Earning language

I remember when English was a foreign string of words, a list of vocabulary on strips of paper, a table of verb tenses to be studied and memorized. I remember when I obediently wrote jumbled-nonsense diary entries in those long summer days when they were at work and I was left home alone, pre-internet days, bored. I remember first picking up the fourth volume of Harry Potter despite missing about a fourth of the plot, eyes sweeping across words but not understanding, and my subsequent surprise at the amount I missed upon rereading, a month(? Can't be more than a year) later.

And the immediate next thing I recall, I was fluent. Not 'became fluent', but 'was fluent'. Somehow I hold no recollection of when or how the jump occurred; it was zero to fluency with the x amount of time in between a seemingly complete blank. 

How I earned Spanish was a similar mystery, but I can associate that in-between stage's missing memory with general time-based erosion. The case with English...that excuse simply doesn't float as well.

Part of me realizes that the magical ingredient, in both cases, was forced-submersion in daily interaction with native speakers. Can twatter be an effective emulation of that? I wonder.

Passion holds me now.　

そして茨様、私が待ってください。

018. Language is a muscle

and I can distinctly tell that my Chinese is in the best shape it's been in since forever. By the same logic, I could pick up Spanish again, too, if I were to expand fandom participation in that direction...

*chinstroke