Interesting quote I read this week from Ken Blanchard is:
“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”
After reading those, suddenly learning foreign language popped up in my head. I have been learning Japanese for about a year or more, and recently I also enrolled myself into a Korean class.
So am I just interested or will I commit to learn Korean too?
I always like Japanese and it’s culture. Maybe it’s because I’m exposed earlier to Japanese than to Korean. But my ancestry is actually Chinese, maybe because of the ban of Chinese language and culture in the past and my parents maybe not really forcing me to communicate in Chinese, I don’t really speak the language.
I learned Chinese for 1.5 years after my university study. Though I don’t find it at first, I had interest in Chinese character later. But speaking is always my weakness; because I can’t pronounce it right.
Actually before learning Chinese, I went to a Japanese class for about 3 months. I didn’t continue it, because most of my friends decided to quit.
Maybe it’s my hidden interest or something. After I’ve been working some time in Singapore. My passion to learn Japanese emerged again. So since a year ago, I’ve been learning it. Maybe my progress is not as fast as my other classmates; but at least, I know that now I can understand better when I listen to a conversation. And I’m able to write short story in Japanese. Despite all the grammatical mistakes. It brings me back memory, when I learned English as my second language.
I challenged myself by taking JLPT, a language examination for Japanese, similar like TOEFL or IELTS. I failed; but I feel good because the reason to study more and the stress during the preparation.
(I’ll probably take it again next year)
Now, I’m learning Korean too. Will I commit to this? Or this will be my interest?
Or do you have similar situation?