Hello,
I hope life is treating you well.
So, here’s an interesting thing. I studied French at school for 6 years way back in the 1800s (OK the eighties) and I even attempted an ill-fated first year of studying said romance language at uni.
It was there I learned that, mind-blowingly, I could barely speak French when actual French people addressed me, even regarding simple, everyday things. This was despite me doing OK in Year 12 French. (I just shuffled through my archives and saw that I got a B for French in my final high school year.)
In fairness, regarding my lack of conversational prowess in French, I’d not actually had the opportunity to speak French with a native speaker until first year uni. I’d never visited a francophone country, only ever being taught French by Australians. It was a time of upheavals in New Caledonia, so the regular school trip there was cancelled. I can say though, thanks to long hours spent grasping a French/English dictionary in one hand and the classic book in the other, I did once successfully read Molière!
Anyway, the first point of this piece is really to say that if you’re ever wanting to completely challenge your brain, open yourself to new worlds, or understand a culture from the inside-out, please, learn a new language as an adult. It’s a ride.
When you don’t speak the lingo of the place you’re in, you’re kind of like a baby again. You will be plummeted into a new and sudden naivety, finding yourself at the communications mercy of the language ‘grown-ups’ around you, no matter how smart you are.
What a wake-up call on so many levels when PhD me was once again beginner me, and for an extended period of time, as I returned to French classes online. Unless you’re a language wiz, which I am not, mastering a foreign language takes a lo-ooong time. And during my language learning journey thus far, I have so often experienced feeling like a toddler must feel, like we all must have felt before we had our words.
At intermediate level, where I was stuck for the longest time, I could understand much of what was being said when Francophones spoke slowly, but answering did not come easily. It really puts you in an awkward spot!
We get so used to possessing the power of language that it’s easy to forget how long it took, and how much work it took, to master it as little ones. My compassion and admiration for immigrants who struggle with English as a second language has intensified through my language learning journey. People with multiple languages astound me now.
Learning a language is also a window into truly understanding another culture because so much of the flavour and uniqueness of particular cultures is captured and shared within its words and their rhythm. Conversely, not being able to speak the prevailing language of a place can be utterly disempowering, even when people are super kind. I can only imagine how awful the language barrier would be for those who do not encounter kindness, but instead, racism and marginalisation.
It’s an epic journey, learning a foreign language to some level of fluency in everyday life, but it’s rocky - or at least it has been for me. I have not liked much at all about being stripped of my verbal adulthood and reduced to near toddler-level communication again.
It’s felt a little humiliating at times, not due to anyone else’s responses to me, but because speaking and writing are things I typically do well in my mother tongue. It hurts to not have my words at my finger tips, or the tip of my tongue. It has taught me their power, their potency and their true value, to have to search for new ones under pressure to connect. It’s reminded me how having the words to express ourselves matters so very much to our health, happiness and sense of connection with others and the world we’re in.
The second thing, the even more profound thing about language I’m getting to here is how my language learning experience has held up a new lens for me about being heard. I’m specifically talking about how we all have our little toddler-self in us, who once struggled to speak, to find words for his or her feelings, to express their fears or sadness, or ask for what they needed or wanted. We were powerless back then, as we struggled to make ourselves understood. Hopefully sensitive parenting helped us through it. However, when I work with clients from traumatic backgrounds, the feelings of powerlessness and not being sensitively heard, that they experienced, are places where we must do a lot of work to find healing and peace.
A part of this can include helping people in finding their own wise inner voice, hearing themselves in ways they haven’t ever been heard, reparenting themselves with the understanding they didn’t have. Finally getting heard and understood, by a therapist, but more importantly by themselves is a big part of the healing.
It’s stressful and potentially humiliating to feel unheard, to not have a voice, find no words, or to have to search for them, feeling increasingly foolish and misunderstood. But that’s how we probably all felt at times in our earliest years, and that’s how some people continue to feel until they can hear the painful things insside that were beyond words. It can take time to tune into that language too, even though it’s of the self, if it’s been screened out so long.
I understand, more than ever now, how language sets us free, and can empower us.
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
Charlemagne
Do you have more than one language? If not, do you think your brain and your world might benefit from trying a second language?
It isn't costly or out of reach for anyone with a computer or device with internet. I began getting back into French with the free version of Duolingo then moved on to online and face to face classes.
I’m pushing on through various classes these days, including a great conversation group where I’ve made new friends. Not only am I grateful for the lovely teachers, classmates and the learning of French, but for the opening of my eyes to ever more understanding about what it is to be human, through the power of a new language. It has been so instructive to plummet back to the start of things again in this one way, to understand the power of words both inside our minds and in the world.
The soundtrack to this piece is the incredible, haunting Marianne Faithfull
Play me Marianne Faithful and I'm yours. I loved this piece of reflection Deb, as per usual your eloquence brings the words to life. I did not finish HSC, as it was in the 1800's ;), so year 10 French was as far as I got, but I had 2 years or so of learning at a UWC in Singapore and I recall some of it. If you have ever seen the movie 'Julie and Julia', Meryl Streep plays Julia Childs and at one stage is discussing something with a woman in France, starting in 'broken Franglish', then just resorting to English. When the woman reminds her to speak French Julia/Meryl replies, 'but I thought I was speaking French'. That is how I feel when watching a French movie with subtitles, pretending I can speak French. Sometimes I feel the same with the limited Italian I learnt from a long ago Italian boyfriend. Funny how we can trick ourselves, deceive being too harsh in this instance. I admire your progress with learning a language. Perhaps I would have been better advised to choose French language to study at uni, as Social Work is proving to be an academic weighted, mask for disappointment. As is my want, I am being treated poorly by some 'teaching professionals'. Life! Merde! Tante baci, mon ami. Gezhuendheight. xxxx
So difficult. Agree.