INTERVIEWER: Alright, so how about you introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about you. INTERVIEWEE DANICA: Hello, my name is Danica and I am from Canada. I am planning on majoring in Pharmaceutical Sciences and minoring in Chinese. I play for the women's soccer team here. Yeah. Sums up my life. INTERVIEWER: Alright, so what are some of your earliest memories of, or just most distinct memories of, reading or learning to write? DANICA: I think one of the best memories I have of reading would be my mom and my brother spending time together reading bedtime stories, all those little ones. I don't know. My mom would read to me and my brother for hours until her voice was gone and then we'd read every other sentence and then have my mom read a whole book. I remember when I, before I started kindergarten, my mom started doing that cause my brother is two years older than me. I guess I started reading pretty early. Definitely when I started going to school, it caught on a lot so all I would do is sit in my room and read. My dad was not having it cause I had to play soccer 
[chuckles]. That's my memory of reading. Writing on the other hand, totally different story. I hated writing, absolutely disgusted me to spell things right. So I had not only spelling tests at school but my mom would test me because I couldn't spell simple things like the week, days of the week. Definitely missed a lot of i's spelling Friday. What else? Oh, eventually I had to, my mom had to stop reading bedtime stories because when we'd have reading time at school, anytime someone read a book out loud, I would fall asleep. So that stopped when I started going to school. Writing really didn't catch until I'd say like grade four or something like that. INTERVIEWER: Did you have, besides not liking writing, did you have trouble learning to write or was it easier cause you already knew how to read? DANICA: It was kind of hard because I knew what I wanted to say, but it was kind of hard to put it down on paper. I didn't know to translate it I guess. So. Never really turned out how I wanted it to. INTERVIEWER: I'm assuming eventually you learned how to... DANICA: I mean, eh, I do alright now. [laughs] INTERVIEWER: Good, good. That's wonderful. Alright, so your parents are Chinese, correct? DANICA: Both my parents are, yep. INTERVIEWER: And so I know you know how to speak... DANICA: Mandarin and Cantonese. INTERVIEWER: So how did you learn to speak those languages? DANICA: When I was growing up my parents worked a lot and my grandmother actually took care of me. My grandmother's only language was Chinese, so I'm guessing that's like the first language I learned, cause I was around her all day. I think I was able to speak both because my parents would come home from work and they'd speak English to me. I don't know, it's just the two languages, English and Chinese, kind of went around the house normally, like a decent amount for both so one wasn't more dominant than the other. But once I started going to school and not being around grandmother all the time I think English just kinda took over. And then when I grew out of having a babysitter or having my grandmother take care of me, English was basically the only thing I spoke. So. INTERVIEWER: Did you forget how to speak Chinese at that point or...? DANICA: You never really forget, like you always know, but it's definitely harder because when I..I went to Chinese immersion school so basically we went to school and half the day we'd speak Chinese and the other half we'd speak English. But the Chinese that my family speaks is a different dialect than the one I spoke at school so you start to get confused and eventually you just kinda speak in one dialect. So you kinda forget how to say things or understand things in another, I guess. So in a way you lose it. INTERVIEWER: Do you think it was easier when you went to school because you already had learned the language? I mean, learning it a such a young age, it's obviously easier to pick up, but do you think that gave you an advantage when you went to school to learn? DANICA: In my elementary school, I think all of our families were like that. But once I got to like junior high or high school when it became an option to take it, I definitely think it helped because I might be able to, um, think of what to say, like formulate my thoughts and say it in words, but I would always understand when someone spoke to me, so listening is easier. You never forget how to write or read cause you always know what the characters look like. INTERVIEWER: Did you have the same issues with learning Chinese as you did with English, that you, it was easier for you to read and comprehend than it was for you to write it out? DANICA: Um... kinda hard to say. So English, I couldn't spell but Chinese is different because you... it's like recognition, cause it's characters. It's not really like orderly spelling, so a symbol could mean a bajillion different things if you match it with another symbol or character. So I think Chinese would be easier cause it gives you hints as to what the word means but English is just, you should know how to spell something. But it's kinda hard, you can hear, you can spell it out, you can sound it out, but it's still... I still have trouble spelling til this day. So... INTERVIEWER: Yeah, most people still do. DANICA: Uhhh...simple words are kinda hard to spell [laughing]. Um, but, but... INTERVIEWER: You, did you learn any other languages? Other than Chinese or English? Eventually? DANICA: Um...I took Spanish for two years. I thought that language was really fun to learn. I also live in, lived in, Quebec during the summers. So two, three months at a time for the past two years and Quebec is our French speaking province so all they speak there is French and uh I found it was really similar to Spanish. So even though I've never taken French in school or learned it, it was easier for me to get the general idea of what they were saying. INTERVIEWER: You can pick up on... DANICA: yeah... INTERVIEWER: not that you could speak it... DANICA: totally understand their writing... INTERVIEWER: yeah. DANCIA: But I mean, if they taught me something, I, I could remember it, because it was close. INTERVIEWER: Do you think that, um, learning Chinese or just any language helped you to learn a second language or were they too different to compare in that way? DANICA: It's really different, I want to say it helps, but I can't really describe how it helped. I guess cause you're more open to what's not English. Do you know what I mean? So there's totally different structures and you kind of accept that it's not English and you can pick it up faster. INTERVIEWER: So it's more about understanding the grammar... DANICA: mmhmm... INTERVIEWER: and being open... DANICA: things being backwards... INTERVIEWER: different variations, that kinda... DANICA: yeah. Sentence structure is really different and you're just, you don't try to compare it. You just try to learn it, you know? INTERVIEWER: Do you ever think in a language other than English? DANICA: Usually, if I'm surrounded by people that are speaking that language, I think in that language, but otherwise I wouldn't. If you spoke to me in English, I wouldn't translate it to Chinese and then try to speak back to you in English, cause that's just, I would respond way to slow for it to be normal conversation. But if you were to speak to me in Chinese, I would speak back to you in Chinese. But I wouldn't start a conversation with you speaking English. INTERVIEWER: Right, right. Alright, so back to the Spanish... DANICA: mmhmm. INTERVIEWER: You said that knowing Spanish and knowing French, or not knowing French, knowing Spanish helped you to understand French cause they were similar languages. Do you think if you were to actually try and learn French that knowing Spanish would be like a stepping-stone? Like you'd be a step above other people? DANICA: I'm not sure that's really the case, just cause Spanish and French are very similar and it's easy to mix the two languages up. INTERVIEWER: Okay that a different thought. DANICA: So, I mean it could help you, but I feel like it's not a good reason to take the other language, just cause you 've taken one or the other. INTERVIEWER: Good point. So do you have any other memories that you're just dying to share? DANICA: No. [laughing] They're just too embarrassing. I only remember, I just remember not being able to spell. Um, I loved reading. INTERVIEWER: Do you still read to this day? DANICA: I think I would. I wish I read more, because you just, there are so many different ideas and the authors out there have so many, so much, so many things to share. But, I think with the lack of time, or that's my excuse, um, it's kind of hard to just pick up a book and leisurely go through it when you have textbooks and mandatory novels to read. So...I wish I read more though. INTERVIEWER: Alright, well thank you for your time. DANICA: Anytime Evelyn.