I started learning a new language (not something you would expect)

this video is brought to you by Squarespace hello  everyone and welcome back to my YouTube channel  

this video is going to be a little bit different  because it's more of a story time I want to share  

my language learning goals for you for 2024 and  one new language that I started learning a few  

weeks ago if you're not very familiar with my  language story I have studied a lot of different  

languages over the years originally I'm from  Russia so Russian is my native language when I was  

around 12 years old I started learning French and  that was actually my first foreign language and  

I feel like at the age of 15 my French was pretty  good and that was probably the time when I started  

learning English very seriously in reality I was  introduced to English when I was only 6 or seven  

years old but you know I never paid attention in  class I just studied English as a subject in my  

school when I turned 15 I started watching Vlogs  by American YouTubers on YouTube and that's how  

I fell in love with English I was like oh it's  like watching this show about American teenagers  

but it's all real you know it's like real people  real YouTubers sharing the live sharing things  

about living in the states and I was in love you  know immediately I was like oh my God I love those  

people I love their videos and I want to learn  English when it was time for me to choose the  

college I wanted to study it in to be honest I  was thinking for a very long time because I was  

only 17 years old and I think it's very hard for  a 17-year-old to know what they want to do with  

their life and I was like I like languages I guess  I'm going to go study another language and I chose  

Chinese yes the Chinese language was actually my  major at University my whole program was called  

Asian studies and so the Chinese language was the  main subject for me I feel like every single day I  

probably had like 3 hours of Chinese every single  day a lot of classes and I was EX exhausted even  

though it was pretty challenging it was actually  something that I wanted to study because I love  

languages and I figured you know Chinese is  a pretty difficult language so it's better if  

I learn it while in college because this way I  can ask for advice I can talk to my professors  

and hear what they have to say about Chinese my  college experience was pretty interesting because  

at one point I realized that I don't know like  I didn't want to study Chinese anymore or there  

was just something missing I don't want to say  there was something wrong no nothing was wrong  

I was more like okay I turned probably 19 or 20  years old and I was like I kind of want to do  

something else and remember when I was 15 years  old I fell in love with YouTube and American  

YouTubers and when I turned 20 this desire to  start a YouTube channel was so strong I was  

like I really want to start a YouTube channel I  really want to make my own videos and and I was  

thinking what can I make them about I couldn't  speak Chinese that well yet even though by that  

point I've been learning Chinese for two years  two and a half years and I decided to start my  

first YouTube channel and talk about English so  this is the channel you're watching right now  

originally the name of this channel was English  with Veronica Mark then I changed it to Veronica  

Mark and now it's called Veronica's language  Diaries because I feel like right now I want  

to talk talk about a lot of different languages  because my life is not just English and a lot of  

advice I'm sharing with you here tips advice  connect to language learning you can apply to  

so many different languages not necessarily to  English so if you feel like it please share what  

language you are studying in the comments I feel  like it's going to be very interesting for me and  

for everyone else to read all these comments  and see what languages people are learning so  

at one point when I started my YouTube channel  my channel started growing because I I started  

treating it as my job from the very beginning I  will say that if you want to make something your  

job you have to be very serious about it from the  very beginning especially when it comes to social  

media and YouTube so many people just post stuff  just because just because they want to but for me  

I wanted to post things and make YouTube videos  because I wanted to make it my full-time career  

yeah it's a very ambitious plan if you take into  account the fact that I was from Russia I lived in  

Russia my native language was Russian and I wanted  to speak English on camera can you imagine I was  

pretty brave then when I lived in Turkey I decided  to start my vlogging Channel my second Channel and  

I think the original name was something like  Veronica Mark Vlogs and then I realized that I  

actually wanted to stop making Vlogs because there  were two reasons the first reason is it is hard to  

grow your YouTube channel if you only make Vlogs  like you really need to know how to make them  

so that the algorithm Picks Them Up and people  start watching you and enjoying your Vlogs but  

the second reason was a lot more important for me  I realized that I was sharing so many things about  

my personal life and I kind of felt uncomfortable  right now every single time I sit down and film a  

video I try to be honest with yourself of course  but in the past I was sharing so many things that  

I felt like I didn't have my own personal life and  of course I didn't want to St lying and then put  

all this on the internet so for me I decided to  just stop making Vlogs whatsoever and to be honest  

I feel very good about this decision I feel very  happy I truly believe that it was done for the  

best throughout this journey of learning foreign  languages and creating two YouTube channels at one  

point I had to work on my own website fortunately  it was very easy for me to create my own website  

because I use Squarespace on Squarespace you can  choose from a variety of professional templates  

tailored to specific purposes you can customize  the look update content and add features to  

suit your needs as you can see I can completely  transform my website in just a few clicks squares  

spacious fluid engine makes it simple for everyone  to unleash their creativity just start with a top  

nutch template and easily customize every design  detail using intuitive drag and drop technology  

from both desktop and mobile I would say right  now let's add a few pictures and information  

about myself Squarespace also offers powerful  blogging tools and I think this can be very  

beneficial for language Learners journaling helps  me a lot when I'm learning foreign languages and  

if you can blog about it it's even better this way  you can organize everything pretty nicely you can  

practice the language and share your experience  with the world so if you want to create your own  

website head to squarespace.com Veronica to save  10% off your first purchase of a website or domain  

the link will be down in the description and  the pin comment in 2022 I moved to Mexico and  

I started learning Spanish to completely honest I  didn't start learning Spanish like right from the  

very beginning you know I moved to Mexico I was  super prepared I was already learning Spanish no  

I was pretty lazy and at the beginning because  I live in Mexico City there are a lot of people  

here who speak English and I was more like you  know let me just speak English English is enough  

for me right now but then I realized that for  me to truly feel like I'm a part of this place  

to truly learn more things about the culture I had  to learn Spanish like there's no other way around  

it a very important thing to know here is that I  didn't make myself do it I wanted to learn Spanish  

like at one point I was sitting in my apartment  and I realized that okay today is the day I  

actually want to learn Spanish I feel excited  about this language and I feel like I can do

it

I had to change the position of my camera a  little bit because the Sun moved but let's  

continue with my story so December last year  2023 I was thinking about my language goals for  

the upcoming year for 2024 and I realized there  was one goal that I really wanted to accomplish  

in 2022 but I never did actually because I think  I completely forgot about it the goal was about  

learning the American Sign Language yep and a  few days ago I had my first class and it was  

great I really liked it and right now I know how  to show numbers from0 to 10 and also I know the  

whole alphabet for example a b c d e f g h i j  k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z of course I'm  

still at the very beginning of my journey but so  far I really like it it's definitely something  

completely new to me and my goal for the next 3  4 months is to have my first mini conversation  

obviously without using my voice only using my  hands I was always fascinated by sing language  

and I knew that at one point I would want to learn  it but what changed for me in 2022 is I was on a  

plane from Mexico City to Cancun and there was a  couple a deaf couple sitting next to me and they  

were so much fun to talk to they were extremely  extroverted and of course back then I didn't know  

any sign language so we just communicated with our  phones you know we would text some words and this  

is how we would communicate and at that moment  I realized that first of all I was very clumsy  

with my hands like believe me it took me a lot  of effort to learn the alphabet of the American  

sign language because this was very hard for me  to do this the letter D was very hard for me to  

do because my index finger was not that flexible  yeah and when you count this is six and and this  

ring finger for me is always falling down so  I'm like no just hold it straight I guess I'm  

sharing all this with you to show that I'm  a human being too and I struggle sometimes  

too and if you're struggling with your language  learning sometimes it is totally okay sometimes  

it gets hard sometimes we can do a certain  thing from the very beginning sometimes we  

need a little bit more time to practice  the accent or perfect this one specific  

pronunciation rule we're all different and that's  where the magic is so thank you so much for being  

here all these years for watching my videos  and learning languages with my help I really  

appreciate it if you feel like it you can share  in the comments what language learning plans you  

have for 2024 I feel like it's going to be very  interesting for me to read all of your comments  

if you want to build your own website don't  forget to check out Squarespace by clicking  

the link and my description and in the pin comment  head to squarespace.com Veronica to save 10% off  

on your first purchase of a website or domain if  you're thinking about what to watch next you can  

click right here and continue by watching this  video thank you so much and I'll see you there