24 | Betty.
| Sage's POV |
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"Alright everybody," my foreign language professor smiled, clasping her hands together. "Welcome to my class."
"I'm Mrs. Romanoff."
"If you have chosen this class, you should know that there are twelve options. You must at least pick two, with a limit of four." she explained, grabbing a stack of papers. She ran a hand through her dirty blonde hair, passing them out to everyone.
At the feeling of a tap on the back of my chair, I looked back, seeing Wesley. I smiled, so did he.
I looked back at my paper, seeing a sheet of the twelve different languages, with simple directions saying to circle a minimum of two, maximum of four.
"Now, this is an elective. Which means it's not your absolute top priority. That's why you can only select four. But I do want you to treat this class as if it's any of your others. This grade can have an impact, I assure you." Mrs. Romanoff said. "I will give you the next thirty minutes of our class to make your choices. You can keep the paper, but please come up to me so I can mark you."
"They are also all marked in order of difficulty. The top ones are essentially the easiest to learn, while the lower ones tend to be more challenging."
Spanish,
Italian,
French,
German,
Indonesian,
Mandarin,
Greek,
Russian,
Japanese,
Hebrew,
Arabic,
Latin.
I took in all of my choices, rewriting them on a sheet of blank paper.
I already knew two, Spanish and Italian, so, I crossed them out, before also crossing out the top three that didn't interest me. Indonesian, Russian, and Japanese. I figured those were the three I'd use the least.
And, that left me with,
French,
German,
Mandarin,
Greek,
Hebrew,
Arabic,
Latin.
I definitely wanted to learn the most possible, so I had to cut out three of the seven.
As interesting as they would totally be, Mandarin and German would be the most useless for me. So, I crossed those out.
French,
Greek,
Hebrew,
Arabic,
Latin.
I definitely wanted to learn Greek and Latin for sure. So, I circled those two on my actual paper.
I spent the next ten minutes thinking, and slightly panicking. I came to one decision though, French was getting circled.
But how was I supposed to choose between Hebrew and Arabic?
Hebrew is less spoken, but Arabic is definitely more difficult. They are both similar, being both semitic languages. Knowing Hebrew is a huge help is leaning Arabic, so, if I were to learn that, I could just learn Arabic for fun, right?
Boom, there we go.
My final list is, after much deliberation,
French,
Greek,
Hebrew,
Latin.
Easy enough.
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"Ugh," Rory huffed, throwing her body onto the couch. "I have to play Juliet for a class project. And guess who's Romeo?" She looked over at me.
"Paris?" I teased, looking up from my book.
"At this point, I wish," she groaned, "it's Tristan." I laughed, "yeah, good luck with that one. I have to learn four languages in two months. So, sorry, but I'd much prefer to be you. Tragic, is the tale of having too many boys." I mocked.
"Four? In two months?" Mom asked.
"She means she actually has three months to learn them, but, if she let's herself wait till the last minute, which, for her is a whole month before, she'll die. Essentially." Rory informed.
"You know me so well," I said, closing my book and grabbing my backpack. "I've gotta study."
"Same." Rory got up, walking over to me.
"Have fun you two!" Mom called out.
I softly shut my door, glancing at the clock. It was currently four pm, meaning if I started studying now, I could work for eight hours, that would bring to midnight. I'll probably fall asleep around one or two, and I have to get up at five.
Around four hours of sleep? Not too bad.
I've divided my time carefully. After some calculations, I figured two languages per month will get me to the basics, then I can spend the final month perfecting them. It's a foolproof plan.
French and Latin are similar, both being in the Indo-European language family. So learning them together, would be smart.
Greek and Hebrew were very different, but they do share some of the same vocabulary, so the pair would make sense.
I figured I could start with books. That usually worked for me anyways.
I went to the bookstore after school. And, due to a special request, Andrew got me a copy of four of my favorite books, each in a different language. I also had an audio copy of each of them, which would definitely help with pronunciation.
My professor gave each of us detailed videos, twenty five lessons per language to study, seeing as this isn't an in school assignment.
We'd have a period each day, only thirty minutes for extra studying time, but all learning was done at home. Chilton calls it help for our independence.
I like to call it a tag team attack on our mental health, but that works too.
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