A Note On Language Learning
I remember watching interviews with some of my favourite writers and film directors when I was younger. I was hooked on every word they uttered, enraptured by their cadence, and how each sentence seemed to flow smoothly to the next. I wanted to speak how they spoke. I wanted to have that command over the language that they had.
This is all quite normal; we aspire to what we are not yet; or, we degrade it and look away. I wanted to emulate these writers and directors and so I focused intently upon them. Scouring the internet for every interview I could find; watching and rewatching. I didn’t know that I was learning a language. I never taught about it in those terms, but that’s what it was.
There was new vocabulary and unique sentence structures; there was a context and there was a history of usage.
Similarly, when I took up the study of philosophy at university I didn’t know that I was learning a new language. But that’s what it was too. A language is a way of describing the world. Writers speak in literary terms, in metaphors, symbols, and narratives passed down. Filmmakers speak in visual terms and motifs. Philosophers speak through concepts and terminologies.
I was not a strong language student at school. I found the teaching of German, Irish and French painfully dull. I felt like I was forcing myself to learn something that had no life. It was as if we were using these languages to resuscitate something dead within ourselves. Every phrase spoken to the teacher was like blowing into a lifeless thing that could not breathe back. It was like the words held no ground, no perspicuity, no communicative power.
And so, I came to believe that it was simply I was a poor student. Incapable of learning a language.
Later in life, I was lucky enough to travel a great deal. I visited many different places in the world and heard on my travels living languages. I felt the joy of communicating in a foreign tongue. How I could cross a barrier with a learned code. I realized how situational learning is and how you have to be captivated by something to truly learn it. You can’t learn a language by hammering it in; you can pass a test that way, but you cannot truly learn. You have to have a burning curiosity, you have to be open, and more than anything you have to humble yourself.
Right now, I’m learning to speak in a language I never imagined being able to speak: Thai. It’s been an incredible experience thus far. There have been ups and downs; days where I seem to make nothing but mistakes, and other days where I cross a particular threshold. Situations have accelerated my progress the most; moving house with my Thai family, taking a trip, selling food, working in a café, and learning to drive. I think it’s important to know that we are all learning to speak every day. But taking agency over how we speak, and what we say is the most important thing.
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