I started learning French in 8th grade, but I didn't know that I would still be studying it and now, minoring in it at the college level. And learning a new language as many of you may already know, is hard. I think, especially with the way that the American education system integrates language learning, that it has definitely prevented me from learning quicker and more efficiently than I could have. But I worked through this disadvantage and made it into intermediate college-level French two quarters ago to get where I am now, which is advanced level.

And I've been experiencing some strange things.

Finally after a total of four years of studying the language and the culture (I would say five, but I had a year break in between because my school did not offer French Level 5 or AP French), I have the ability to think in French and not feel the need to translate everything that I see and hear to understand French anymore.

It's an extremely weird feeling when you understand everything that a Francophone is saying, when four years ago, you would listen to French and simply understand close to nothing of what was being said. I used to think to myself, "What a pretty language. I wonder what it would be like to understand what they're saying."

And now I do.

I find myself mumbling to myself in French as I sift through my papers in my International Studies class, or as I'm washing my dishes in my apartment. I might have a thought in French as I'm talking to someone in English. The language is slowly seeping into my mind and life, which can only be felt with learning a new language.

I've never had any other language besides English and Japanese in my life, which were a part of my upbringing (not with traditional American language learning methods, but rather from family and school), but now I have a language and culture that I did not grow up within my head. I've met only a few native French speakers in my life and I've only spent a week in France in my life, but there is a strange intimacy that I now have with this language.

When I speak French, I feel more at ease and more laid back than I do when I speak English or Japanese. I have the same mind and body, yet I'm having these strange thoughts in a new language, which is quite a feeling.

I would love for more people to experience this feeling because I love it. The curiosity and the thoughts you experience when learning a new language, quite frankly, are addicting. I've most recently picked up Italian and Korean; again, I understand nothing in both of the languages (I can pick up some Italian from the similarities to French) and I love the feeling of the strangeness of learning them, and I can't wait to feel the way I do with French with these new languages.

It's never too late to start, and how could it hurt to find yourself thinking in a different language?