How I Learned 4 Languages As An Adult
The “secret” to language learning isn’t a secret at all.
⭐ This story includes a writing challenge. Look for the star below to learn more.
En español | Türkçe
I grew up in a monolingual, English-speaking household, but I come from a long line of multilingual people. In an effort to assimilate, my family started speaking English the moment they set foot in the U.S. I grew up hearing nothing but English, and for the majority of my childhood, I didn’t give it a second thought.
I didn’t know that my grandfather spoke 3 languages, nor that my grandmother spoke 4, until after they had been gone for years. And I was pissed.
My cousin and I grumbled about this to our family at least once every couple of months.
Us: So we could have learned, but you didn’t even tell us that we had the opportunity?!
Them: Again? Please. They usually just spoke dialect. You’re not missing out on anything. Just speak English.
I found out about my grandpa’s linguistic background when I was finally deemed “old enough” to watch The Godfather (which happens to have been filmed in the town after which my family was named: Savoca). That movie had been banned from our house for as long as I can…
