When I was registering for my first classes as an English major last semester, I was shocked to learn I needed to enroll in four semesters’ worth of foreign language classes. The first look at language courses was extremely startling; I had never learned a spoken language and had no direction on what to do next. In order to solve this crisis, I thought very deeply about which language to commit my next four semesters to. This thought process consisted of: “I’ve always wanted to go to Italy! I guess I can learn Italian.” This is how all great academic decisions are made, I promise. Now, I am in my second semester in the language and I can confidently say – this is the hardest class I have ever taken.
The first class was basically traumatic. I was cold-called on to say my name, where I am from, and how old I am in Italian. I stumbled across my words, my pronunciation was embarrassing, and I had a mental breakdown on the phone with my mom afterward. The first quiz was even more traumatic as I scraped by with a pitiful seventy percent. All of these events combined led me to be angry at the course. Why in the world, as an English major, do I even need to learn another language? It’s totally useless. Until I experienced “the click.”
A lot of people who are in the process of learning a language have noted that after a certain point of learning, things will click. My mom told me about this experience she had when learning Spanish. She encouraged me not to give up and that it would make sense eventually. I deduced this as a fable and did not believe this would ever happen to me. I was struggling on every test; I couldn’t memorize all the regular verbs, and especially not the irregular ones, and I just felt so behind all the time.
As previously stated, I am now in my second semester of taking Italian and have a solid ‘A’ in the class – safe to say I finally had “the click.” Learning the language did not all of a sudden become easier; it just was less foreign (kind of ironic). Soon, you learn how everything follows a sort of pattern. Once you memorize that pattern and practice with it a lot, it becomes less overwhelming. Once I got this down, I began to see this new learning process as extremely valuable towards my English degree. I began to notice the smaller things about language: spelling, pronunciation, and the importance of meaning. In Italian, for example, there are many different tenses as opposed to English’s past, present, and future tenses. Italians put a lot of significance on pronunciation, and how one stretches a certain letter can change the meaning of the entire word!
These aspects forced me to reflect on my own language in a way I had never done before. It taught me a lot about culture and how important language is to humanity. So, despite it being genuinely one of the hardest things I have ever done, I do not regret learning a foreign language. It has taught me more about myself than I thought possible. First, it taught me that I am a good student. I can engage in new material and learn to apply it effectively if I put in the hours and the work. Secondly, it taught me that language is a bigger component in humanity beside just a communication method. Language truly defines our culture and the vast differences between each one is what makes each culture so significantly special. Despite not having ever gone to Italy, I have learned so much about their culture just from my Italian language textbook.
So, in the end, I believe everyone should engage in learning a foreign language, not just as a party trick but as a true perspective shift that will benefit you for the rest of your life. Although it will be extremely difficult at first, the payoff is extraordinary. You can get an insight into how other people across the world function and communicate just from learning grammatical patterns on a page. If you are willing to put in the time, work, and effort, put it towards learning a new language – you won’t regret it!