly, I'll play a song I'm familiar with in that language and sing along, which does wonders for loosening the tongue and getting back into the groove of the pronunciation. Additionally, I would advise people to look up translated texts of songs in their native languages and target languages alike, as this can really help to see how certain grammatical patterns are conveyed and what they look like in action, and writing them down will be a great future reference point. I can't tell you how much Turkish translations of Coldplay or English translations of Splin (a Russian band) have helped me to improve my comprehension and jog my memory for old grammar I super need to review. 

3) You have to find a balance of reference in your first language, and immersion. 

In some of the language programs or classes I've been in, textbooks have been used which are entirely in simplified registers of the target languages, clearly with the intention for use in classes where the participants hail from different countries and may have no language in common to communicate in with each other and with the teacher, other than the target one. I have very mixed feelings about this. True, there is no substitute for immersion. It is an absolutely necessary component of the learning process, which you will need to engage with at some point at some level in order to achieve truly natural and fluid speaking and comprehension skills, whether it entails meeting with a group of native and fluent Chinese speakers once a week at home, or moving to Tanzania for four months to immerse yourself completely. But there is also no substitute for proper comprehension. In my opinion, one cannot properly study a language and benefit productively from immersion without first having a base of comprehension of grammar and basic vocabulary built from studying the target language in their first language, or at the very least one which they fluently understand. Otherwise, you won't know what you're saying, how the grammar that you're using is actually meant to be used. Having a base of comprehension through one's first language, and then engaging in immersive spaces is the way to go. Choose your learning materials wisely in this way.

4) Continuity is key, and can make all the difference.
In my opinion, repeated practice and keeping a language active in your mind is a more critical and realistic goal than constant advancement. The latter is not possible in every context; you may be in a place where you can't take a class for a while or one that exists is not accessible to you, or where you'll be hard-pressed to come by a native speaker (trust me, as someone who's been learning Icelandic for two years, I know). Advancement is certainly important and worthwhile, but your energy is a precious resource, and if you're finding yourself drained or stretched thin in your everyday existence, prioritize hearing or using the language somehow and keeping it active in your mind, remembering or putting what you know into context regularly.
As an example, I often struggle to discipline myself to sit down and work through methodical grammar exercises, particularly when my day to day life is already as academically focused as it is, being a fourth-year undergrad student. So on an average, I'll listen to some music in Portuguese and Icelandic, write a short composition in Italian, watch some movie clips in Swedish and Spanish and some Turkish YouTube videos, practice my Japanese writing, and read through an Icelandic Wikipedia page on a topic I'm familiar with. Even if my grammatical growth in these languages isn't perfect, at least this way I see and create things with them, and keep what I already know and am familiar with active in my mind by using it in context.

5) DON'T COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHER LANGUAGE LEARNERS.
It's not healthy and no good can come of it. Everyone has different skills that manifest differently, and what works excellently for one person in their language learning endeavors may not work well at all for you, or vice versa. And that's okay! Stick to what's ideal for you and you'll be on your way to success! It's really easy to get caught up in inferiority complexes, feeling like you're not as good as other people around you. But sometimes those toxic mindsets can certainly come from within as well. In my case, I can say that (likely as a result of my latent childhood fantasies that I could become completely fluent in any language if I worked hard enough) I often feel guilty if I can't do everything in a target language, completely disregarding the fact that doing stuff in another language is HARD! And exhausting! And takes time! So remember to be kind to yourself and give yourself time as you work through the challenges of rewiring your mind. Keep in mind that:

A) Fluency as a concept is pretty much bullshit,
because no one can be completely 100% fluent in every possible context of use of any language, even their own (I know I feel like I understand far more in a context where I'm talking about languages in Icelandic or everyday activities in Turkish than I ever did in my math and science classrooms growing up, even though those subjects were being taught to me in my first language).

And B) people generally are appreciative of your efforts to learn their language! Of course you'll get the odd asshole here and there. But for every person who gets annoyed with you for not being competent enough, there will be ten more who will be touched that you're making the effort to use their language with them; even just a single word or greeting has the power to let people know that you're making an effort to adapt, to understand the medium of their frame of consciousness. If all you can do is introduce yourself, pay for some ice cream, and ask for directions at the moment, be proud of that! Heck, be proud if all you can do is say hi! People will still appreciate it. Conversations about communist ideology and astrophysics will come if that's what you want.

That's what comes to mind off the top of my head! Hope it can be helpful for people and you enjoyed reading. If anyone ever wants more tips or just wants to nerd out together, my DM's are always open.

All the best!

(I've been on a throwback music craze recently.)

Languages

Hey everyone!

It is quite self evident, I would think, to many people that I am indeed a language nerd. Anyone who has talked to me for more than five minutes will likely know that languages and language study are high on the list of my greatest passions in life, and hugely important to me. As I'm greatly passionate about a number of different ones and have been blessed with opportunities and experiences to expand my linguistic horizons. I figured that I'd share the ones I've had thus far in my life, and what my linguistic background is currently composed of, for anyone interested. This is going to get pretty technical; as a disclaimer, I'm at very different levels in all of these languages, and in some cases have been exposed to them to varying extents, but would definitely not say I actually know them or know them well.

English: 
As a half-Italian-half-American, I was raised in a bilingual English and Italian speaking household. Although Italian was the first language in which I spoke, and I didn't lose my fractured, accented English completely as a child until I started elementary school, over the years thereafter I went through a shift of usage, and English became my dominant language as a product of being raised in the US and educated in American schools. I've retained my bilingualism throughout my life, but English is by far my best language, in which I'm able to most effectively, eloquently, and comprehensively express myself. I tend to define native and first language differently, as the first language one speaks in life, versus the language in which one is best able to speak and express oneself in the overall course of their life, respectively.
It's interesting for me to think about linguistic proficiency and ability in my first language. Throughout much of my teenage years, being so ardently focused on perfecting my Italian and beginning to study other languages, and didn't really think much of my relationship to English until I went to Egypt as a high school exchange student. That was my first time being in a place where I had no knowledge of the local language, and being stripped of any ability to communicate all at once upon arrival, though certainly scary, instilled an appreciation within me of what I am able to do with the English language in writing, prose, and speech that I have never lost to this day.

Italiano - Italian:
As I mentioned above, Italian was the first language in which I learned to speak as a child, and remained my main language until around the age of five or six. Even though English took over as my dominant language after that, I continued hearing it at home, and using it in annual visits to my relatives and family friends in Italy over the summers. Around the age of twelve, I realized that my Italian skills were stuffering as a result of growing up in an area that lacked extensive immersive Italian spaces, particularly educational ones, and so I went to live with my grandmother and uncle in my mother's hometown of Viadana in northern Italy and attend a local middle school for five months. Since I used only Italian at home, at school, and with the friends my own age I made, only using English on the phone with my family back home or sometimes in conversation with the English teacher at my middle school, my skills improved tremendously, and I gained the Italian fluency I have today.
Italian is a language that has huge sentimental value for me, and is an irreplaceable part of my background, heritage, and identity. Speaking it has always been enjoyable and a point of pride, and it was through perfecting my hollistic knowledge of my own native language that I confirmed I wanted learning languages to be a part of my life.

Lumbard - Lombard:
Being a country that was greatly divided for much of its history, Italy is a country that is full of fascinatingly divergent dialects (which are called as such, but in reality are oftentimes quite sufficiently distinct enough among themselves to qualify as different languages). The standard language is an adapted version of the Tuscan which Dante Alighieri used to write some of his most widely known works, selected for its beauty and literary legacy. The dialect that is spoken in the Viadana area is a variant of the Lombard language, called so after the region of Lombardia, and is referred to as "viadanes." I've heard it, mainly in the form of little smatterings and expressions woven into the Italian I hear at home or visiting Viadana, my whole life. But it wasn't until I lived in Italy for five months as a teenager that I started to pick up more of it. Because my relatives, especially my grandmother, use it quite a lot at home amongst themselves and out on the town with their friends, over the course of those five months I found myself increasingly able to understand this unique marker of local life. Nowadays, when I go back to visit I can usually understand most of what people are talking about in the dialect, but aside from a few expressions or phrases I know by heart, there's no way I'd know enough to partake in a fluent conversation. In much of the north, certainly there, local languages are used less, and most people under around fifty, though they'll probably understand it, won't use it in any kind of serious conversation, reserving it for caustic humor or profane expressions. At times I wish I could speak it or even just understand it better, as it's a unique and important part of local culture, and many local languages in Italy are dying out. I do cherish the phrases and bits of understanding I have, thanks to my family, and intend to try and pick up more during future visits.

Latina - Latin:
I took about a year and a half worth of Latin when I was in middle school, which mainly centered around building vocabulary the first year, with an introduction to more grammar the second year, and always very centered on units about ancient Roman history, culture, and mythology. I enjoyed taking Latin quite thoroughly, particularly for the cultural component that allowed me to learn about my ancestors, and how much it helped me to understand Latin roots of many words commonly used in English. But I basically stopped studying it when I was fourteen, because aside from the fact that my high school lacked Latin, I was feeling very desirous of studying a language with more opportunities for practical use in a modern context especially in terms of speaking, as the skill set for Latin education is typically much more focused on translation and reading than anything else. As it's now been eight years since I studied it at all, I remember next to nothing.

Español - Spanish:
My first real foray into studying a language was Spanish, which I took for the five months I was at school in Italy. Though initially nervous about entering a class where people had been studying it for two years already and I knew none at the time, I found it quite easy due to its proximity to Italian. I studied Spanish through all of high school as well (except for my second year when I was abroad), and because the International Baccalaureate (IB) program I did placed a huge emphasis on language study and acquisition, I was able to learn a great amount throughout high school. I also took a third-year level Hispanic literature class, which was entirely conducted in Spanish, in my second year of college. Though I've not had any immersive experiences studying in Spanish-speaking countries, I have traveled to both Spain and Mexico twice, and got to use my Spanish with locals on both trips. At this point I have been learning Spanish for nearly eight years, and because of personal interest in Spanish history, culture, and minority languages, I have been making a conscious effort over the past two years to shift my pronunciation and accent towards the norm in Spain, which at this point is nearly second-nature.

عربى - Arabic:
I started to learn Arabic when I was fifteen, in preparation for my academic year program in Alexandria, Egypt, as an exchange student with AFS International Programs (AFS). The year before I left, I started out with about six months of lessons with a Palestinian American graduate student who had been trained in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), who taught me to read and write the Arabic alphabet, as well as some basic MSA vocabulary, and a few lessons of Egyptian dialect. I then took three more months of lessons prior to departure with a naturalized American citizen hailing from Iraq, continuing to pick up MSA and Egyptian dialect side-by-side, with an ever stronger emphasis on the latter. After I got to Egypt, I basically only advanced with Egyptian dialect, as I was in an international, largely English-speaking school, and therefore not learning Arabic in any academic environments where MSA would have been the register of instruction. I picked up Egyptian Arabic pretty effectively over the course of the year by immersion at home with my host family, particularly my non-English-speaking host parents, hearing my classmates speak it around me at school, and using it to get around the city, feeling pretty comfortable in conversation by the end of the year. I also learned to read and write pretty effectively by observing signage around me and taking Arabic calligraphy lessons with a professional. Unfortunately, in the nearly six years that have followed, my Arabic has largely fallen by the wayside. Due to a lack of Arabic instruction in the academic spaces I've been a part of, loss of contact with most of the people who I was close to during my exchange year, and personal aversion due to difficulties I faced during the experience, I have lost most of what I learned due to a lack of practice. Though there are some things I'm sure I'll never fully forget, I don't feel comfortable expressing myself in Arabic anymore, and therefore usually don't count it among the languages I comfortably speak.

Français - French: 
I had a very brief introduction into the French language during my year in Egypt, as it was the only foreign language available in my school, and I took it for about nine months. In that time, I did well in the class, as between Italian and Spanish I didn't find it particularly difficult to grasp from a grammatical and syntactical standpoint. Also, it has to be said that the instruction was very shallow and consisted mainly of copying sentences written on the board, so I unfortunately learned little (for instance, I only learned the two days of the week we had French class, as the teacher would write them on the board every time she entered the room). For this reason, I don't usually count French among my languages, certainly the ones I know well. Because of whatever base I gained from taking it during my exchange, its proximity to Italian and Spanish, and my trip to France in 2015, I can sometimes understand it to varying extents, but would likely be highly challenged in conversation at best if I ever had to speak it.

Türkçe - Turkish:I started learning Turkish when I was eighteen on my summer exchange in Bursa, Turkey through the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) scholarship. NSLI-Y was a goal I had had in mind for a time when I applied, but had never been sure of which language to put as my top choice - I wound up picking Turkish as my top choice practically on a whim, as I'd been interested in Turkish history and culture for a time, but it wasn't super high on my list. When I got picked as a finalist, I was selected for a six-week 2014 summer program in Bursa, Turkey. It wound up being one of the most incredible and formative experiences of my entire life so far. I met friends that still remain among the closest and most important in my life, fell deeply in love with Turkish language and culture in a way I never imagined I would, and just came to feel very at home. The language classes that were the centerpiece of the program were fairly well organized and informative, and thus I was able to reach an intermediate low level on the OPI scale.
I came back to Turkey for an eighteen-day trip about a year and a half after my program, and was able to rekindle my language skills by chatting with Turkish friends and host family and navigating around the country as I traveled by myself, but didn't advance much further.
In the summer of 2017, I was accepted for the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS), essentially a university version of NSLI-Y, to continue studying Turkish for two months in Baku, Azerbaijan (studying in Turkey was sadly impossible, due to the program being sponsored by the US State Department, which had a travel warning out for Turkey at the time). Though living in Azerbaijan was a highly challenging experience culturally and logistically, and Turkish is frankly not spoken there, the program was still well organized and rewarding, and thanks to the immersive environment they were at least able to create on campus at the Azerbaijan University of Languages in our classes, my Turkish still improved tremendously over the course of the summer. It remains one of my very favorite languages, one that is tremedously important to me in both a personal and academic sense.

Русский - Russian:
When I started college, I knew I wanted to start a new language (because I'm me). Out of the several languages that were offered at Beloit College, Russian was the one that interested me the most - another that wasn't extremely high on my list at the time, but which I'd had a bit of interest in for some years. I decided to go ahead and try elementary Russian, and I enjoyed it enough to continue and eventually declare a Russian major (in addition to an international relations one).
I perfected my Russian by participating in Beloit's direct exchange program with the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow, Russia, where I lived for just over three months last fall. Although the experience was tremendously challenging in a variety of ways, due to the quality of the Russian classes I was taking on campus at RSUH, limited English knowledge among locals leading to near-total off-campus immersion, and Russian's status as the main language of communication even among international students on campus enabled me to improve my Russian immensely, even in just three months. I certainly wouldn't consider myself completely fluent, but I was able to reach a pretty comfortable and confident conversational level in a language which has become an important part of my collegiate studies, and an unexpectedly useful bridge among the highly diverse regions and language families I'm passionate about (due to Russia's immense size, outreach, and influence). 

Magyar - Hungarian:
My Hungarian heritage has always been a source of interest for me in terms of connecting more closely with the culture, and of course the language. When I started college at Beloit, one of the things I was most excited about was the fact that I had a chance to take elementary Hungarian - though it's not part of the main modern languages and literatures department of the college, until a few years ago we had an elementary Hungarian class every spring term, taught by a history professor from Hungary, mainly as a way to prepare anyone soon to study abroad at our partner universities in Budapest for their experiences. When I came to Beloit as a prospective student, I was intrigued by this possibility, and became determined to take advantage of it when I started my studies.
I did get to take the class in the second semester of my freshman year, and in all honesty it was a pretty disappointing experience. I still appreciated the chance to learn some words, vocabulary, and culture that were relevant to my ancestry, and because grammatically Hungarian functions in ways quite akin to Turkish, I didn't find it drastically difficult at an elementary level. But the way the class was taught was extremely old fashioned and surface level, nothing beyond reading dialogues out loud from our textbook and listening to grammatical lecturing, so I unfortunately learned very little; far less, even, than I'd learned in my first semester of Russian. After a few years, I dug out my old textbook on a whim and have begun working further through it a bit independently, hoping to make more progress as time goes on. But I remember little of what I learned beyond basic pleasantries I'd already known when I started the class, so I definitely don't count Hungarian among the languages I know to any significant extent.

Íslenska - Icelandic:
Although I've been interested in Nordic languages and cultures in general for quite some time due to my American grandmother's Swedish heritage, I first started being interested in Icelandic specifically when I watched videos by an AFS alumna from the United States who was hosted in Seyðisfjörður in the Eastfjords, and researched the unique history of the language after hearing a bit about it there. Fascinated by its preservation of Norse heritage and poetic construction of words, it became one of my languages of greatest interest.
When I was accepted to Beloit College, I was informed that I had been selected to receive a Field Experience Grant, with which I could organize an academic or professional summer project of my choosing. Having just recently heard about the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies' summer program, I decided to apply, and also search for other backup Icelandic programs, in order to put the opportunity to use by gaining a base in Icelandic. Rejected by the Árni Magnússon program, I did a three-week A1/A2 level program at the University Center of the Westfjords in the far north of the country, hosted at Núpur, about a thirty-minute drive from the town of Ísafjörður. It wound up being another of my life's most incredible and formative experiences, as we lived in an insanely beautiful place, were able to participate in a great many cultural activities, lived among an unlikely but highly cohesive group of really lovely, open-minded, and friendly people, and just had a great time. Even in just three weeks, thanks to the wonderful organization and high-quality teaching of the program, I was able to pick up a good base level of Icelandic.
After reapplying and being admitted this time, I returned this past summer for a month to do the Árni Magnússon program at the University of Reykjavik for a month. It was honestly such a wonderful experience as well. Having already experienced many touristic things the first time, I focused on making this a trip of linguistic and cultural immersion in Reykjavik city life. Incidentally, the teacher for the top level class of the course I was taking was one of the teachers on my program two years ago, and he did all he could to foster a dynamic, effective, and immersive Icelandic environment in our classroom. By the end of the program, I met up with an Icelandic friend of my friend she'd put me in contact with a while ago, and we were able to have a conversation of almost an hour and a half in Icelandic, which was shocking and empowering, helping me to feel like I've come full circle in a way: on the day which marked exactly two years since I'd arrived in Iceland the first time, there I was, having just finished the program I'd dreamed of doing since high school, having reached a high intermediate level in this language which is one of those I love most in all the world. 

Suomi - Finnish:
Finnish has been one of my greatest linguistic dreams and focal points of interest in life. I've wanted to learn it since I was eleven years old, partly just as a facet of my general interest in Nordic countries, but something about Finnish specifically has always enchanted me above many other languages. Its sheer difference from anything else I'm familiar with, and so much else in the world. Its rhythms and cadences. And something in the culture has always spoken to me, attracted me, made me want to connect with it.
So when I knew that there was a chance to apply for study abroad semesters through a host organization that would allow me to go to Finland, I had to take advantage of that chance.
As you guys know from my past posts, though there certainly were challenges, getting to go to Finland and form a base in Finnish was absolutely worthwhile in pretty much every sense.
I took beginner Finnish for foreigners, and although I liked the way it was structured, I was unfortunately pretty disappointed with the simplicity of what we learned, the rather slow pacing, and the feeling that too little was expected of us. To counteract this, I made sure to work ahead in the book and learn more grammar and vocabulary individually (and the success I had in this strategy has made me much more confident in my abilities to self-study languages), seek out more spaces for practice like the Finnish language circle, and use Finnish interacting with locals while traveling and such. By the end, my level was still quite basic, but I'd learned enough grammar and vocabulary to be able to have simple conversations with people, and even that was worth it to me. I look forward to hopefully going back at some point in the near future for another more immersive, fully language-focused experience.

Svenska - Swedish:
Swedish is another language that I first became interested in because of my heritage - my American grandmother is mainly of Swedish descent, her ancestors on one side of her family having emigrated to New Brunswick, New Jersey from the Stockholm area in the late 1800s. Knowledge of Swedish hasn't been present among our family for a few generations as a result of assimilation, but my fascination with Nordic lands and languages as a result of my grandmother's heritage inspired me to do my best to study my ancestors' language.
When I was seventeen, I did a month-long "Teen Polyglot Challenge" initiated by well-known 22-year-old polyglot, New York native, and Harvard student Tim Doner, alongside my good friend Donny, who shared my committed interest to the Swedish language. The idea of the challenge was to post a short video showcasing your development over the month (which I will not share due to personal embarrassment!). After that, I didn't study Swedish actively again for more than three years, with no deliberate stimulation or practice beyond passively listening to Swedish Disney music and my favorite Veronica Maggio songs.
One of my motivations for studying abroad in Finland was that Swedish too holds official status there. Although I wasn't able to dual-enroll in a Swedish class in the Swedish-speaking university in Turku, Åbo Akademi, I enrolled in a Swedish night class at the Swedish Adult Education Institute in Turku, also known as Arbis. For four months, I participated in 90-minute-long, weekly Swedish classes alongside classmates from a surprising number of countries, all taught by a friendly and precise Swedish-speaking Finn named Kim. By the end of the course, I was tremendously happy with the level I'd advanced to in just four months, going from barely being able to string a sentence together to being able to give a ten-minute presentation on my background and diversity in the United States.
One unexpected element of learning Swedish in Finland is that Finland Swedish has a distinct accent I previously was not aware of which is quite different from "rikssvenska" (literally "kingdom Swedish") spoken in Sweden - it's pronounced with phonetics and cadences nearly identical to those of Finnish, losing all of the stereotypically sing-songy bounciness associated with the language. I began to pick up the accent about halfway through the semester, and now speak with a slight finlandssvensk accent. I'm currently in the process of consciously trying to shift my speach patterns and pronunciation back towards rikssvenska, but I'm happy all the same to have been able to pick up a bit of this language that is special in helping me connect with my heritage. 

Thanks for bearing with me! Hope that you all can find your linguistic passions also and run with them. All the best!