Pretend you’re foreign
The attitude of trying to understand
Language is alive.
Everyone who speaks a language uses it in their own way and it evolves because of it.
Words can take on very different meanings over time, like ‘manufacture’ and ‘awful’ did, and even an inconspicuous word like ‘nice’. They can even turn into the opposite of their original meaning. For example ‘to resign’ originally meant ‘to re-join’ but it now means ‘to quit’. Go figure.
As you can see above, I often look up the origin of words (etymology) and can get real excited when I find something interesting or even useful (for example, the origin of the word coach that I wrote about here). In that sense language is a historical learning tool and it illustrates how our ancestors used and changed it.
One look at the fractal branching on Minna Sundberg’s beautifully depicted ‘language tree’ and you see how language represents our shared past and the many ways we’ve shifted, split off and intermingled.
And the intermingling is happening as we speak. As I mentioned in the last newsletter, I’m a native Dutch speaker but I'm immersed in English and have been for years. It's basically the only language I consume, most of my friends speak it, and I even journal in English.
I’ve clearly noticed that English is creeping into my native Dutch as well. If there's an English word that covers what I want to say better, or it’s simply on the tip of my tongue, I use it instead. While I might overdo it, this is not uncommon in the Netherlands where many people speak English as a second language.
The people
A third language that I'm trying to take on but I’m way less versed in is Spanish. I've taken Spanish courses before and I’m on DuoLingo but I don’t get a lot of experience speaking it.
I do listen to it though.
When I was in my 20's, my Spanish roommate got me into Spanish music. We listened to ‘nuevo flamenco’ bands like ‘Martires del Compas’, ‘Elbicho’, and flamenco superstar ‘Camarón de la Isla’. I’ve been to music festivals in Spain, and I still listen to a lot of Spanish music regularly.
Engaging in other languages, in my case English and Spanish, it becomes clear that I don’t just learn to translate words or sentences, but become familiar with an entire people, their ideas, and their way of living. The language represents the people speaking it and it shows.
This is especially obvious when comparing Spanish people to Dutch people. When hearing and even translating Spanish, it sounds poetic, warm, and profound. It sings and has a musical rhythm. As do Spanish people themselves it seems. They’re natural huggers, full of Mediterranean warmth, and close to their emotions. Real 'people-people'.
The Dutch are not like that. Huggers? No way. Warmth? Uh, no, just as cold as the weather. And you can feel it in our straightforward, to the point, and business-like language. The words, the sound, the sentences, they totally fit the people in both cases.
The best example of a clear difference comes from language teacher Michel Thomas. In his Spanish Foundation course (I would recommend any of his language courses, the way he breaks down a language is revolutionary) he presents the sentence 'lo siento' which means 'I'm sorry' but he also gives us the literal translation which is 'I feel it'.
Understanding what it really means, I can totally imagine a Spanish person saying this. Hand on their heart, meaning it. 'I feel it'. Instead of a hastily running-along Dutchman shouting: 'het spijt me’ (I'm sorry). Something that I would probably say and do. Let alone truly ‘feeling it’.
A foreign attitude
Language is an incredible human tool. It easily beats having to mime everything to each other all of the time I’d say. But effective communication with other people isn’t only about sharing the same language, it also depends on our attitude.
We automatically calibrate our communication to people that don't speak our language. If we can’t use our usual language capabilities we adapt. We might talk slower, communicate with our hands a bit more, or whip out google translate.
Not taking clear communication for granted creates a very helpful attitude in our communication. An attitude of trying to understand, in the same way we would communicate with a child for example. We are generally way more patient and understanding in such cases.
Why don’t we extend this attitude to everyone we communicate with? In communication, attitude makes all the difference. When someone is actively making an effort to understand me, I can feel it.
And it almost makes me want to hug them.
"language is a historical learning tool", this is so beautiful and so true!
I absolutely relate to injecting my native language with English. I speak 5 fluently, so I strongly feel how speaking German/French a lot changed my way of thinking in Ukrainian; it's in the word order, in ton of emails, especially in my writing. It's like recreating my personality through each new language.
But what I find most valuable is these language-specific terms which cannot be translated. It's like "siesta" in Spanish - a whole cultural concept, which is intrinsic to Spanish lifestyle, but has no analogies in English. We can fully understand such cultural gems only if we understand the people who speak this language. I have so many Ukrainian-only words and idioms which I used to descriptively interpret for English-speaking friends. But lately I discovered value in sticking to the original word - I just try to explain why it's so integral to Ukrainian POV. That's my little step to help foreigners understand Ukrainians on a deeper level ))
Really cool piece here about language Rik.
I'm a Spanish speaker and music fan myself! So I loved this quote:
"Engaging in other languages, in my case English and Spanish, it becomes clear that I don’t just learn to translate words or sentences, but become familiar with an entire people, their ideas, and their way of living. The language represents the people speaking it and it shows."