Pranav Narahari
Hoy es lunes, el 24 de Agosto.
Why Learn a Second Language?
Life is about perspective and by being able to speak multiple languages you can experience life
in many points of view. If you are fluent in only one language, you cannot see what life is like for
someone who speaks a different language from you. Tamim Ansary, a multilingual, expresses why he
thinks everyone should be bilingual.
Ansary has been a bilingual ever since childhood speaking fluently in both Farsi and English. He
compared all languages to separate worlds and said by speaking a different language it feels like you
switched worlds. He starts the article off by addressing a common misconception about learning
another language. Many people believe that learning a new language is only useful for when asking for
something in a foreign country. However, language is more than just being able to communicate with
someone verbally. Every language has its own “database” of words and each one of those words is part
of the experience of that language. If you fluently speak another language you can also experience their
native culture.
Speaking different languages also allow people to figure out how to say things in a simpler way
than how they say it in their native language. Ansary showcases one experience that he had with his
cousins that showed to be a great example for this phenomenon. While Ansary was speaking Farsi with
his cousins in Colorado one of his cousins said a word he didn’t know the meaning of, “qukh”. He
learned that it was the feeling you get when damp fabrics cling to your skin. In English it would take us
almost an entire sentence to show that we felt this way however Farsi speakers could show this by
saying a single word, qukh.
Ansary’s experience also explains why translation is difficult when trying to preserve the
meaning of what you are trying to say. When translating literally, the words/sentence you come up with
usually loses its meaning because it doesn’t make sense in that language. To conserve the meaning, a
different sentence structure would need to be used. The sentence would also have to make sense to
someone of that native language, considering experiences and culture from those native people.
However when trying to conserve the meaning we have created a new sentence with little to no
resemblance of the sentence we were trying to translate. This is why translating can be at times
impossible. However, this also shows that all languages are unique and that there is no way to mimic
what you are trying to say in another language
Before reading this article, I thought the only benefits about learning a new language was to be
able to make small talk with someone from a foreign country however, I know realize the deeper
meaning. Once you are fluent in a new language you can understand more than just verbs and
adjectives. You can understand the culture behind the language and also how every word can be related
to each other. I support Ansary’s reasoning behind being fluent in at least two languages because it is
important to be familiar with the culture of others.