My Languages

At a party once, I had a conversation with an American man I just met and a couple of my friends. At some point, the newcomer asked me: "And how is your Czech?" Before I could explain that I am Czech, my friend Jeremy promptly jumped in: "It's great, man! You wouldn't believe. She can pronounce the RZH sound like a native!"

Everyone laughed at the poor soul's expense, but I felt this was the biggest compliment I could receive for the years of hard work. When such situations happen, the next question is: "How did you learn English so well?" Then I realize, that I have nothing to offer, no precedent, no path to follow, no really good strategy. Although I always liked languages, I can’t say I’m particularly talented in this direction.

I consider my first foreign language Slovak. Despite being close, Czech and Slovak languages are not the same. Being regularly exposed to Slovak language as a child, I have full understanding of it, although I don’t speak it. There is no need, Slovaks understand Czech just as well. It's sad to realize, that after the separation of Czechoslovakia, we now have a new generation of children, who practically don't understand Slovak language.

I was also often exposed to German language, because of my family’s German friends and our frequent visits to Germany. I took after-school lessons for two years as a child. As a result, I understand about 10% and can probably order from a menu, but that’s about it.

In school, Russian language was thought to everyone without escape. It was my first encounter with a different alphabet. I liked learning to write Cyrillic, but that’s where my interest ended. I spent five years learning Russian and, like most Czechs, I can understand spoken Russian rather well. Despite my good grades and being quite fluent at the end of those five years, today, I can’t produce a sentence.

I started learning English on my own, during my other (boring) classes, when I was a teenager. Receiving a kick start in the form of about 5 grammar lessons from a friend, I learned through translation. I translated music lyrics and sang the songs over and over. I spent a lot of time over a dictionary. This method proved to be extremely effective and years later, I was able to find out why. It causes a different brain wiring, different way to store the words – attached to a thought, rather than attached to the equivalent word in the mother tongue.

German teacher and author Vera Birkenbihl described a four step method in her book “How to Easily Learn Foreign Languages” (unfortunately not available in English), using what she calls “text decoding” as the first step. Once familiar with the text’s meaning, students are required to listen to the text, first closely following it, then not focusing on it at all and letting it sink into their subconscious mind. The fourth step is reading, writing or speaking, depending on the student’s desire. I have instinctively developed the exact same method and it worked. This is the only thing I can recommend.

Since the age of 18, I was hired for jobs primarily because of my knowledge of English. Circumstances forced me to communicate and I used English on daily basis. Soon, I was able to read books in English, make jokes in English and learn different skills in English. Once I started to acquire information through English, the language finally became a tool and my horizons widened in unexpeced ways.

Very soon, English became my primary language of communication. This was especially evident when I started to live with my husband. With most of my friends, clients and colleagues being foreigners, I now only use Czech when I’m shopping or talking to my family. It shocks me that sometimes I can go days without speaking Czech, while I’m in the Czech Republic.

But I’m not done with languages. My last serious effort was Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the ancient language of India, which was used for writing of all sacred literature. It later developed into today’s Indian languages and dialects. Like Latin in the Western world, Sanskrit is now basically a “dead language”, meaning that it’s not spoken, except maybe by scholars and monks. Needless to say that I have failed. But I did learn to write in devanagari alphabet, which is very beautiful.

Sanskrit also opened my eyes to a completely different concept of a language. It values sound, as the primary vibration, and therefore writing is secondary to speech. Writing is there to merely record the sound and thus it changes with the sound. For example, words which are pronounced as one are also written as one! Unless the speaker actually separates the words, completes a thought or takes a breath, the writing is one long word, sometimes spanning an entire page. Fascinating, but really hard to learn.

As for future, I’m hoping to learn Italian. I feel suspiciously well tuned to Italian, seemingly understand it, without ever learning it. I’ve promised my friend Elvia in Rome, that when I come back, I will know Italian. Since then, I had no time. But I really miss Italy, so I better get going. All right folks, I’m off to buy some Eros Ramazzotti CDs, because I don’t think I could translate opera. I’m bound to learn a lot of “Amore Mio”, but hey, what else does one need in Italy?