Member-only story
Breaking Language Barriers
Musing the idea of sharing one language with the entire world.
My daughter and I frequent the playgrounds around our city. We came across a girl who could only speak Spanish on several occasions. She behaves shy at first but soon warms up to my daughter, and they chase each other around the playground as only toddlers could.
I would catch up with the girl’s mother in the meantime. She came from Spain and married a second-generation Latin American. As for myself, I’m from the Netherlands and married a woman of half-Filipino descent. Things get even more European when my German/British friend stops by with her boy, and we catch up on the differences between continents.
After the kids stopped playing (which is never), we would drive home and talk about the fun time at the playground. But as my daughter shares her adventures with me, my mind wanders off to how easy it was for her to communicate with a Spanish-speaking girl and a boy who understands both English and German and how adults approach communication differently.
I can talk a lot, but I listen a lot as well. The other two parents are the same way, and all we do is talk in English — the only language we all know that bridges the gap between us and makes understanding one another easier.
