Should I Learn Second (or Third) Language in 2021?
Learning new languages is good for you
2020 is coming to an end. Around this time, many people from different countries plan their new year resolution lists. Learning second language is on the top of the list. According to goskills, it is the fourth most popular new year resolution, although it shares a common pool with other skills such as playing musical instruments or coding for example. If that’s the case, should you learn new language then? However, without language skills, nowadays there are many tools or applications which can help you understand those languages easily, namely Google Translate. Even with those tools available, I think learning new languages will be useful for you, and I will explain why.
You already encountered second language before
To begin with, I’m arguing that most of you would already have used, spoken or listened to other language before, and I’ll start with my story. I was born and raised in Indonesia, so Bahasa Indonesia is my native language. My parents were not born and grew up in Jakarta, the capital city, so I know a little bit of Javanese. Well, I definitely cannot write Javanese script and I cannot speak really well, but I can understand the conversations since my parents use it a lot when we traveled to their hometown. Next, since English is not my native language, I learned English since I was in elementary school. Now I use English abundantly in my daily life, including at work. I even more comfortable writing in English than in Bahasa; the fact that I’m writing this article in English may serve as a proof. Furthermore, I learned German in high school as one of the school subject, and I continued studying German by myself in university. Recently, I was hooked by k-pop and k-drama, so I have been learning Korean independently since last year. However, I’m not saying that I’m fluent in both German and Korean, but at least I will be fine traveling to Germany and South Korea as a tourist.
With my story, I just want to illustrate an example that you have, most likely, encountered with second language (or even third language before). If English is not your native language, then English is most likely your second language, just like my case. Other possibility is that you live in the culture with local language, similar to Javanese in my case. Otherwise, if English is your native language, then probably Spanish, German or French is around you. Since the second language is all around you, you should start learning it. If you already proficient, then you might want to learn a third language. That’s why I state third language in the blog title. Furthermore, learning new languages has several benefits so you might want to consider it. If you search it in Google, there are many articles explaining the benefits, such as this article. However, I think the following 2 benefits are the most important.
1. To understand more about the culture
Language is culture and culture is language
The phrase above is very true. Language has a very close connection to the culture people live in. Understanding the language will give you additional perspective to understand about the culture itself. The reason is very simple: people use language to communicate and interact with each other in their daily life, so no wonder language and culture are intertwined. If you are interested in the details, you can read here.
For illustration, I’ll give an example. In English, we call our siblings by brother (male) or sister (female). If he is older, we call him older brother, and if he is younger, we call him younger brother. Similar case occurs in older sister or younger sister. There are no specific ‘words’ to call 'older brother' or 'older sister’. However, in Korean, the specific words do exist, and I think it’s ‘too’ specific. The words depend on your gender. If you are male, you call your older brother by 형 (hyeong) and your older sister by 누나 (noona); if you are female, you call your older brother by 오빠 (oppa) and your older sister by 언니 (unnie). Sounds complicated yet interesting, isn’t it?
Probably, the one key difference in the culture lies on respecting older people. The specific terms, such as 형, exist to show respect. In Korean culture, you need to respect older people, even if they are one year older than you. It’s quite different compared to western culture, in which one or two years difference doesn’t matter too much. Btw, this is my own reasoning and I haven’t found any specific articles explaining this, but this is not the main point. I just want to point out the cultural differences.
2. To understand the full context of the language
Lost in Translation
You’ve probably heard of this phrase before. It means that sometimes the sentence cannot be fully translated to another language without any loss of meaning or context. It might occur because of several reasons, either the target language (the language to be translated into) doesn’t have the suitable vocabulary, or the nuance of the sentence cannot be completely translated into the target language. I think this is a very good reason why we should learn new languages, despite the availability of translation tools; the tools might not be able to translate completely.
For illustration, I’ll provide 3 sentences in Korean:
어디에 갑니까, 어디에 가요, 어디에 가.
Those 3 sentences will be translated to ‘Where are you going' in English. However, there is a subtle difference in those sentences, and we can probably guess the listener of the sentence. The first sentence is most likely used in formal situation, probably to your boss in the office. Next, the second one is used in informal and polite mode. It can be used to colleagues or strangers. Finally, the last one is impolite, so the listener is probably one of the family members or close friends. The additional context cannot be captured perfectly in English since there is no level of politeness, like in Korean.
How to learn new language?
You should understand that learning new languages has several benefits for you. Now I want to share my experience in learning language. First of all, you need to decide what language you want to learn. You probably have different objectives in life. You probably need learn new language to study abroad, or to get better job. Even if you don’t have specific reasons, you can learn it just for fun. Trust me, it’s fun!
After you chose your language, you just need to start learning. I usually use language learning apps, and Duolingo is my favorite app. It’s very easy to use. You will learn by translating the basic vocabulary, then the vocabulary gets harder along the way. It has grammatical lessons and discussion forum as well. Try this and enjoy! If you are not a fan of Duolingo, you can simply google different apps, books or courses and start learning ☺
Finally, I think the most effective way of learning new language is to simply use it in your daily life. It’s difficult to progress further if you rarely use the language. I realized when I was learning Korean recently. I listen to k-pop songs and watch Korean dramas a lot, and it really helps me progressing. I can memorize the vocabulary faster, since I understand the context easier with songs and dramas. Compared to when I was learning German, it’s a lot easier. It was quite difficult for me to advance in German since I didn’t use it in my daily life.
To conclude, I hope you can achieve your goal of learning new language in 2021, if you choose to accept it. Even if you don’t, I hope you can achieve your goals in 2021. Hopefully, we can also free from COVID-19 in 2021. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 🙏
