Whenever people ask me what I study, I’m always foolish enough to think that every person will just listen and leave it at that. I’m wrong quite often. When I say I study German, there is typically a confused look on the listener’s face that just says, “why?” Then that look is frequently followed with the actual question “Why?” and then a remark in the vein of “You should learn Chinese.” Well, there’s a reason I didn’t learn Chinese - I simply didn’t want to and I’m not planning on pursuing a PhD in imperial Chinese history. But I am planning on pursuing a PhD in German history, hence, German. Learning a language really comes down to personal interests and goals, not the demands of the day and age. Though it may seem selfish, and people may tell you it’s selfish, for you to pursue your own interest to learn a certain language, say Polish over Chinese, I think you actually can’t go wrong. Here’s why:
1. Learning ANY second language teaches you a new way to think.
Language does often reflect the culture it is from. English does not have a formal and informal way to say “you,” but many languages do. German does, and when I was in Germany, it felt strange when older Germans wanted to speak English and I had no formal way to address them. This simple aspect of the worldview German produces had become engrained in me through learning it, and switching back to English showed me that German exposed to a new way of thinking.
2. Learning ANY second language enhances your knowledge and communication skills in your mother tongue.
In my second semester of German with the great Georg Wieger, he explained several linguistic aspects of English equivalent to what we were learning in German at the moment. Some of the things he talked about I honestly never knew before. Then we went into translations, I had to think of the most direct way to say things in English without sounding like a caveman so that I could properly translate whatever I needed to say in German. Learning to do that has helped my ability to communicate clearly in both writing and speaking ever since.
3. If you pursue the language you really want to learn, your passion for it will push you through difficulties.
It feels like I’m going to have a stroke whenever I read German. I have to go through a painstaking process to determine the gender, case, function, and meaning of every word whenever I do, and to make it less difficult, I have to force myself to think in German. It’s a horrendously slow process overall, and it’s taken me 30 minutes to get through a page of German text before (granted, it was out of Thomas Mann’s journals). What keeps me going through it every time though - I’m getting to study what I want and I’m learning something that I genuinely love and want to be able to do better. One’s passion for a language comes with a drive to improve.
4. Becoming fluent in a second language only opens the door for opportunities.
If you’ve learned Latin, you’ve just opened the entire romance language pillar for yourself. You’ve also just opened a niche for yourself among others who’ve learned Latin and enabled yourself to help any scholar on classical history.If you’ve learned Chinese, you’ve opened a world of business to yourself. You’ve also opened a niche for yourself in a huge part of a huge country, opening a window into a living culture for yourself. And with fluency in a second language, you’ve just paved the path for yourself to learn a third language, because you’ve got the trick down now.
