Which languages do you speak and how did that impact your life?
My answer is simple.
English.
That’s it.
I’ve never felt like I was missing out because I only speak one language. Would it be cool to understand conversations in another language? Sure. But it’s never been something I’ve needed in my everyday life.
Living in eastern Ohio, English has always gotten me where I needed to go. At work, at home, online, and everywhere in between, it’s been enough. There wasn’t some dramatic life event where knowing French, German, or Japanese would have changed everything.
People sometimes act like you have to apologize for only speaking one language. I don’t. Learning another language takes a lot of time and dedication, and I have other things I’d rather spend that time doing. There are blogs to write, old computers to tinker with, movies to watch, and enough projects sitting on my desk already.
I have a lot of respect for people who are bilingual or multilingual. That’s a skill that takes real work. It just isn’t a skill I’ve ever needed enough to chase.
So how did speaking only English impact my life?
Honestly… it didn’t.
It let me communicate with the people around me, build a career, raise a family, make friends, and complain about technology when it updates for no reason. That’s a pretty complete life in my book.
Sometimes the simplest answer is the honest one.
English.
That’s all I know, and that’s all I’ve ever needed.
3 responses
American english, all the way!
Eric, you know one of the things I like most about your writing is your honesty, and I totally respect that!
As an English teacher, I’ve always told my students that learning a foreign language forced me to understand English grammar better. Because when you’re learning a foreign language, you have to know what a direct object or past participle is. Growing up as a native English and trying to learn that crap in school for English, we didn’t care.
English is a very compressed language. There’s beauty in variety