Lifelong language learner Nancy on why she keeps learning more
Nancy’s a writer from Boston and along with Patricia, whose story we shared yesterday, is one of our 12 uTalk Challengers to complete 12 languages this year. Some of the languages she’s learnt with uTalk in 2016 include Azeri, Sicilian and Swedish – but what inspires her to keep learning?
My formal introduction to French started in eighth grade. We learned all sorts of words for what kids play, but one of the least useful was the word for hopscotch: marelle. Over the next several years of learning more French and other languages, the utter uselessness of that word stuck with me. Then more than thirty years after eighth grade, my family and I visited an exhibit about children’s games at Montreal’s Science Museum. On the floor was a familiar set of numbered squares: a hopscotch board! Finally, my moment had come! I was absolutely thrilled to jump the hopscotch board while saying “Je joue à la marelle.” That’s French for, “I play hopscotch.”
Over the years, I spoke French and Spanish occasionally with my husband, on vacation or with a tourist in my city of Boston. What really made a difference in learning more languages, though, was the Internet and uTalk (then EuroTalk). I started learning Persian with a CD from EuroTalk. I loved learning Persian with that CD! It had silly games, like putting in place parts of the body so you could make a monster sit up and roar. To be honest, what I liked most about the program were the games and trying to best my scores. The fact that I was learning a language was almost secondary.
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In the past year I have studied twelve languages. I started with Azerbaijani because of Iranian friends. Other languages I chose this past year are in the Turkish family, again because of my students and my friends. I also studied Sicilian because of friends, Swiss German because my daughter speaks German, Dutch because of my ancestry, Scandinavian languages out of curiosity and Dari because it is similar to Persian. Now and then I have been able to use a little of my new knowledge, like saying Happy Birthday in Afrikaans to a South African Facebook friend and counting to three in Azerbaijani when I returned books to the Azerbaijani woman from Baku who works at the library.
Learning a little of several languages is an excellent way to remember that people throughout the world, despite their many differences, have a lot in common. People try on clothes and say, “It fits!” or “I don’t like this one,” or “It’s too expensive.” Anywhere you go, people lose their keys, get stuck with an airport layover or yell to a bus driver, “Wait!” Coffee, tea, pizza and chocolate seem to be nearly universal. Everywhere parents say goodnight to their little ones.
It is impossible to say how much practical use I will get out of my hours of studying because most of the time I sit at home writing novels – in English. It was fun, though, to use a little Persian when I wrote The Mysterious Woman with the Pink Train Case. In the end, I must admit that for all I have enjoyed the challenge of learning foreign languages, there’s no place like home: English is by far still my favorite language. Even so, more important is the chance to communicate with another person. Sometimes I chat with someone who doesn’t know English or maybe knows only some and feels self-conscious using it. Seeing a smile on a person’s stunned face when I say hello in her or his native language is more than valuable. It’s priceless.
Now it’s your turn! The uTalk Challenge 2017 is open and you can find out more and sign up for free at utalk.com/challenge. This time next year, we could be sharing your story…
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