Most people around the world have to learn a second language. English speakers are lucky in that our language happens to be the world language. But luck is oft a double-edged sword; in this case, the flip side is that native English speakers are also among the least likely to learn another language in the world. Is that a bad thing? I don't know. Let's explore...
Learning another language is great for communication, of course. In some places in the world where there are groups that speak different languages, learning them all, or at least a little of all of them, gives an advantage when dealing with these groups. These days English has become the default second language for this reason. It's the language of international business. A Japanese can go to Korea on a business trip and be fairly confident that he will be able to communicate using English, for example.
Increasingly we have tools that can translate for us. Deepl seems to be the best pure translator today, but ChatGPT can actually translate even better and more naturally. It's not hard to imagine that these translation programs will just keep getting better until they are nearly perfect. How long before we have some kind of wearable device that translates spoken language in real time perfectly? It will be like Star Trek's Universal Translator or like the Babel Fish in Hitchhiker's Guide.
Image by GLady from Pixabay
I've written before that I think we are on the bottom of an S curve. The amazing leap that was ChatGPT 3.5, then only months later 4, is nothing. Soon technology is going to be progressing so quickly that these things will start to come at us daily. That in mind, these wearable universal translators will very likely happen within our life time. Well, assuming we don't blow each other up. So it goes. That's always been a caveat and probably always will be.
With this coming, why should we bother learning another language for communication? Well, these devices aren't here yet, so right now learning the language is still best for communication. But there is another reason and this will remain a reason even after we have a wearable universal translator.
Languages are different. Newsflash, I know. Words are different. Ideas are different. One language might not have words another language has. Without a word for a thing, it might not have certain ideas. We think in language, so this difference influences the thinking of people in each language.
Image by Aline Berry from Pixabay
It's said that some languages distinguish colors differently, for example. There was a very famous study looking at shades of green. Shown to most Westerners, very few could distinguish one shade from the other, at least not consistently. They were all green and all close enough that they looked the same. But when these shades of green were shown to a group called the Berinmo from the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, they could consistently identify every shade. That is because in their native language they have different words for all these shades of green and so they learn to identify them all. This isn't a unique trait. I'm sure any of us could eventually learn to identity shades of green like this if we were raised in such an environment or spent any length of time there, but undoubtably having separate words for each shade instead of just calling them all green helps in this identification.
You can find similar color vocab differences all over. Some East European languages make a distinction between light and dark blue and treat them as different colors. And so on. The point here isn't color vocab trivia. This is just a simple example. Maybe you can imagine how this can compound up to the point where people thinking in two different languages will actually think slightly (or more than slightly) differently from each other.
Image by Sofia Terzoni from Pixabay
Learning a language also helps you understand a culture better. Let me give a simple example from Japanese. We'll use otsukaresama, which is often said more politely as otsukaresamadeshita, and sometimes more casually as otsukare. It's a general word for gratitude but can be used in many different ways. In general it is used for thanking people, something like "thank you for your hard work", but it can also be used as a greeting in some situations. It could be used as a farewell, simply meaning bye. It is often used when leaving work, as workers tell it to each other as they leave. A boss might use it to congratulate a worker for a job well done, and they might respond back with it. You could say it to a child who finished a test, more a motivational boost in that case "I'm sure you did well on the test".
Well, we could go on. Point is, it's a very versatile phrase with many shades of meaning depending on how it is used. Now we do have different phrases for all these cases in English so we could fairly accurately translate it, but a translation also loses something of the culture and feeling of the phrase. And again, compound this upward. Learning a language doesn't just help with direct communication, but with understanding, which is a very different thing.
Well, there are other benefits, such as increasing our own ability to think. More words, more ideas, clearly thinking. We think in language, after all.
I'd say it is all a pretty good reason to learn another language or even just to try learning another language. You don't have to become fluent in it; just learning a few words is a great step.
The best way to study a language is complete immersion, of course. Baring that, shadow practice is one of the best exercises. And we can go on and on. Often, however, these are difficult and tend to push casual language learners away instead of encouraging them.
That's why I like to suggest Duolingo. It's free (big plus) and is available on both Apple and Android. It's even available on the web if you'd prefer that way. They offer a ton of languages, not only practical ones like French and Spanish, but also things like Klingon and High Valyrian. You may think that it only works for English speakers (that is, the native language is English and the target language is whatever you want to learn), but many of the courses also use different native languages. For example, many of my Japanese friends use it to learn another language from Japanese. Best part is the lessons are easy enough that you can knock one out in about 5 minutes while waiting in line at the store. Now we aren't going to become fluent in only 5 minutes per day, but for the casual language learner who doesn't have a lot of time in their day and also might be overwhelmed and burnt out by more intense methods, it is perfect.
If you do want to use Duolingo, feel free to add me as a friend on the service. Web page here or look for the app in your app store of choice. I'm "dbooster" there too. I do get plenty of Japanese practice daily just in daily life, but I still use it to practice my Japanese because more practice never hurt anyone, as well as play in several other languages (like Esperanto and Italian. Thinking about adding Korean too).
But whatever service you use, I do recommend at least trying to learn a few words in another language. And hey, if nothing else many researchers say it may help ward off Alzheimer's. That can't be a bad thing!
(title graphic made with this image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)
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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |