Why should a language have its own face?

You might think that it’s one of the most peculiar titles of article that you have ever read. How a language is supposed to have a face? As if it was a person?

I’ll explain. But firstly answer a couple of simple questions: why do we start to learn a language, especially those less well-spread ones? How the whole process of motivation works? What propels us to learn Italian or Portuguese, Japanese or maybe even Catalan?

Yes, yes, I can imagine how many millions of people speak English, Chinese or Spanish, but that’s not quite what I mean. Do you think how useful languages are when you learn them? Or how many people speak it? I doubt it. And if you do, well, it seems you are most likely to be struggling with learning or you have no idea what does it really mean to speak the language.

Language Identity

So what did I really mean by “face of the language?” Right, the culture. The real authentic reason that propels us not only to learn a language, but makes it a crucial part of our lives is cultural. The person you fall in love with, the cuisine, the lifestyle, the job you had been dreaming for all your life in a country you like, the mentality and just simple interest and curiosity. These are reasons that really work, they are sincere and they keep you motivated and fascinated by your daily language routine. There is an incessant number of things in a language that derive from geography, climate, history, traditions and mentality and they all create a solid base of a language, so it’s almost impossible to learn it ignoring them. I often think that this is the very reason why Esperanto was almost a self-defeating project and still hasn’t become a lingua franca, and I doubt it ever will. You cannot just learn English or Spanish because they got so popular and widespread, because both of them are spoken in so many countries, so you will be lost in a variety of slang, vocabulary, accents, dialects, but most importantly by the amount of cultural references. Those who have this approach and claim they speak a language, in my opinion, are dreadfully deceived and in reality have a very precarious and slender knowledge.

What does it mean to speak a language?

As languages became so mainstream, the confusion enhanced and the concept of mastering or speaking a language diverged and eventually got baffling. To conceive it keep in mind that any language is just coded information we want to convey, and by learning we have to decipher the code. It’s like programming. Or art. Any form of art represents the author’s view of the world, attitude to a certain situation or… human emotions. And obviously every form of art has its rules. So does the language. On the one hand, it’s just the tool and it’s universal, but on the other hand, it implies so many details and subtleties that sometimes the life is not enough to conceive all of them. With every new language you discover the whole world that all this time have been surrounding you, but you never thought of it. Lyrics of songs you were not able to discern and understand before, movies, literature, jokes and even sometimes slogans and advertisements all of a sudden pop up and start to make sense. It feels like you have to rediscover everything from the scratch. And that all matters when I ask you again: what does it genuinely mean to speak the language?

That’s what it means – to be completely drenched into culture, to be a part of it. It’s not only when you speak fluently and can imitate accents, it also includes historical and cultural implications such as watching movies, series, and reading books and magazines in this language, understanding the reality of a certain culture and mentality and just feeling at ease while you are in this environment. And if you still don’t get my point then think of a difference between Picasso (or any other recognized artist) and some other person who mechanically copies everything he can, but who is not able to create anything genuine and unique. In other words, learning a language can be compared with being re-born, you are still who you are, but in a slightly different version, as if you were born in another country.

Dead end

And here we are getting closer to a real problem. Why can’t you learn a new language? Well, most likely the reason is that you are not genuinely interested. Your motivation is triggered by fake incentives such as number of speakers or its usefulness, so “the market” imposes on you the artificial vision, you accept it, but can’t help struggling with learning. You feel that there is something wrong, but by the lack of experience you fail to understand what is that. Most people surrender, the most diligent ones keep struggling… and then surrender.

There is a prominent discrepancy in the way we have been taught to perceive language learning. People have to do away with school classical approach and be more self-determined. The majority of people who are trying to learn English, as a rule(very sad rule, by the way), cannot even explain why do they do it, and instead just mumbling something like “Well, it’s so useful, everybody speaks it…”. So they don’t really care about the culture, mentality and people. Variations are possible, such as “I learn Spanish because half of the world speaks it” or my favorite one is “I learn Chinese, because the economy potential of China is increasing in the world”. People see languages as something that has to be roted, like an odious poem we had to learn by heart, because it was a part of school program. They think it is a perpetual list of exercises and correcting mistakes. When I start to arrange speaking activities for students of intermediate level in class, I hear “It’s a great pass-time, but when will we learn something?” So they are so firmly convinced that learning can’t be fun, and not for the world can learning be an enjoyable pass-time.

So what I’m trying to say is that every language in the world has the culture behind it and this is paramount. Even if you are interested not only in one country where your target language is spoken, you still have to choose something as a base, and don’t worry, you brain will do it for you. To like or prefer a language or its accent is like to be in love with somebody – there is no need to tell you, you just feel it. Why people are so confused about their choices? Simply because they have never been taught to choose. At school we are never asked what would we like to learn. English or Latin or other languages are represented as any other school/University subjects. There is no “why”, no charm, no real people and situations behind it. We are never asked what does a target language mean for us? Or how the sound of it makes us feel like? Or what images it triggers?

We use precarious old books, and listen to teachers, who barely can pronounce the sounds correctly. We follow the given program and almost never come back to previous topics. We are asked to learn texts and make sentences about imagined people, that have nothing to do with our own lives.

By learning languages, we re-discover our own selves, we re-discover the worlds around us. Giving the identity to a language is as important as giving a name to a new-born baby.

Slender knowledge of English is not enough to conceive and embrace another culture, as opposed to common opinion that it is. You miss too many things, and misunderstand too many references. It’s enough to order a coffee in a local Sturbacks maybe, but tremendously insufficient even to explain details of your own culture to somebody else. You might leave your interlocutor puzzled. I’m not saying that everybody has to learn 10 languages, I’m only saying that they can do it if they only want.

The so-called secret of success, is indeed inside of you. And it’s called passion. The biggest effort you really have to make is to find it, and if you did, learning a language will become the best adventure you have ever undertaken.

#Languagelearning