Falling in love with reading and how it helped me to become a polyglot
Besides my wife, family and dear friends the thing that gives me the most joy in my life is definitely reading.
I don‘t know exactly when it started.
But bottom line is that I fell in love with reading, and it was the most powerful enabler of learning 4 foreign langauges, (English, Japanese, Chinese and some Spanish)
Japanese helped me to ask my Japanese wife out for a date, which led me to come to Japan.
First story that I remember to have captured me was the
Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca
It was when I was 8 years old.
A Korean kid who just got over learning alphabets, sleeping through classes in Clyde hill elementary because he did not understand a word the teacher was saying.
Then I came across the book. I dont know how I was able to finish the first book. I must have not understood one third of the words on paper. But after finishing the first book, I knew I wanted to read next since the magic tree house took me all over the world. Different times, locations.
I don't remember much the details of the book, but I knew how much of an impact it made on me since I remember as a kid in Dec 2002 what I wanted so bad for Christmas was not bionicles, toy cars or anything else. It was Christmas in Camelot (Merlin Missions, 1).
After the series I was able to delve myself into Roald Dahl Series. (Matilda)
When I was back in Korea just shy of age 10, I remember reading the story of king Arthur over and over. It was the very first book I read over once.
It was around when I was 11 or 12, my parents installed a software on the PCs which limited free-usage for 1-2hr a day. The only website I had unlimited access to was 'Edunet' It was a website where they would have online classes on all the school subjects.
The 12 year old me realized that in the 'write anything' bulletin of that website, there were kids copy pasting so called 'web novels' from external websites. I remember spending hours and hours on that website reading those novels. (My parents were puzzled at the sudden hike in my interest to learn stuff on Edunet while my grades did not move or event so slightly go down)
Then my interest shifted to comic books.
And my dad who was always double down on me buying any book, had to stop me after I ordered close to a hundred books just in a month or two.
The love for comic books led to love for Anime. Anime then led to interest in reading the original stories of those anime in Japanese(often either comic or novel).
My love for Anime paired well with so called 'light novels' as well. Those novels served as a great stepping stone transitioning from comics only to reading more lengthy content.
And throughout middle school and high school, I read voraciously through fantasy novels, Wuxia novels in Korean. It provided me a mental sanctuary during the bus ride to 학원(after school private classes), before going to bed, and during lunch breaks.
Finally when I graduated from the spartan grip of Korean education throughout middle school and high school I had much more free time to explore. I could read and study whatever I wanted to do, and I sure did. My interest in comics, fantasy, wuxia continued while a new genre entered my life.
On the very night after my Korean SAT was done, at the B1F book store near by I bumped into Tim ferri's 4 hour body. It led to changing my body composition(28% body fat to 17% throught out the next year, I could not do 1 pull up and I became capable of doing 15) but also added a long list of 'self-help' 'essay' and a heap of additional 'fantasy' 'SF' into my reading.
Some other books that I got to know thanks to Tim Ferris and left a mark in my 20s.
3rd year into Uni I went to Shanghai to study Chinese.
I skipped most of classes after the first semester.
Yet managed to pass HSK6 within one year from 0 knowledge by
<1>reading following 4 comics in Chinese
<2>reading and listening to
<3>a month of drilling the exam, Korean style
Now, in my early 30s reading (and listening to auido books) still is the most beloved hobby of my day to day. And I have to say I still enjoy all the genres and types.
Comics, Novels, Essays, Fantasy, SF, Self-Help, on and on it goes.
Looking forward to the following decades of reading, and thinking what a wonderful gift 'joy of reading' would be, to pass on either to our future children, or to growing nephew and niece.
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