Multiliguals of Melbourne

🍬🎂🎈 Thumbs up for Celebrating Milestones 🎈🎂🍬 @multilingualsofmelbourne turns ONE, today! 💃🏽 To celebrate, MoM would love to hear how you say Happy Birthday in your other language/s ✍🏽🙏🏽 (at Royal Exhibition Building)

CRAZY to think that the 1st nine people featured on #multilingualsofmelbourne had a combined total of 16 languages + dialects between them (& maybe even more now) 😳😳😳 #English #Hindi #Tamil #Mandarin #Taiwanese #Tagalog #Japanese #Hokkien #Persian #Farsi #Turkish (Iran) Turkish (Turkey) #Cantonese #German #Latin #Spanish #Shanghinese #language #melbourne #linguistics #languagesafari #languageexchange #multilingual #culture #multiculturalism #languagelovers #tck (at Melbourne, Australia)

(3/3) “One thing that you have to learn when you have the wish of living abroad and exploring the world is that it’s okay to be on your own. Almost everybody feels uncomfortable when they are on their own. It’s something that you might not realise but when you are by yourself, you have to be okay with your own thoughts. I don’t know the translation but I know the psychological name in Portuguese. It is something that I had to learn because my biggest companion, my sister, moved from Brazil to Australia to study abroad last year. After she left, I had to learn to be on my own but it was a great experience because it developed my sense of confidence and self knowledge. It is something I wouldn’t have gained if I always had someone next to met.” Languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish (at Flagstaff Gardens)

(2/3) “I actually delayed a lot of experiences in my life because I was scared of the results, like it would come out wrong or not in the way I expected and I don’t think that is good. I realised later that if things didn’t go well, it would be okay in the end. It just means you learn different things from when you were first starting out. Your perspective on the results depends on how you see it, you know the half glass empty, hall glass full theory. My parents have always encouraged me and my sister to go live abroad and it is something that I’m really grateful for because not everybody gets to do it. I have only been in Australia for three days so let’s meet in about two months and see how I feel then.” @jessmribeiro Languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish (at Flagstaff Gardens)

(1/3) “Many outcomes in my life were consequences of a seed that was planted in me ever since I have known myself, which is the desire to explore life and the world. And it’s something that started to make a lot of sense in my life once I first lived abroad for one and a half months in California. It really made me realise that the world is ours, you know. I don’t really think that makes sense for a lot of people but once you have these experiences of moving out and going abroad, it makes you think differently.” @jessmribeiro Languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish (at Flagstaff Gardens)

I can’t speak for anyone else but I know that I am sick & tired of waking up (on a weekly basis now) to mindless, mass killings of innocent people. A shooting here, a bomb explosion there & the latest, a truck blindly driving through a crowd of civilians. When is this madness going to end? Slaugthering humans beings is not acceptable. This is 2016. Have we not learnt anything from the past? The whole point of creating #multilingualsofmelbourne was to celebrate the world we live in, with the people who are around us. I wanted to show that people from different cultures, who speak multiple languages can coexist & also be extremely enriching to your life, as it has already in mine & continues to do so. I have such a heavy heart right now & my faith in humanity is being challenged. However, love is actually all around us. It just starts with one person. I challenge you this week to get to know someone different than you. Listen to them. Be curious. Show respect. And appreciate their past, present & future. You never know how someone might impact on your life. 🤔 (at Melbourne, Australia)

I can’t speak for anyone else but I know that I am sick & tired of waking up (on a weekly basis now) to mindless, mass killings of innocent people. A shooting here, a bomb explosion there & the latest, a truck blindly driving through a crowd of civilians. When is this madness going to end? Slaugthering humans beings is not acceptable. This is 2016. Have we not learnt anything from the past? The whole point of creating #multilingualsofmelbourne was to celebrate the world we live in, with the people who are around us. I wanted to show that people from different cultures, who speak multiple languages can coexist & also be extremely enriching to your life, as they already have & continue to do in mine. I have such a heavy heart right now & my faith in humanity is being challenged. However, love is actually all around us. It just starts with one person. I challenge you this week to get to know someone different than you. Listen to them. Be curious. Show respect. And appreciate their past, present & future. Food for thought - You never know how someone might impact on your life 🤔 (at Melbourne, Australia)

That feeling when your vibe starts to attract a wider tribe... A massive THANK YOU to all of you who stopped by MoM to read the latest stories on @shadowsky Feeling super grateful for you all 👊🏽👊🏽👊🏽 (at Melbourne, Australia)

(3/3) “I didn’t choose to live in Melbourne for any particular reason, but it’s probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It was very hard for me when I first got here. I had never felt so alone in my life, even though I was alone a lot when I was younger, this was the first time I didn’t have familiar people around me. I absolutely adore Melbourne now and this is the home that I have created. I feel welcomed. My boyfriend said to me, ‘You might be a foreigner and have only lived here for a couple of years, but you seem to know Melbourne better than people who have grown up here.’ And it’s true. I’ve made it my mission to really devour all that I can see, eat, drink, everything that Melbourne has to offer. I want it to be part of my personal passport. I am really proud that I have come this far and am hoping to stay here for as long as I can.” Languages: English, German, Indonesian (at Melbourne, Australia)

(2/3) “I am a third culture kid or a TCK. A lot of people don’t know about TCK’s so when they do find out about us, they just think it is someone who has grown up in a different country during their formative years, adopting that culture or a countries customs and mannerisms. And I would say in a sense, yes, but there are different cultures within yourself. I have very Asian mannerisms once in a while, yet sometimes my European side will show as well. So when I meet a fellow TCK or someone who has had a different upbringing, linguistically or culturally, it’s like we automatically connect with each other as weird as that sounds because we know what adversity we have gone through and what we have had to figure out, identity and language wise. Like what language do we speak? Do we just speak English because our parents might not even speak the same language besides English, so how does that work? There are TCK’s all around us, you just don’t know it.” @shadowsky Languages: English, German, Indonesian (at Brunswick, Victoria)

(1/3) “When I first moved to Australia people would assume that I was Australian, but I am not. It was only when they started talking with me that they realised I had an accent. I would say passport wise I am German. However, I am actually half German, half Indonesian but I grew up in Singapore and Indonesia so that is where it becomes difficult to identify myself.” Languages: English, German, Indonesian (at Brunswick, Victoria)

If you follow MoM on snapchat you would have seen that yesterday I was a guest speaker at @ylead's #socialimpact conference in #MelbourneCBD. yLead is a non-for-profit organisation that delivers positive education and student leadership programs to young people across Australia. It was so much fun getting to the meet young, game changers who are part of this empowering organisation & also the other two guest speakers, founder of @monstasurf @camgreenwood & founder of @craneblog Sam Suke, who are both extremely passionate & creative people & are doing massive, impacting things within their communities! Thanks again for letting me be part of this increidble movement yLead, super grateful that I was able to share my achievements & intentions for MoM with your crew! Ps: Theme of the day - your vibe attracts your tribe 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 (at Melbourne, Australia)

(3/3) “I changed into a Master's of Translation Studies at Monash and am about to complete that degree. I enjoyed teaching but I don’t like speaking in front of people so I guess translating is more suited to my personality. I also realised along the way that it would be harder for me to work as an editor in Australia because I am a non-native English speaker. I really enjoy translating now and find it very interesting. I guess life is like a trial and error. It’s really a journey to discover yourself and you have to try different things until you find something and say this is what I want to do. People talk about having a passion, I don’t believe in passion. I believe in commitment, hard work and consistency. If you like something, you will invest a lot of energy and commitment towards it until you become the very best of that thing and then you will like it very much.” Languages: Indonesian, English, Mandarin, French (at Melbourne, Australia)

(2/3) “Looking back, I always thought there were two things in my life that I wanted to do. One was something related to books and/or languages and the other was something to do with the arts. So I did some soul searching after I completed my undergraduate degree because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I struggled a lot because I had to decide whether I wanted to do teaching or pursue something else. I ended up doing teacher training for several months but I soon realised I couldn’t do it. Then, I got offered to do some translation work and at first I felt like it was very boring. You don’t get to meet that many people because you are doing the majority of the work on your own. I tried editing as well, which is the reason why I came to Melbourne in the first place. I was enrolled in a Masters of Publishing and Communications but felt like I wasn’t suited to editing, mainly because I felt like as an editor you have the final say on what’s published and I don’t want to make any mistakes or be held responsible.” @ceciliando Languages: Indonesian, English, Mandarin, French (at Melbourne, Australia)

(1/3) “I grew up in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. When I was a little girl my mother wanted me to go to an English Institution. However, after my second lesson I didn’t think the method taught in the course was very good. I didn’t feel comfortable in the classroom because the teachers demanded that I had to speak on the spot and I didn’t like that type of pressure. I ended up hating English and was very bad at it. But then fate interfered. My mum found out there was another English Institution close to my house and it was run by a Canadian teacher. I gained my confidence back with her and after that I was very active in the class discussions. I was in a more relaxed environment and they also used a systematic way of teaching. I didn’t know back then that the teacher makes such a difference in learning another language.” Languages: Indonesian, English, Mandarin, French (at Carlton, Victoria, Australia)

(3/3) “Once I left high school, I pursued a degree in Theatre Arts at Swinburne University and then did a one year course in film school. After all of that I realised that in the film industry it is about who you know, not what you know, so then I went straight into bartending and studied music on the side. I do a bit of music production work now. I have a huge project I am working on and have about 70 songs in my repertoire. This is my little black book that has some names of the songs I know, plus songs that my now ex told me to look at, which are in Japanese. I experiment with a range of genres and multicultural music. At the current moment what I am looking at doing is to create backing tracks for all of these songs because I can only place guitar if I’m performing live or play one instrument at a time. I’ve been hanging out with some friends who are on the music scene and asking for a bit of mentoring, so hopefully I can start giving out some demos soon. ” Languages: English, Māori, Japanese, French, Spanish (at Melbourne, Australia)

(2/3) “From the age of 11 I was learning Māori in school. I spent five years in a catholic Māori boarding school and am thankful to the school for teaching me about my Māori culture. In the 80’s the Māori language was at risk, like tigers or gorillas are these days, very endangered. So we did this thing called a ‘Hikoi.’ The translation literally means to walk, but when someone says ‘We are having a Hikoi,’ that usually means a protest march because there is something that we are just not okay with. The Māori language is now taught in our schools as we have three recognised languages in New Zealand, which are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL).” @ra.ngatira Languages: English, Māori, Japanese, French, Spanish (at Cafe L'Incontro)