Languages
Because of the privilege of early exposure to a wide variety of languages, my professional and personal life has come to revolve around the acquisition and teaching of languages. Personally, I aspire to expand my polyglot abilities: aiming to read, write, and speak at least 5 languages. Hopefully more. Professionally, I am focused on facilitating others in achieving their language goals, in ways that are personally and culturally relevant and fulfilling to them.
Working Languages
Defining proficiency is a tricky business, and it isn't as simple as a number or a label. These are the languages that I "live in" and sing in the car, warts and mistakes and all. I can express myself without thinking too much about it and, more importantly, they are the languages around which my family life revolves.
Danish |
I am a native speaker of Danish, and spoke it as my primary language for the first 13 years of my life. Though I did not receive my full formal education in Danish, I maintain my ability to read, write and speak and continue to work to improve my formal writing.
ACTFL Proficiency Rating: (coming soon, test currently unavailable) |
English |
I began learning English in school in Denmark. Because of my relocation at a young age to the U.S., and because I received most of my formal education in English, it has become my dominant language.
ACTFL Proficiency Rating: (coming soon) |
Spanish |
When I came to the U.S. in middle school, I chose Spanish as my "foreign language." I have studied it, at varying levels, since. I have also taught Spanish at the high school level and been a linguistic advocate for Spanish-speaking communities.
ACTFL Writing Proficiency: advanced low ACTFL Oral Proficiency: advanced mid |
Additional Languages Studied |
I have studied, or had considerable exposure to, several other languages. However, these are languages which I have not studied extensively enough to claim any working proficiency: Hindi / Urdu, America Sign Language, and cultural exposure to Norwegian and Swedish.
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Target Languages
French, German, & Mandarin |
In my current professional role I am overseeing the instruction of these languages (plus Spanish).
I aim to gain certification in French and German, as they are closely related to my working languages. Mandarin will be great opportunities to expand my linguistic repertoire. |
Arabic |
I began my Arabic studies in university, and fell in love. Though I have, for various reasons, often had to pause my studies it is still a target language.
My ultimate goal is to reach a proficiency that allows me to teach it at a secondary level and provide early exposure to a language that students typically won't have the opportunity to learn until college - if they ever have the opportunity at all. |
Greek |
I studied Greek for three years while I lived in Greece during my early teens with my mother. Though I spent a long time away from the language, I am hoping to regain my proficiency and, like Arabic, have the opportunity to expose students who might never have had the chance to study it otherwise.
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Languages of Interest |
There are many languages I would like to study, should the resources and opportunities present themselves.
I would very much like to get a working proficiency in the full set of the primary Romance languages, which would mean also studying Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. But I'm also interested in the less-common Romance languages, particularly contact languages like Papiamentu. Along the same lines of language families, I would like to round out my working knowledge of Scandinavian languages which would mean studying Swedish and Norwegian (particularly the spoken varieties) more closely, as well as doing more intensive studying on Icelandic and Faroese. I am also interested in several indigenous languages, particularly Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), Quechua and Nahuatl. These are interesting in their own right, but more so as they are less commonly taught languages. Beyond that, as a speaker and teacher of colonial languages, it is important to me to promote the cultural heritage of these languages. I am also interested in Czech, primarily because of a love for Prague and a fascination with the author Milan Kundera. I would love to learn Russian in order to access the rich literature. Amharic and Malayalam both have fascinating writing systems which I would love to learn more about. |
© Tino Bratbo 2024