Day Thirty
Eight: Language
I love
languages.
At the moment
I speak fluent Italian, passible Spanish and enough French to get me through a
summer in Paris. I’m also learning bits and pieces of Farsi, Russian, Aribic,
Romanian and German. I can pretty much read liturgical and classical Latin and
I can force my way through some Greek.
Even though I’m
only really fluent in one language besides English (Italian) and okay at two
others, this is still significantly more
than most people I know. True, I went to both a high school and a college
that encouraged the learning of foreign languages and I was taught Japanese and
Spanish from a very young age (I started Japanese when I was five.) I’ve had a little
bit of an unfair advantage because being multilingual has been a part of my
life since I was very, very small.
A lot of
people tell me that they can’t learn a new language because they are too old,
but I don’t believe that. I know that when you’re younger, it is easier to
learn languages, but that doesn’t mean that just because you’re older that it’s
impossible. After all, I learned how to
ride a bike properly when I was twenty.
Some people
are attuned to languages, some people are not, and I understand that. Studies
show that students with learning disabilities often have more trouble with
Romance languages (the ones most commonly offered in schools) compared to
pictographic languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean.) Sometimes it isn’t that you
aren’t good at learning languages, it’s that you haven’t found one that clicks
with your brain.
Being able to
speak to people in their native tongue is more than just respectful, it’s
enjoyable. Not to mention that learning another language is totally hot. Have you
ever had someone whisper I love you
in French?
(My boyfriend speaks Chinese,
not exactly a romantic language, but still hot.)
Challenge to
my Readers:
Learn something
in a new language today. It can be a word or a phrase. Even if you don’t think
you’ll ever use it, memorize it and be proud of it.
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