Can you be ‘you’ in another language?
Have you ever been thrust into a foreign environment and felt like you’ve lost something of yourself?
As anyone who has worked or studied abroad - or otherwise had to interact in a second, or third, or fourth language - knows, it can be a frustrating and debilitating experience. Even if your knowledge of a foreign language is relatively good, it's hard to have the same breadth of vocabulary and range of idioms that you can call upon from your own language, and it's easy to feel less grown-up or intelligent as a result.
With language often being intimately linked with culture, it can also be hard to express yourself in the same way you would in your own language, because your foreign language or languages might lack not only the vocabulary but also the structures that you have in your own language, and issues such as gender, degree of formality, and ways of referring to second-hand events are just some of the examples of ways in which the level of emphasis and meaning from one language can be completely lost in another one.
Added to this is the fact that language acquisition is so closely tied to upbringing, making it very difficult to authentically acquire a new language as an adult in the same way we can as a child. The language and environment we grow up in inevitably have an impact on the way we see the world, and as we get older, we arguably lose a lot of the receptiveness that we have as children, both to languages and to other cultures. We also lose some of that ability to take on another identity, which is significant if you subscribe to the view that we each have a personality for every language we speak.
Yet at the same time, it's worth keeping a sense of perspective and realising that not all of our life experiences are necessarily diminished by our lack of fluency in a foreign language. It's also worth being realistic about the extent to which we use the higher points of our own language. People often indicate that they have a good but not perfect command of a foreign language by saying that they could talk about everyday topics in that language but not hold complex philosophical conversations. But to what extent do we have conversations like this in our own language?
While most of us enjoy the occasional deep and meaningful conversation, a lot of the time we only talk about relatively commonplace topics, even in our own language to the people who are closest to us. And while it might be difficult to master political discourse in another language, it's relatively easy to get comfortable with the topics that you cover every day if you are interacting in a foreign environment, so perhaps it’s possible to be authentically ‘yourself’ when ordering a cup of coffee, even if not when talking about some of the weightier topics in life.
Moving beyond the idea of language itself, it's also important to consider the extent to which we need to communicate verbally in order to reach an understanding with people. Sometimes there can be extensive language barriers between ourselves and another person yet we can still feel a rapport with them. Indeed, the fact that so many people travel for holidays and say that they like and admire the local people despite not sharing their language implies that we can still interact together on some level as humans. Similarly, we can often feel an affinity with small children and animals without being able to talk to them in a way that they understand.
Culture itself sometimes goes beyond language, and some of what are regarded as the highest forms of creative expression, such as dance and music, are completely non-verbal, yet still elicit an emotional response and resonate with our shared humanity. At the same time, with the advent of streaming services with increasingly reliable subtitles, more and more of us are open to watching audiovisual content from other cultures too, and this makes it easier to immerse ourselves in a different world from our own and to familiarise ourselves with the way in which other people speak.
Lastly, it’s always good to retain a pragmatic approach and remember that communicating even poorly in another language is better than not communicating at all, save for in unfortunate situations where we might accidentally trip ourselves up by saying something that we hadn't intended to. Even if you can't be your full self, you can still be something of yourself, and people will sense your willingness to connect with them even if you can’t articulate your ideas perfectly.
Sometimes it can be easy to get hung up on the idea that we may never be able to speak like natives, but human history - whether through war, invasion, trade or exploration - is filled with scenarios where people have had to adapt to a new language, whether willingly or otherwise. Likewise, if you live in a relatively monolingual part of the world it's hard to remember that in other places, using lingua francas that are native to relatively few speakers is, in fact, a common and necessary practice. Maybe the important question is not so much whether we can be ourselves in a foreign language, but rather whether we can succeed in getting a general message across.
Do you relish the opportunity to take on a new personality for every language you learn, or do you feel your identity is intrinsically tied to the language or languages that you grew up with? We’d love to hear more people’s thoughts on this quintessential translator topic, so don’t hesitate to share your experiences with us in the comments.
Until the next time!
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