One of the prompts today was what is one skill or ability you wished you had. For me, it would be to be able to fluently speak a foreign language. I took Spanish in high school but remember almost nothing. I know how to say hello in a number of different languages as well as thank you. But that’s about the extent of it.

As I’ve talked about before, I started learning Chinese about 4 or 5 years ago, but without someone to talk with, I mostly just learned characters and a little bit of how to read. But I never could pronounce things properly, and when I listened to something in Chinese I definitely couldn’t follow along with anything more than a word here or there, and that was only if I saw the characters along with the spoken word.

But I have had a recent opportunity. A young couple has moved into our ward at Church. She grew up in our ward and he is from Taiwan. He has agreed to help me learn Chinese. We have started off small, a few questions and the appropriate responses. Today we discussed actually having some lessons so that I can learn better, and I am so excited. It won’t be until summer when I have more time, so until then it’ll be the slow, one sentence a week. But I am so excited!

We live in such a connected world now. Growing up people traveled, but it was really only those fairly well off. Now, it seems like people travel all over the world at the drop of a hat. And, while I don’t know that I’ll ever get a chance to visit China, selling my art at different locations I have had many opportunities to meet people from all around the world, even China. It would be nice to be able to effectively communicate with anyone who stops to visit.

I don’t currently have plans to learn any other languages, although I have a friend from Switzerland and she speaks German (and English very well). But I have thought that might be another language it would be fun to learn, just in case I ever visit Switzerland with her (we’ve talked about going over so she can show me around when our kids are all grown and gone).

I know a number of people who have quite a knack for learning languages. I am not that person. I don’t even English all that well sometimes. But I love learning and I love a challenge, so I am excited for summer to come, and I’ll keep plugging away one sentence at a time until then.