Noah Buske, 22, has had a lifelong interest in learning new languages. The young teacher at The King’s School Muldersdrift studied Linguistics and Psychology at Unisa and intends to continue his education by pursuing an Honours Degree.
Noah decided to become a teacher because his mother also works in education.
“When my mother ran her own school, I pitched in whenever she needed help with the younger kids or anything else. When I got to high school, I tutored Grade Six and Seven learners in science and math, and I gave them extra lessons.
“During Covid-19, I think it was just at the beginning or near the end,” he added, “we did an open schools training course, and during one holiday, we did open schools with a large number of children, where you teach children who may be in Grade Three but were never properly taught how to read or write, and so on. So we took a class like that. And then my brother, my mother, and I spent so many weeks doing lessons with them on Saturdays, and then last year, in the first term, the Grade Four or Five teacher became ill and had to leave. Because it is an integrated class, they needed to find another teacher quickly. So there are two grades in one class, which few teachers are equipped to handle simultaneously.”
Noah went on to explain that his interest in languages began when he was a child.
“My mother’s family raised us; part of her family is Afrikaans and part is Jewish; both groups speak the languages. We were raised speaking only English. I’ve always wanted to learn another language. I learned Afrikaans along the way, but we were never given the opportunity to advance.”
Noah has studied Latin (at the University of Pretoria’s Department of Ancient Languages), Japanese (for which he wrote the JLPT N5), Hebrew and Arabic, Spanish and Nahuatl (a South American language), Swahili, and now Zulu.
“I must emphasise that I am not fluent in all of the languages, but I have studied them thoroughly and can write in some of them,” he said.
When asked which of the many languages he studied was the easiest to learn, Noah stated, “Swahili was very well structured and ordered in my opinion. I’m sure as time goes on, things will become more complicated. However, due to the nature of the language’s grammar, I discovered that you could begin doing a lot quite quickly. When you first start learning Japanese grammar, it is also very simple. Arabic was the most difficult language I’ve studied.”
Noah came to the conclusion that some of the languages he’d like to learn in the future are Turkish, Hawaiian (he mentions Lilo and Stitch), and possibly Chinese.
