Lessons in Language

Learning a new language as a fully functioning (more often than not) adult is a bit like trying to potty train a teenager. It’s tempting to say if it ain’t there yet it ain’t gonna happen, but in reality anything is possible when you sacrifice your dignity and roll up your sleeves. Years of successful, effortless communication can leave you overly confident and unable to adapt when confronted with the fruitless task of locating a bottle of Draino in both a foreign country and language. For a real challenge try explaining the U.S. electoral college system or attempt to understand Venezuela’s cell phone plans in the first months of learning Spanish, and feel your head start to swell.

Some people (mostly non-native English speakers) are blessed with the gift of learning languages quickly, and effortlessly switching between them. Our Greek housemate here who speaks five languages is one of those people. I am not one of those people. Fortunately, I do have a considerable amount of time under my belt living in Italy and studying the language. Before leaving on this trip my Italian was pretty much fluent. Until recently I had no fear of losing Italian, but as my Spanish improves I fear my brain may not be able to hold three languages. I may emerge from this experience speaking some version of Spitalian/Italish and a very rudimentary English. In any case it has been interesting to go through the process of learning a language again, remembering that dignity and self-respect are the two biggest hindrances to the process. Mistake after mistake after mistake seems to be the only way to get grammar to stick. Same goes for vocab. There´s probably some sort of graph you could draw up correlating foolishness with comprehension. Traveling and living with my girlfriend taking part in the same process, my dignity and self-respect naturally start to creep back (though I realize this might not be the norm for relationships these days). But surging confidence is not necessarily a bad thing. It can help you decide that, you know what, I think I’d like to stop humiliating myself on a day-to-day basis. Maybe I should start studying more and really practicing my Spanish.Then you (I) start practicing more and really embarrass yourself (myself), and the whole process starts over. It’s a vicious cycle.

But whether you are studying Spanish in Venezuela or Zulu in South Africa, the key is finding ungodly patient locals to converse with. These people have a genuine interest (sexual or otherwise) and are willing to work wih you to get your point across. Not through constant correction or by dominating the conversation but through (everyone in a relationship should be familiar with this one) active listening. You could also jump into an unhealthy long-term relationship with a local desperate for companionship, but I would recommend at least trying to make some friends first.

Giving private English lessons has really helped my Spanish along the way, in part because I have realized just how little I understand my own native tongue. I realize that I use such horrific grammar and pronounce my words in such a garbled way that it is a miracle anyone understands anything I say in English, let alone Spanish. While I may be helping my students minutely with their English, really they are helping me focus my awareness on grammar and pronunciation in both Spanish and English. When I spoke with my student Anna in Spanish for the first time about setting up English lessons, she told me later that I was using “novio” to refer to my girlfriend, which of course means boyfriend. While I remain skeptical that I still make mistakes like that almost three months into learning Spanish, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt (and assume she’s either going deaf or chalk it up to my mumbling). She said she thought to herself, “Either this guy is gay or he’s got terrible pronunciation”. I probably could live with either of the two, though right now speaking fluent Spanish with a gay lisp sounds more appealing than speaking mangled Spanish as a straight guy. I guess what’s important is that she relayed the tale, and thanks to her story, I now pronounce “novia” with a capital A and stretch out the sound like soccer announcers do the “o” in “goooooooooooal!” “Mi noviaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” God forbid I make references to my novio in the wrong men’s room. Joking aside, this would probably be a difficult country to live in as a homosexual, with machismo working as a such strong cultural force that it practically has it’s own governmental department. If “wrong” men’s rooms do exist they are few and far between.

To sum it up, everyone should try and learn a new language (Mandarin is looking pretty practical these days), especially if you long ago dismissed any chance of picking up those old French or Spanish workbooks from high school. It can be fun, rewarding, humiliating, and agonizing all at the same time. English may be the international language but the majority of the world sure doesn’t speak it, and it is offensive to expect that they would. As U.S. Americans we need to shift our priorities to engage more with the world, and learning languages is a great start. While learning to speak a new language is an important skill set, learning to not take yourself so seriously is invaluable.

-Jake