How many languages do you speak? Do you feel different when you speak another language?
The Mother Tongue
So-called because you generally learn it from your mother, and it is how you start to communicate with the world around you, and to obtain what you want. I am very interested in the effect that our mother tongue has on the sounds we are able to hear and produce. It is very difficult for many of us to completely lose our mother-tongue accent when speaking other languages, but there is also great fun to be had in trying to get your tongue and teeth around "foreign" words.
Do you have any particular sounds you find difficult in English? Any words you find impossible? I certainly do.
Languages open up the world
A recent article in the UK press talked about the lack of foreign language skills in today's younger generations, how languages are not the first choice to study for many at school and how even when students do want to study foreign languages, they may run into problems with finding a teacher as the demand is so low that the class is too small. This is a big shame.
I feel very lucky to have grown up in a time when a foreign language - French - was introduced at elementary school, and was compulsory to exam level (at age 16). At my high school, German was also compulsory for the first two years. Once I got out into the world of work, I sought out companies (and they sought me out too) where speaking other languages was considered a plus. I enjoyed visiting my company's offices throughout Europe, speaking to the local people in their language where possible, making friends and even picking up words in languages I had never studied formally. It meant human connection, and getting a little deeper into the local culture. Certain nationalities are said to lack a sense of humour. My experience is that if you can converse with the people in their own language, you soon discover that this is just not true!
As Fellini said: "A different language is a different view of life".