The Superpower of Language.
I think the single most valuable thing I learnt in school was how to speak a foreign language, or in fact, two. I mean, I learnt lots of valuable things and many of those weren’t academic in any way, but in terms of knowledge, the biggest gift I took from my education was the magic of learning a foreign language.
It’s like being given a key to a whole other world, that you didn’t even know existed. Leaning how to communicate with someone in their native tongue, how to think in a different language, how to dream in a different language – it’s my superpower.
There is a saying that for each language you speak, you have a new personality and I have to say, I think there is some element of truth in this. It’s like a new found confidence in an alias of yourself. French Sophie is different to German Sophie and they are both different to regular old me.
Way before Family Rhino, it was my interest in travel as a child that gave me an enthusiasm for learning languages. On a holiday to Mexico when I was sixteen, I made friends with a group of young Germans, including Sarah. We communicated in a mix of English and German, although her English at the time was far more fluent than my German. We kept in touch for a few years, wrote letters, visited and I realised how much fun it was to speak another language, and how many new experiences could be had along the journey.
And just as travel had made me want to learn a language in the first place, it was my interest in languages that opened up travel doors and experiences for me, none more so than when I spent a year living, studying and working abroad in France and Germany as part of my degree.
This was the single best life experience I’d had at that point, and pushed me further out of my comfort zone than I’d ever imagined possible.
The French winter was mild and dry and the mistral that blew through Provence that year was the worst the weather ever got. My simple T1 apartment in the small village of Puyricard, just outside of Aix-en-Provence, had a two ring stove, a small fridge and a beautiful view from the balcony. Not at all bad for a student apartment. As small as the village of Puyricard was, it was typiquement français in every way; old stone buildings, a fresh market every Friday, fields of lavender, a chocolaterie and even a vineyard. It was that idyllic, I felt like I’d walked onto a film set and both my eyes and my mind struggled to take it all in.
I had to quickly learn on my feet how to live in a new country, navigating the supermarket, the bank, the post office, the crazy French driving and the student car park with its rows of battered French Peugeots.
I met so many new, interesting people from all over the World, many of them students from the university or neighbours, like Agnès who also lived two floors below me in ‘Le Logis des Clercs‘ (if you do check out this link, you’ll notice it has had a serious renovation since 2002!).
I befriended a retired mechanic and learnt the vocabulary for the parts of a car engine, that I still don’t even know in English, as he helped fix my French Opel Corsa after it broke down on the motorway. The morning after the tow truck had collected me and my car, he said to me down the phone;
“Vous avez trop roulé sans eau.”
With his thick Provençal accent, I really couldn’t work out what he was saying through the phone and I sat there, fanning the pages of my huge Collins French dictionary trying to look up any vocab that resembled the sounds I heard.
What he was actually saying, was that I’d driven too far without water, and damaged the engine. But he was able to fix it, for cost price and he and his wife were also kind enough to offer me lunch whilst I waited.
I used that car to travel the breadth of South East France, from the Camargue to the Cote d’Azur, between September and February. For most of these trips I travelled solo on my long weekends built around the few hours I had each week in the ‘Université d’Aix-Marseille’. I was a naive twenty year old, who had jumped in at the deep end, and as scary as it was, it was the most exciting thing I had ever done and I loved it.
On one occasion, I got to explore the area with my Dad. He flew out, packing what he could carry in his rucksack and giving me a second case to fill with what I needed for the year (Collins dictionary alone taking half the Ryan Air baggage allowance). We travelled together exploring the beautiful cities and towns of Provence, in the warm September sunshine, driving through the iconic tree-lined routes and eating ratatouille on the Cours Mirabeau. It was a wonderful week, the only time I have ever travelled with just my Dad, and I will always treasure those fond memories of the time we spent together.
I developed a fascination with French hypermarkets, Super-U was my local one with their vast array of yogurts, cheeses and breads. On weekdays, I strolled the cobbled streets of Aix, browsing the boutiques and nibbling croissants on my journeys to and from la fac. There was no real pressure, other than a dissertation to write on ‘la presse féminine’ and a few hours of classes each week, including a brilliant module on Africa. It was called, ‘l’Afrique: Décolonisation et nouveau enjeu’, and I still have my notes in a purple folder on beautiful French writing paper, not that my handwriting was ever even close to the golden French standard. The only real goal being to immerse myself in the language and culture of this beautiful country. And that was something I was more than willing to do.
It really was a dreamy experience and gave me the most time I had ever spent alone, to start to become comfortable in my own skin. Since this time, I have always quite enjoyed my own company, and would always prefer to avoid a crowd, and this experience offered me a real sanctuary where all I had to think about, was me.
With the help of my Dad (again), in February 2003 I drove my little French Corsa 1400km from Aix-en-Provence, around the Alps and north through Germany to Hannover, where I spent the second half of my year working in a school as an English language assistant.
What a contrast between the two worlds and my time in them and on arriving in Germany, I found myself on the same steep learning curve all over again. After six months of French immersion, with no German at all, I felt I’d forgotten everything I’d ever learnt as I tried to shape my words into something resembling a sentence. I was living in the basement of a house with a German family and being immersed in German all day, every day, it all came back surprisingly quickly.
As we pulled up in the snow at 1am outside my new home in Garbsen, Hannover, we learnt that we’d parked the car in the wrong direction on the street and were promptly asked to sort out this faux-pas. I was baffled at the suggestion, but did as I was asked. German Sophie was about to make her trepidacious début.
The school I worked in, Johannes-Kepler Gymnasium, was a languages school, where pupils could opt for an English immersion course, taking their politics, history and music lessons through the medium of English, as well as their usual English lessons. The school day ran from 8am to 1.30pm and with less than half of that as timetabled hours, I had plenty of free time to do as I pleased.
I made lovely friends among the staff in the school, who really looked after me, inviting me over for dinner and drinks and introducing me to their families and their friends. I was also warmly welcomed by the family who took me in, although, living with a family, my time lacked the independence and freedom that I’d enjoyed in France.
Whilst Hannover has some beautiful areas, like Herrenhausen, the city was not as visually stunning as Aix. However, its people were more warm, more welcoming, more helpful and fun and through living the good life and enjoying its hearty food and Weizenbier (or Weißbier) I was soon gaining Winterspeck, just not in winter!
The pound was strong against the euro in 2002, and I remember changing money at a rate of €1.65 = £1. My work was voluntary, but I received a Leonardo Da Vinci grant from the EU, which was about £90 a week at the time, in addition to a student loan, and with no accommodation costs, I actually had some cash. With some money, a job, a social life, a car and a work schedule, I was starting to feel like a real grown up!
In the great company of Betsy, an American student in the same school as me, I explored the Turkish food offerings, the Pfannkuchen, the beer and the schnapps. I travelled by Strassenbahn or U-bahn, cycled to work and enjoyed the weather of the rapidly changing seasons.
The weather changed from February’s ice and snow through a brief springtime of April showers and Osterglocken and by May the warm sun was out to stay. I spent many of the summer hours at Berenbosteler lake, which was just minutes from the house where I lived. Picnics, jogging, reading…it was a peaceful, natural retreat, away from the Autobahn and the bustling centre of Hannover.
With hindsight, I wish I had travelled even more around Germany that year, and left the comfort of the bubble that I’d built around me. I was happy working in the school, living between Garbsen and Hannover and was enjoying my orderly German life way too much to venture that far from it.
“Learning a language helps the world to develop in mutual respect, in understanding one another..”
There are many benefits to learning a language, but there are two that really stand out for me. The first is the cultural education that comes with learning any language.
It’s not just a journey of new words, but new worlds – cultural differences, social etiquette, learning that in life there is a different way of doing things, and difference is good.
As a young person, this experience of language learning teaches you respect and tolerance and opens your eyes to such an extent, that they can never be closed to these values again.
“and to open the mind of people…..and is fantastic for peace in the world…”
The second is the power of understanding the language itself. The access it gives you to other countries, the key to a mystical new world. Of course, travel, employment, friendships can all be multiplied with a foreign language and some researchers believe the language learning process can even help delay the onset of dementia.
“…If you learn the language of another country, you never hate this country. And that tells you a lot about stupid wars and fighting.” Arsene Wenger, 2008.
But another important benefit is being able to read in a foreign language. From literature to international viewpoints on current affairs, and how vastly they can differ – it’s a bit like having X-ray vision.
My first experience of how important this is, was when I was living in Germany in 2003. At that time, Britain was on the cusp of war with Iraq, and it was all over the news, everywhere. Before the days of smartphones and social media, I had only seen the reports in the German news of how this action was unlawful and how there was no evidence to justify it. So, this was my mind’s understanding of the situation. I’d seen it on the news, so believed it to be fact.
I came home to the UK around that time and I was amazed to hear the viewpoints of the people I knew at home, all who’d read or seen the coverage in the British media, all who’d assumed it was truth, and all of whom felt the war was not just justified, but necessary.
Completely opposing viewpoints, both fed by conflicting media reporting.
I learnt that there is no such thing as unbiased journalism. That only things you see with your own eyes can be taken as truth and every other source of information, is a reflection of someone else’s bias. This forever changed my relationship with the media, way before the rhetoric of fake news was on my radar, and way before my silent protest of mainstream media in 2021 (I’m on strike from all mainstream media outlets!).
We always try to learn a few phrases from each country we visit. The girls list the languages they speak as Welsh, French, German, Spanish, Indonesian and Portuguese. Even though they can only really count to ten, say hello and the most important word in any language….thank you.
I hope that one day the girls will develop fluency in at least one foreign language, just as I hope that they will keep travelling the world, seeking adventure and that one day, they may know what it feels like to have roots in more than one country. And I hope that these things give them a life that is rich in experiences and an opportunity to make their own little contribution to World Peace.
Merci. Danke. Diolch. Obrigada. Gracias. Grazie. Terima kasih, اشكرك
