DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY | COMPETITION
The Problem With Knowing More Than One Language That No One Will Tell You
What a few days in Vienna taught me
Today, if someone comes up to you and tells you that they understand or speak more than one language, chances are you won’t be surprised. The demand for learning foreign languages has been growing, and the language learning market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 20% between 2024 and 2032.
I learned German many years ago, in 2014, but never really got the opportunity to converse face-to-face with any natives. Last month I was in Vienna and had made up my mind that I wouldn’t be able to speak or understand the language because I was highly out of practice.
I wanted to give up without trying and that is when my husband pushed me to try and speak a little, at least the basics.
My first interaction was with a cab driver at the Vienna airport. Unfortunately, as we hopped inside the cab, our driver’s Bolt app stopped working. That was when I uttered the first German word and asked him if everything was okay. He was shocked to hear an Indian talking in German and asked me how I knew the language.
I got some validation after this interaction and thought I wasn’t so bad after-all!
I admit asking questions is easier than answering, and I mostly had to only ask the basic ones. For example, if you walk into a restaurant, you ask for a menu, or while checking in at a hotel, you ask about the breakfast timings, or the nearest train station, etc.
People in Vienna were kind enough to converse in English too but it’s always better to talk in one’s local language. People really appreciate it.
However, what I also noticed was that while forming a sentence, whenever I was falling short of German vocabulary, I was simply mixing English into it. Because it makes life easy, doesn’t it?
But what I didn’t realise was that while doing this, I was messing with my day-to-day vocabulary because instead of going home and trying to find a German word I couldn’t recollect or didn’t know, I was simply replacing it with its English counterpart.
Another problem that bilinguals like me face is that, more often than not, we think in one language and speak in another. For example, if I have to ask someone their name, I’ll think I just need to translate, ‘What is your name? into German, so I’ll quickly say, ‘Was ist Ihre Name? However, while speaking or writing German, you will never say, ‘Was’ ist Ihre Name? The correct way to ask someone their name is — ‘Wie’ ist Ihre Name? and ‘Wie’ actually translates into ‘How’ in English as well as in German. Phew.
The same thing happens while I speak or write in English too. Sometimes I would remember the German word for something but not be able to remember its English counterpart.
German is full of contradictions, and I think most languages are. Every language goes through varied cultural, social, and political influences, and hence they end up being complicated in more ways than one. German, itself, offers as many as seven accents and dialects. However, rest assured, if you learn Standarddeutsch or Standard German, you will be able to converse with natives in all German-speaking nations.
Hence, knowing a foreign language might not be the best thing for your vocabulary (if you do decide to take the learning part seriously! ), but what it also does is fuel your mind and open it up in every possible way — culturally, socially, or just holistically.
Do participate in A-Culturated’s first writing competition. I really connected with the theme. Hope you do too.
