Profile: Luna Abadia
By: Claire Yoo
Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Mandarin. These are the typical languages that are taught in Portland Public Schools. Luna Abadia, a freshman attending Lincoln High School, wants to make a change. She believes that she and her peers should come together to learn about a broader variety of languages and cultures.
Abadia started learning Japanese a few years ago during Christmas, when she was learning to draw a Japanese style drawing.
“I was really curious about all the characters and symbols that I didn’t understand that were Japanese, that were [also] often in the images.” said Abadia. From there, she started to learn the basic symbols of the language. First on her own, and eventually with a private Japanese teacher.
Abadia is currently a student in the Spanish immersion program, but she described that learning Japanese was totally different.
“Spanish and English are pretty similar, but Japanese is a language that is a lot more different. It doesn’t have words that sound similar, and the words are completely in the opposite order. It was so different that I thought it would be cool to learn because you have to start from zero, and it is not a Latin based language, which makes it difficult [to learn] but more fun,” said Abadia.
Abadia predicts that learning Japanese will impact her positively in life. Not only Japanese, she says, but learning a new language in general impacts people positively.
“I was really curious about all the characters and symbols that I didn’t understand that were Japanese, that were [also] often in the images.” said Abadia. From there, she started to learn the basic symbols of the language. First on her own, and eventually with a private Japanese teacher.
Abadia is currently a student in the Spanish immersion program, but she described that learning Japanese was totally different.
“Spanish and English are pretty similar, but Japanese is a language that is a lot more different. It doesn’t have words that sound similar, and the words are completely in the opposite order. It was so different that I thought it would be cool to learn because you have to start from zero, and it is not a Latin based language, which makes it difficult [to learn] but more fun,” said Abadia.
Abadia predicts that learning Japanese will impact her positively in life. Not only Japanese, she says, but learning a new language in general impacts people positively.
“Understanding different cultures just gives you a global mindset, which is really important to have in life,” Abadia said. She thinks that learning a new language will give her more job opportunities in the future, and she will be able to communicate with a bigger community of people.
Abadia is already making a change in the variety of cultures Lincoln High School teaches today. She started the first Japanese club to have diverse languages be known in the community, in addition to the ones that are already taught here.
“I know that I don’t know everything about Japanese, so I really want to get students together so that we can learn about it together,” said Abadia.
“I know that I don’t know everything about Japanese, so I really want to get students together so that we can learn about it together,” said Abadia.
Abadia has the goal to learn a variety of other languages during this school year as well.
“The more languages you learn, the easier it is to learn another one,”said Abadia. Her goal is to effectively use her global mindset to help her next year when she is studying abroad.
“The more languages you learn, the easier it is to learn another one,”said Abadia. Her goal is to effectively use her global mindset to help her next year when she is studying abroad.
I like the topic that you wrote about, I also liked that you included a lot of quotes.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of language in this interview
ReplyDeleteThis was a very unique profile and very interesting to read! This inspired me to learn more languages.
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ReplyDeleteI agree!
DeleteGreat photo of Luna. I like the topic you chose to write about her as well. Great job overall!
ReplyDeleteReally interesting topic and person!
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ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your profile. It was a very interesting topic to pick.
ReplyDeleteReally good writing, it was interesting to read about language and i student who knows multiple languages. Also, your photo is really good.
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