How Learning a Second Language Changed My Life

I'd be hard pressed to name any 30 seconds in my life more consequential than these:<p>Counselor: "Wow, that's a lot of AP credits. Well, you've passed out of 3 of the 5 classes freshman CS majors are supposed to take. We don't have enough CS classes you're qualified for to fill the rest of the schedule. What are you going to take?"<p>Me: "I don't know, I'm thinking a language. Do you have a list of the ones the school teaches?"<p>Counselor: "Yep, page XXX."<p>Me: "<i>scans list</i> Oh, Japanese sounds fun. High tech country, lots of money, few English speakers. Sign me up."<p>Counselor: "I studied it in college, too. Its a "#%"%."<p>Me: "I'm up for a bit of a challenge."<p>I loved every minute of it, added another degree on, and here I am ten years later in Nagoya looking at a stack of bug reports filed against the university entrance exam administration system.

I absolutely agree with all of the points Chad makes here! I just recently returned from a 3 month stay in China after studying Chinese for two years and feel the same.<p>An interesting story was when I met another American traveler in a hostel in Shanghai. He was clearly loving his time exploring China, but every time we spoke I felt so bad for him. He was absolutely shackled to the parts of town where he could safely tread or easily find. I would spend a day wandering through streets, major and minor, dipping into shops or checking out maps to find new locations. I could fearlessly walk into a restaurant and have some idea of what I would be getting into. Best of all, I could ask anyone to help me out or just to tell me about their country -- and in a place like China, with thousands of years of rich history, people love to tell you wonderful stories about their country.<p>When you speak someone's language, they feel comfortable around you. They're willing to help you out or listen to you try to explain things you're not quite capable of. There's an immediate reciprocation of the effort you put into that immersion in their warmth and desire to help. Better, if you go somewhere where foreigners are less common (seated train rides in China are a particular example) everyone is excited to meet and share with you.<p>All of these things are pretty much inaccessible if you don't speak the language. So, as stereotypical as the desire to stop being monolingual is for your average American, absolutely do learn another language and then go use it.<p>You can't imagine how tiny a chunk of the world you live in until you do.

I'm always reminded of an anecdote my father told me.<p>Once, when he was working abroad in Australia, a faxed document arrived in French, which no one else on site could read. So he translated it to English.<p>This prompted a coworker to comment "How nice, you speak two languages!" So he reminded this person that he was, in fact, Dutch - he could speak that as well.<p>"Oh, that doesn't count, it's your native language!"<p>....

To anyone considering a second language, I would recommend choosing one that is widely spoken somewhere where you can't get by with English - it will unlock a whole new part of the world for you.<p>You might also consider studying a non-Indo-European language. It will take more time, but the experience is the linguistic equivalent to discovering functional programming after a lifetime of seeing procedural code.

Here in Wales schoolchildren are forced to learn a minority language in school. Welsh Language is given a very prominent position - it's only spoken in Wales (and bizarrely in a small area in Patagonia). I'd sooner have my kids learn a language they can use to communicate with other people that can't speak English - it's possible that there are perhaps a couple of kids now that haven't been taught English, Welsh all but died before being resurrected as a [false] part of nationalist pride.<p>I find it very strange, I'd sooner Hindi or Urdu or Mandarin or Japanese or Spanish. Something useful. They may as well be learning Ancient Sumerian (I'd still probably prefer that).<p>Not all second languages are equal.

There is a saying in czech (and in some culturally close languages as well) that goes like "Kolik řečí umíš, tolikrát jsi člověkem".<p>I was totally stuck with the translation but google says it could be something along the lines of "You live a new life for every new language you speak. If you know only one language, you live only once" or shorter "How many languages you speak, so many times you are a human being".

I speak Indonesian and Javanese as my native language, "forced to learn" Japanese, English, Malay, and a bit of Chinese here in Japan. Contrary to common opinion, I regret that I learn and speak a lot of languages because I don't feel adequate enough in any of them, even my native language. Being able to use a lot of language really broaden your view, but at the same time, you will incline to develop multiple personalities/conscious in your effort to speak like the native. I find it difficult to express myself in a "constant" way regardless languages, hence the feeling of inadequate.

Nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks that.<p>I learned English when I was about 12, in part thanks to my passion for computers and in part because I had great teachers (in public school!). It's been one of the greatest gifts I've been given.<p>I know very few people who understand it. I do tell many how life changing it is, and how it greatly opens up your world and your mind... but mostly they look at me bewildered:<p>"why would I learn that? I'm doing fine!" or, "Nah, too difficult, and I don't have time"...<p>It's a shame, to not be able to share so many things I've learned with the people I care about, and to know how much they're missing. Ignorance is indeed bliss I guess.<p>I wouldn't even be here on HN if it wasn't for this.

Most 14 year olds in Europe study 2 sometimes 3 foreign languages.<p>It's very hard to stay mono-lingual in this environment. And then there are all the children that have parents from more than one country. It's not rare to see them growing up fluently tri-lingual.

<a href="http://smart.fm" rel="nofollow">http://smart.fm</a> is a very useful service for learning a second language (especially Japanese), highly recommended.

I always got non-first language words confused. What interested me was when I was relearning French and learning German (to read patent docs) after having learnt sign-language (as my 4th studied language) I could think of words in sign when I was trying to find the right French word. It's kinda weird to think of a word and have an action come to mind.

As a child, I wanted to be fluent in six languages. I speak a little German and read and write a little French. I know a few words of Russian and a smattering of Spanish. I have gotten some use of those, mostly German because I have German relatives and lived there for a time. But I never became as fluent as I wanted and it never opened up social opportunities like I had fantasized it would -- opportunities like the author of this article experienced. For me, learning a little HTML, XHTML and CSS have done far more for my ability to reach out to other people and therefore has done far more towards widening my horizons. I'm not particularly fluent in those either, but they get a good deal more use than the human languages I dabble in. It has had the unexpected side effect that I no longer bitterly regret not becoming fluent in six human languages.

This article showcases that a critical component of attaining fluency in a language is immersion. Many linguists insist that language cannot be separated from culture. Another important ingredient in language learning is practicing output; i.e. not restricting yourself solely to input (reading, listening).

My university forced me to take a second language for a CS degree. The department was located in Arts/Sciences, not engineering where it belonged.<p>It was a perilously stupid waste of time. It required 14 credit hours. 14 credit hours of learning a language I will never speak to anyone ever again and never had any interest in learning. The only thing the language requirement does now is make the CS degree at my alma-matar less competitive since I would have taken more CS/Math/EE electives.<p>21 or 18 hours of humanities is enough. I'll get down-modded for being this way but I don't care. This was the reality of the situation. It genuinely hurt me. The only way it changed my life was make me miss out on interesting elective classes, like AI or computer music and I also didn't have enough time (in semesters) to do undergraduate research.

The easiest way to learn a second or third language, would be in school. Many Indian schools are English medium, but kids learn at least one more language, as their 'second' language. Sometimes Hindi, sometimes Sanskrit or even a foreign language like French. In addition to it, we learn our mother tongue (assuming Hindi is not the mother tongue), so its easy to be trilingual.<p>There is one disadvantage though. Kids don't get to choose the language, its pretty much decided for them by their parents. When we learn as adults, we can pick and choose - depending on our goals.

Kannada has a rep of being one of the hardest languages in India.<p>I love the secret language bit. I always speak Japanese in public and it is great fun. Once, though, I met a couple at an event and I recognized them from a time I was at a starbucks speaking about very personal affairs in Japanese. It turns out they were from Japan. Embarrassing.

That's pretty awesome. The fascinating thing is how his life changed just because of his interest in a second language. What if he had learned just french or spanish?. I think taking a different path than others sometimes pays off well. Also reminds me that luck favors the one who is well prepared.

My whole life was entirely changed by the decision to try learning Chinese after elementary school lessons in German (also a heritage language in my family) and secondary school lessons in German. The East and West can meet--just learn the language of the other side. I strongly recommend to everyone to give an earnest try to learning a language you don't speak as a native language, especially if your language-learning efforts can be paired with lengthy foreign residence. There is a lot to learn from speaking to everyday people who grew up in another country and who don't share your cultural assumptions.

I love that these types of articles make it to the front page of HN. It's not about being shackled to technology but using technology where you need to to free you and enrich your life. /swoon

"we’ve discovered...when you even try to say “Hello” or “Thank you” in their language."<p>I'll attest to that, even though I live in the states. While this article I was proud of both the author and my own Indian heritage. Learning languages is a great thing to do, it's just a shame not all of us have the time to do it. Makes me sad that my high school was forced to cut Latin from the curriculum — it's a very interesting language to learn.

I've read that "joke" many times before. MOST people around the world are monolingual, there are just fewer multi-lingual people in the US.

Learning a second language as an adult, while difficult, is definitely worthwhile.<p>As an American in Norway, I'm struggling to learn Norwegian for many reasons, not the least of which being that pretty much everyone here speaks English very well and doesn't mind switching to English. Still, I'm continuing to work on it and hopefully will be fairly fluent within a couple of years.

The same applies to programming. (And I don't mean learning C# if you already know Java.)

I am Australian, living in Austria. My two year old son speaks German and English now. It is an <i>awesome</i> thing to see him understand English speakers, and reply in German, and vice verse. I also speak German, but he is really teaching me things about the language already that I never knew I'd comprehend, after 10 years of speaking German myself already.<p>Once he gets older, I want to move us to somewhere in Asia, perhaps India, and give him another language to speak, which we will learn together. I can't think of a greater gift to give your child than another language, personally. It really truly opens the world to him.<p>Of course, I'm a programmer. Language is my bread and butter. To be truthful, I'm a bit ashamed that I haven't learned as many human languages as computer languages, but there is still time for that.. ;)

A fantastic book about learning languages:<p>How to Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and on Your Own<p>by Barry Farber<p>- <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Learn-Any-Language-Inexpensively/dp/0806512717" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/How-Learn-Any-Language-Inexpensively/d...</a><p>which is available as a PDF here:<p>- <a href="http://fld.hit.edu.cn/english/webedit/uploadfile/2008512152454548.PDF" rel="nofollow">http://fld.hit.edu.cn/english/webedit/uploadfile/20085121524...</a><p>Some articles on the TPR method for language learning:<p>- <a href="http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/rw/tprmax.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/rw/tprmax.htm</a><p>- <a href="http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/other/krashentpr.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/other/krashentpr.htm</a><p>- <a href="http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/other/ashertpr.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/other/ashertpr.htm</a><p>- <a href="http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/other/ashertpr.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/other/ashertpr.htm</a><p>- <a href="http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/rw/firstday.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/rw/firstday.htm</a><p>More great articles on language learning here:<p>- <a href="http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/articles.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/articles.htm</a>