Many Tongues

I was chatting with a colleague today who could speak 6 European languages fluently from by the age of 20 (I think it was French, Italian, German, Spanish, English, and Portuguese).

I have always felt like only speaking English and Afrikaans (badly), with feeble introductory efforts at Xhosa and Zulu really holds me back from masses of ideas.

Recently in a fit of inspiration I made a valiant attempt at conquering German. I am going to try and keep that up.

I think language is incredibly powerful in ways beyond what we imagine. I believe it is quite possible that a large part of our personalities is determined by the language in which we are thinking and speaking. Culture and language are intertwined with humour and creativity. I believe that without learning other languages we are completely cutting off entire sides of our personality.

An obvious inhibitor is the wealth of literature that a purely English only speaker is restricted from. I am forced to read translations of Dostoevsky which while brilliant likely pale in comparison to the original. My colleague said that if I think English is a punny language, French takes it to a whole new level with subtle changes conveying a whole range of meanings. I would love to be able to enjoy different kinds of humour, philosophy, creativity and expression in their original form.

But, you can't learn a language in a book. This colleague achieved his feat by being the son of an ambassador and moving from country to country being forced to learn a new language. He never spent more than 4 years at a single school.

I spent years learning Afrikaans and I am still atrocious.

One of the reasons is that as an English speaker, learning another language is a nice to do. There is no need. In addition, we tend to be very condescending of foreign language speakers struggling with their English and judge them as stupid. Equally, the barrier of appearing stupid prevents us from being courageous enough to learn a new language.

I am going to try and push forward with German. It is close enough to English that I should have few excuses about difficulty. I have already spent many many hours with the tapes and can tell you what a hair-dresser is, that something is expensive, that I am a health fanatic (hmmm) and count to most numbers. But that is not a language... the real magic is in the subtlety and that is the next level (which 10 years+ of afrikaans didn't get me).

So with i-pods, access to blogs and movies, the Internet, and the lure of book-crazy London in my future, lets see whether Trev can get over the bump and open up a new world to himself.

Exciting Times.