What’s something most people don’t know about you?
Most people see a big dumb American white guy and assume I only know English. I remember going to a restaurant in Japan with an Asian-American coworker who didn’t speak Japanese despite taking college courses to learn it. The waitress kept trying to talk to her while I translated everything for her into English and then into Japanese for the waitress. It was weird. It happened again when that same coworker lost something and I went with her to the police box (koban) to see if anyone turned it in. The officer was dumbfounded. I had to explain to him. While she is Asian, she isn’t Japanese. She can’t speak Japanese, but I can. He looked at me like I was playing a prank on him. She eventually found her lost item. It was at home after all the trouble we went through to report it.
Only once has a stranger looked at me and guessed that I knew Spanish too. I was at my local library in America and out of the blue this older Hispanic lady asked me for help with the computer. I helped her, but I asked her how she knew I could speak Spanish. She just had a hunch. I mean it’s not unreasonable, a lot of people speak Spanish here. But still, even some Hispanic relatives of mine don’t know that I speak it. I should tell them, but I don’t mind being underestimated. My relatives that really know me, know that I do, and that’s good enough.
I also speak a little French and Korean. I tried learning Mandarin, but I’ll admit that I’m horrible at it. My accent is bad and I get the tones wrong. The few people that tried to teach me Mandarin got big laughs out of my attempts. They thought I was pretending, but I was honestly just that bad at it.
Maybe you’re thinking, but why would anyone learn so many languages. I like it, it’s like a puzzle that needs solving. It’s part of the reason I got a degree in English Linguistics, despite hating English class for most of my primary education. I figured that learning all the ins and outs of grammar and syntax would help me learn other languages faster. In practice, not so much. Exposure to the language (immersion method) is really the best way, but I didn’t learn that until much later.
Besides English, what languages can you speak? It’s not a competition. I know plenty of people on the inter-webs know more than I do. I’m just curious.
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