Mohammed Golgi: Learning a Language, One Conversation at a Time

All students at Mass Academy are required to complete a Senior Independent Study (SISP) centered around something they are passionate about. Oftentimes, this project reveals the unique interests of our peers which shapes the environment here at Mass Academy. Mohammad Golji decided to take on the challenge of learning a new language: Farsi. 

Mohammad’s interest in Farsi comes from several places. Much of his family speaks the language, and learning it would allow him to communicate with them more easily. He also appreciates how beautiful the language sounds and, as he put it, “the access it provides to academic and religious materials.”

Currently, Mohammad considers himself a beginner. He can read the Farsi alphabet, recognize simple phrases, and describe basic objects and colors. By the end of his project, he hopes to be able to develop a strong understanding of verbs, build a much larger vocabulary, and ultimately be able to hold conversations. 

His approach is relatively simple: practice consistently. He plans to spend four to five hours each week learning new words, engaging in conversations, and studying the language. He anticipates that C and D term, when college applications are no longer looming over our heads, will be when the time dedicated to his project will peak. Of course, Mohammad has no plan of ceasing his Farsi learning when the school year ends, on the contrary, he plans to intensify his study of the language to truly advance in it. His main resources will be his family and the internet, and he plans to track his progress by “recording conversations and maintaining a vocabulary journal.”

Mohammad is not the only student taking on a language-learning SISP. I am also working on improving my Spanish, although with a different starting point. Having taken Spanish in school for four years already, I already have a strong foundation in the language. My goal is to reach proficiency through regular speaking practice, Spanish movies and music, and reading Gabriel García Márquez novels. 

Despite our different starting points, we share a similar challenge: consistency. Mohammad expects that the hardest part will be motivating himself to sit down and practice for several hours each week. He plans to overcome this by reminding himself why he wanted to learn Farsi in the first place.

In the end, whether we’re starting from scratch or building on what we already know, we’re both working toward the same goal: becoming more comfortable speaking another language. If there is one thing we both seem to agree on, it is that a little practice every week can go a long way!