Why I learn: bridging language barriers
How a rigorous schedule and total immersion helped this medical interpreter learn languages and improve lives.
By Eric Rangel
Our Why I Learn series features stories from real people about why they decided to learn a new language and how language learning has impacted their lives for the better. Are you learning a language? We’d love to hear your story! Submit it here.
I keep a schedule for language-learning. It’s pretty bad. I don’t even have a social life.
Monday through Friday, I’ll literally be eating and and studying languages for the 30 minutes I get for lunch. When I get home, I eat dinner for 15 or 30 minutes — no more than 30 minutes because then I get a little behind. Then I start off with 30 or 40 minutes of studying German, then I do 30 minutes of Portuguese, and then I take a little break. And my break will consist of an episode of Netflix, but it’ll be either in German or Portuguese, or it will be in French or Russian, so I never watch anything in English anymore.
My family and friends think I’m crazy. They’re like, “Dude. Why?”
After the break, I move on to Arabic. And it’s like a workout, so I eat protein before I tackle Arabic. I do Arabic for an hour, and then I will do an hour of Chinese, and then afterward an hour of Russian. Then I often end up going to the gym, and I get back home around 1 am, and then I go to sleep and wake up and repeat. Even my workout playlist is in other languages: Japanese pop music or Korean, and then Russian or German music.
I immerse myself in the languages as much as I possibly can because it’s expensive to go to another country. I set my Facebook and phone to different languages each week. I try to read news articles in other languages.
My family and friends think I’m crazy. They’re like, “Dude. Why?” But when I meet somebody who speaks one of the languages I’m learning and I’m able to communicate with them, by the end of the conversation I’m like, “Holy crap, I just had a conversation in Russian with somebody. Wow. I need to keep going at it, I cannot stop.”
I grew up in a bilingual house. I was raised by Mexican parents, so obviously, Spanish is my second language.
It wasn’t until I was 14 or 15 that I started having this urge to learn a new language, and I think it’s because of this movie I saw. It’s a pretty sad movie. It’s called Not Without My Daughter. And even though the movie had a somewhat negative point of view of the Middle East, it made me want to learn Arabic. So I started learning it at 14 or 15 years old, and I was just using the internet and any books I could get a hold of.
Around the same time, my aunt Laura went off to Germany to get her doctorate degree in chemistry, so she learned German. She visited the U.S. when I was around 16, and I thought it was pretty cool to have an aunt who speaks German.
That was the moment when I really knew that I like learning languages.
I started to study books in German, and she taught me some phrases, too, while she was here. That was when I realized that I really like learning languages.
I moved to Germany with my aunt two years ago. I went over there and I lived with her for two whole months, and while I was there, I signed up for some German classes. In the mornings I’d be in German class and in the afternoons, I would explore Frankfurt.
As much as I love my aunt, I hated her for those two months, because she was just like, “If you’re here to learn German, then I’m not going to speak to you in Spanish or English, so good luck!”
So for two whole months I was surrounded by only German—which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. Because of that, I can speak it pretty well today.
I’ve been working as a medical interpreter for the past two years, mostly in Spanish, with some major hospitals in Atlanta.
One thing that I’ve realized is that you’re literally the bridge between a non-English speaker and an English speaker; between a doctor and a patient. Sometimes they bring in patients who are at their most vulnerable; they find themselves in the worst possible situation in life. They’re scared. They’re confused. They have no way to communicate with people around them. When I can serve as the bridge between those two parties, they become so grateful.
There was a patient who was being tested for cancer because her mother had it and she was showing symptoms as well. She came back to get the results, and I was interpreting for the doctor, who told her everything seems to be okay; there’s no evidence of cancer. When she got the good news, she broke down in tears.
She looked at me and said, “Oh my god, thank you so much. You’re an angel. I have no one here with me. I’m by myself in this country. I practically have no money, and you’ve been helping me all the way.”
I was speechless. I never knew that a job as an interpreter could have such an impact on someone’s life. It’s moments like this that motivate me to learn more languages and help people even more. That’s the power of language. Language has the ability to build bridges of understanding.
-Eric Rangel, Dalton, Georgia
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