Second Language Acquisition

As a second language learner I never spent much time on the theories behind learning language. It was all about learning the language itself. I never really wanted to know how I was learning that particular language, I was just happy to learn it.
In the readings over the past week I have learned a lot about language and language acquisition and it turns out it's actually a fairly interesting topic. There is so much that goes into learning any given language that I never knew about. There are even critical learning periods that I was never aware of.
Language has always come naturally to me so finding out that there is a more complex process behind it is an odd discovery.
I really liked learning about Language Dominance because I find that happening in my own life. After all the time I spent learning spanish, I find myself mixing up Spanish words into my English vocabulary. There have been times where I can't think of the word in English, only in Spanish. I never really understood why this happen but it makes more sense now, after the readings and class work.
The second thing that really stood out to me was the different terms used for different ways we use a second language. There are terms such as Language for a Specific Purpose or Library Language. Sometimes a language, or pieces of a language, are learned for specific things whether that be to cook or to read a book or to study. I find it interesting that this was the case for quite some time in a lot of the European countries where they would study, write, and read in Latin but speak in their native tongue (e.g. Spanish, French, Italian, etc.)
Even after taking 341 Linguistics this is all coming as very new to me, at least, the terms are new.
It's definitely an interesting topic to get involved in. :)
Until next time.