Biography
How should I start? I think that the best answer for this question is to talk about my mother tongue and then which is the other or the others I can use without any problem. Well, it seems logic that my first language is Spanish and that's because I am from Utiel, a spanish speaking small city near Valencia. My university friends maybe are bilingual or have Valencian as first language, but my situation since I was a child is different. Why? That's because of the geographycal situation of my town. It is nearly 90 km far from tha capital and normally, its habitants never speak using Valencian. It is also a hiscorical question too, because Utiel has belonged to Cuenca, one of the provinces which limit with Valencia; and there the only official language is Spanish.
So, does this mean that I can only speak one language at the same level as a first language is supposed to be? The answer is no. But, again, why not? It seems easy to think that if the official language of a place is only one, learning another since the beggining is strange, but according to valencian language policies, the parents first, and then the students can decide if they want to study Valencian at school or not. And which was my case? My parents decided that for me it was better to learn as much as possible if I have the opportunity. I have always shown gratitude for that because it made me able to domain two languages although I didn't speak it anywhere. As I said before, nobody there uses Valencian in the town, only at the Valencian class.
Then, as I grew up, I studied Valencian until when I finished E.S.O. (Secondary Obligatory Education, in English). I decided to try my abilities in a formal context. How? I tried the Mitjà, which is the exam for the C1 level of Valencian. I only knew what I learnt at school before that and fortunately, I could pass the exam. Because of that, I decided to stop studying Valencian during the last two years before university.
That's enough for Valencian, let's talk about the other languages. Maybe, you are asking yourself, how did I learn English. Right, as I did with Valencian, I only studied it at school, but I started later. When I was a child English language was not compulsory as soon as it is nowadays. So, I have learnt English since I was 7 years old, if I remember well. I never spoke English in a social context in Spain because the most part of the people who surrounded me were not able to do it. Only my mother had studies at home which were enough to help me with this language. When I finished E.S.O. I did the same as I did with Valencian, but in a lower level, I tried the B1 level test of the Spanish Official Language School and I passed it too, the same year only studying at the highschool.
When I finished the two years of Bachillerato, I decided to try the next level, B2, but I failed the oral and the listening parts. I did not feel sad, because I knew that my compentences were not enough. I needed to do something to improve them. And two years later during my university years, I tried it again and I passed it. Nowadays, I'm thinking about trying the C1 with the same attitude I took the previous exams.
What else could I say? Well, I started studying German last course with the A1 level, because I have been always interested in learning how does this language worked. After a year and an intensive course I got the A2 level in the German Center of Valencia. After it, I went on erasmus to Freiburg, Germany, when I improved a bit my abilities.
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