The first time I found out that the United States doesn’t have an official language, I was really surprised because I without a doubt thought it was English. Growing up, almost everyone I knew was monolingual—all of my friends only spoke English both at school and at home. The United States has an embarrassingly low percentage of multilingual speakers compared to the rest of the world, but it has been increasing as of late, which is awesome because besides giving you the opportunity to communicate with a spectrum of people, languages introduce you to a whole new world. Here are some of the perks and anomalies of being multilingual:
1. Forming instant friendships
If you love meeting new people, speaking another language is a lot of fun and a great way to connect. Overhearing someone speaking the same foreign language I speak and us automatically becoming best friends is my favorite trope.
2. Having a different personality in one language vs the other
When you switch from one language to another, your personality can, too. A friend of mine is really funny and sarcastic in Spanish, and an entirely different person in English. It’s the strangest phenomenon, but it definitely has something to do with the individual experiences you have when you’re speaking a certain language, and the people you’re speak the language with.
3. Experiencing the frustration and satisfaction of a word existing in one language but not the other
It’s like when you forget the word or term for something, except worse because the word doesn’t actually exist. My favorite Tagalog word is “gigil,” meaning the irresistible urge to pinch or squeeze something or someone that is unbearably cute. I love dogs, so this word comes up for me fairly often, however I can never 100% articulate this feeling in English, which is really frustrating. However, the fact that a word like gigil exists in my vocabulary is also really satisfying.
4. Dreaming in multiple languages
There’s no real benefit to being able to dream in multiple languages, but it’s still pretty cool. It’s almost like you’re a superhuman who has the ability to activate different parts of their subconscious.
5. Having private conversations
Honestly being able to speak another language is just really convenient if you need to have a private conversation in a public context. You’ll never need to whisper to your friend or step out of the room to make a personal phone call.
6. Dealing with the awkwardness of not being sure if a word is in one language or the other
When I was very little, I would often get confused about which words were English and which weren’t. For example, for some reason thought that the words “inside-out” and “saliva” were Tagalog words. This doesn’t happen so often now, but recently my sister was trying to tell her boyfriend that his couch was dusty and that he needed to pagpag it (dust it off), and it was so funny.
We’ve definitely all heard about how knowing more than one language gets you more job opportunities and enriches your travel experiences, but there are also so many fun little anomalies you get to experience, too. Wherever you are in your language-learning journey, just go out in the world, impress people with your awesome skills, and never let anyone tell you to, “Speak English, we’re in America!”
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