Learning a New Language Changes The Mind
Three Point Thursday #12 | The Beauty of Language Acquisition
Here’s a three-pointer to open your mind.
The mission of “Three Pointers” & about the author here
Awareness Es Muy Importante
Acquiring a new language makes you aware of your own language: your own thoughts. The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as underestimated as the difficulty is overestimated.
—Tim Ferriss
Going all-in on becoming bilingual was the best decision I’ve ever made.
My favorite part about it?
The way it’s changed how my mind works.
I’ve become more aware of my own thoughts.
When I speak Spanish, I’m not first thinking about what it means in English, then translating it into Spanish in my head.
I am literally thinking in Spanish. It’s like flipping a light switch. It’s one or the other.
This is also evident when:
Journaling in Spanish
Dreaming in Spanish (Yes it happens)
Purposefully thinking in Spanish because it’s funny
OK, so what?
Well, the majority of the time, I still think in my native language of English.
But now, I have a different reference point for thoughts themselves.
I can start to unravel what is going on in my mind.
It’s helped me become a witness to my own intellect. I don’t give emotional meaning to everything flowing in and out of my consciousness.
I just watch my mind.
This has made me much calmer in general. Weird, negative or undisciplined thoughts don’t carry such a weight anymore.
This awareness and calmness helps me realize how our mental processes are often:
Irrational
Overly-emotional
Straight up stupid
Learning another language is one of the best ways to realize the ways in which your own mind can play tricks on you.
Cognizance
It’s not a coincidence that around the same time I mastered another language is when I started:
This journey of being a writer online
Posting the best three point shooting and Spanish speaking videos you’ve ever seen.
Actually saying what I think deep inside
Why?
Because by being more aware of everything swirling around my mind, I’ve become able to identify and extinguish the deadliest thoughts of them all:
Fear & self-limiting beliefs.
I’ve come to realize that:
The only thing stopping you from pursuing things you love, is you
You are quite literally a story that you tell yourself
Whatever you believe yourself to be, granted that it’s reflected in your habits, you become that person
And it all starts with awareness in the mind:
What limits do you self-impose on yourself?
What stories do you tell yourself, about yourself?
What do you spend the majority of your time thinking about?
Most importantly, it’s made me see how much fear can hold you back in life.
Example I’ve lived through in my early days of learning Spanish:
Walking into a shop or restaurant and hearing people conversing in the language. Understanding what they’re saying! So cool! Wanting to join in. But then feeling that fear of sounding funny or making a mistake. Freezing, and resorting to English phrases. Them looking at me as they would any other monolingual person.
Missing out. Not getting that special connection of speaking to their heart in their own language.
All because of fear.
Which naturally prompts the question, how much is fear holding you back in other areas of your life?
That opportunity you didn’t seize.
That question you didn’t ask.
That chance you didn’t take.
All because you were scared.
It’s one of the dominant human emotions, and through becoming bilingual I’ve seen how dominant it can be, even in the most trivial situations.
One way to not let it hold you back?
Realizing that courage is not absence of fear. Courage is doing it anyway even when you feel fear.
Speaking Clarity & Confidence
Be precise in your speech.
—Jordan Peterson
When I first got to college, I didn’t know how to speak. Proper English that is.
I showed up speaking the Worcester, Massachusetts dialect of English.
Having slang within a friend group and community is fun and hilarious. But outside of those bubbles, it can be crippling.
When you’re learning another language, you realize this on a deeper level.
When I was practicing speaking Spanish online and wasn’t completely fluent yet, I’d be forced to explain what I was trying to say in English.
In those moments, saying what I meant as clearly as possible with the least amount of words as possible was critical for an understanding.
I was being precise.
Saying exactly what you mean with the fewest and simplest words possible is a superpower that surprisingly few people possess.
This was also evident when I was living in Barcelona.
Many of the friends I made there from Europe and the Middle East spoke English well. But slang & figures of speech were still deadly to mutual understanding during a conversation. Clarity wins in communication.
“We’re All a Family Under One Sky”
Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Something magical happens when I listen to an English song after listening to Spanish music.
It’s like there’s a newfound appreciation for every single word in the language I grew up using.
Whenever I return home after a trip somewhere, there is a similar sense of gratitude.
It’s like everything about home becomes even more beautiful.
Being fully immersed in other cultures' funny way of doing things always makes me feel so much more gratitude for my family and friends' funny way of doing things.
Looking at the world through a different lens of language made me realize how much of life might tragically get lost in translation.
The majority of humans want the same things: Meaning, Love, Fun, and an improving world for their kids.
We all just have different ways of expressing that.
Different tastes.
The Irish do their step dances, the Mexicans their salsa dances. The Dominicans play their baseball, the Argentinians their fútbol. The Japanese write love letters in Kanji, the British in the English alphabet. The Americans create heroes in movies from Hollywood, the Indians from Bollywood.
In the end, all the things people do evoke similar emotions, because we all feel similar things.
We are all human beings.
Are we not all just products of the conditions of our environments, which at birth we did not choose?