The Language Game

19 August 17:48

My brilliant, almost-philosophical Russian teacher, A., once told me that it is only when you have a proper grasp of a language do you stop wondering how to say something in that language, and inadvertently throw in words from other languages into the one you’re trying to study. If you’ve ever learned a second language, or even better, a third, fourth, or fifth, you will know exactly what I’m talking about. Your brain becomes mush, and you start to question how well you actually know your native languages and others you speak at a near-native level; because no matter how many languages you speak, they all turn to mush with an intensive language course.

Lucky for us language-lovers, this mish-mash doesn’t come with the languages you only sort of know. For instance, I’m not sitting in French class, inserting Russian or Spanish phrases into my sentences. Neither is anyone else. But in my language school at the moment, there are two distinct groups: German speakers who know English well (or me, the English speaker with good German), and English speakers who don’t know what’s going on with the foreign-language scene. This German-English thing that we’ve got going on is laughable. I swear. We’ve all got this complete menage of languages going on that sounds a bit like: Aujourd’hui, I went à la plage zu Fuß. In case you’re wondering what the heck that means, I said: Today, I walked to the beach. Ridiculous, no?

And then there’s the grammar that makes your eyes bleed. Here’s the thing. “They” tell you that once you know two or three languages, it’s easier to pick up others. This is true. Why else do Europeans speak eight languages without breaking a sweat? But what “they” fail to tell you is that it’s only easy if you stick to the language you’re learning. In other words, when you learn French, focus on the French. The grammar itself is not hard. Seriously. But it’s a nightmare when you try to decide what the English and German equivalents are. And then you kick yourself, because the Danish dude sitting next to you, who took English and German in school and can’t string a sentence together, tells you and the native German speaker how to speak your own respective native tongues. Nice. They weren’t kidding when they said non-native speakers know your language better than you do.

But I bet you’re wondering about those pesky English speakers. Well, in this group, they’re all from Ireland or England. So technically, they’re European. You’d think they wouldn’t have that North American stereotype of being ridiculously ignorant of and rubbish at languages. This is not true. As the pound distinguishes them from the rest of Europe with the Euro, their English speaking-ness distinguishes them from the rest of Europe with the language talents. H. can probably pick up a language faster than most of these guys. I think it’s an English-speakers’ thing. After all, you can get by almost everywhere in the world with just English. Besides, those pesky British used to have that “we’ll take over the world and subordinate you into our way of thinking along the way” thing going on for centuries. Old habits die hard, I guess, and in their former colonies, too.

On the plus side, I now have left-foot blisters on the big toe, ball, and heel. I’m not sure why it’s the left foot, but it kind of makes me hobble. Who knows? Maybe when I go home, H. will dig the gimp thing. But probably not. As much as I’m enjoying my language mish-mashing and beach-loving, I’m definitely excited to go home. For one, I’ll actually be able to do my homework when my prof tells me to watch a video online. Two, I’ll be finally sleeping in a bed that’s long enough for me. By this, I mean I won’t be sleeping in a single child’s bed anymore. That will be nice. I am not looking forward to the rain, though. I like the sun better. Definitely.