Is Language-learning just about Learning a Language?
- Calvin Stevens
- Jan 15
- 6 min read
How learning a new language is changing my perception
I recently returned to my Mandarin classes from a short hiatus in December, and it struck me, after getting reacquainted with my fellow classmates and teacher, just how different my interactions in Mandarin are to those in English. It dawned on me how the way we think varies across different languages; and I’m rather embarrassed to admit that I’ve only just recently come to this realization — I guess all it took was a short period of retrospection.
Some of my friends and colleagues have even spoken of this phenomenon before. For one, many of my Afrikaans-speaking friends have expressed their preference for writing in English but speaking in Afrikaans. In another instance, a German-born South African once told me that his mind worked better on analytical problems and deductions in German than it did in English. Similarly, one of my closest friends, on multiple occasions, would got frustrated when trying to passionately describe something to me in English. She told me she found English easier to use in more formal scenarios — she wrote most of her essays, reports, and research in English — while French was better for her to express herself more creatively — I have a fond memory of her trying to explain the lyrics of Les feuilles mortes to me but failing to find “the right diction to match the essence” in English (her words).
Most of this hit me as I was driving home from my lesson — as things often do during car rides home — and I thought I’d synthesize my thoughts on the matter. Is learning a new language just about learning the language itself? Or is there more to it?
Language and Perspective
The appropriate term here, I think, is something akin to linguistic relativity. The way we perceive the world is relative to the language we express ourselves in. One such example of this — and, in hindsight, it was probably the first notable perception change I encountered early in my Mandarin course — lies in numbers and counting. The number 82, in English, is simply a combination of “eighty” and “two” (80 + 2). Nice and simple, at least to me. Afrikaans has a similar method but in reverse: twee en tagtig, “two and eighty” (2 + 80). That’s doable; not to tricky. In Mandarin, however, we say bā shí èr, directly translating to “eight ten two” (8 x 10 + 2). So, slightly more complicated. But the real befuddlement came when I asked my aforementioned friend for the same number in French: quatre-vingt-deux, or “four twenty two” (4 x 20 + 2). Excusez-moi?
The difference is palpable.
And whilst the French variation seems entirely alien to me, it’s all a matter of perspective. My friend sees nothing strange about it and, in retrospect, the Chinese version no longer seems as strange to me as it did in the beginning. Perhaps that is why some languages come off as more analytical than others; it just depends which way your brain is wired.
Neither does it end there — a whole host of other aspects, including gender, colour and time, can be perceived differently across languages. It’s a bit like peering at the world through a different lens, really. You have to momentarily rewire your brain, step out of your comfort zone, and think outside the box.
Expressions and Daily Communication
As I greeted my classmates my focus was drawn to the way we greeted each other. Sometimes it can be rather different in another language. Not only that, but different languages often prioritize certain expressions and means of communication. In fact, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that culture plays an important role in defining what expressions a language values most. In the Chinese dialects, for example, there are many idioms — chéngyǔ— that relate to family; hence, a greater emphasis is placed on the family, from asking if one’s parents are still in good health to asking when one is planning on getting married.
Last year, I happened to find myself roaming my local Chinatown one day in late October, and it occurred to me that I didn’t know what to say to a Chinese cashier. In English, after thanking them, I generally bid the cashier a good day further; but when I asked my Mandarin teacher whether saying wǒ xīwàng nǐ yǒu yīgè hǎo tiān was correct, she thought about it for a moment before promptly telling me that, whilst there was nothing wrong with that sentence, it sounded rather odd and was an expression that Chinese people don’t really use.
What I find interesting is that same sentence, months later now, does sound strange to me. Again, it’s not that it is technically wrong; it’s just an expression that doesn’t really match the language and its aligning culture. It’s a bit like your friend greeting you, in English, by asking whether you’ve eaten or not — a perfectly fine question on its own, but a bit of a strange way to greet someone.
On the contrary, I find Chinese people often use that exact question as a way of greeting their friends. Nǐ chī le ma? they’d ask, not necessarily expecting a direct answer in response; it’s more a way of gauging how one is doing, I think. After all, there is a great emphasis on food in Chinese culture (the Chinese love food), and a good day is determined by whether one has eaten or not.
And you know what? I can totally get behind that!
“Think like a Chinese”
The phrase “think like a Chinese” is the crown piece of advice my Mandarin teacher has always preached; and this same bit of advice can be applied to any target language. You see, languages all have different ways of thinking things through, different ways of constructing sentences, and different ways of communicating ideas. Direct translation is almost always bound to fail. The path to fluency isn’t about being able to translate words; vocabulary can only get you so far. No, it is about being able to think and express your ideas like a native speaker would.
I love Mandarin in this regard because, simply put, it is a very practical language with a logical thought pattern. As a basic example, take the act of trying to locate a person who is standing next to a car. In English, you would say they are “to the left/right of the car”. But you can’t just directly translate that sentence into Mandarin word for word, so to speak. You would have to “think in Chinese”, as my teacher would tell me.
How do you find the person, literally, she asked the class the first time we broached the topic. Well, first you’d find the car, and then you’d look to the left or right side of it. Perfect. So, in Mandarin we therefore say zài chē de zuǒ-/yòu- biān, literally translated as “the car left/right side”. It is almost an exact rendition of the steps you take to follow the instruction of locating the person. Do you see why there is no way to directly translate this? There is no word for “of” and the logical flow of the sentence is different. A more direct translation would probably be “to the car’s left side” but, and feel free to disagree with me, that sounds a lot more clunky and less elegant in English, and thus the former is the more commonly used expression, being equally present in our way of thinking as a result.
Another, more astounding example occurs when it comes to discounts. If something costs 100 bucks (insert whatever currency you desire) and there is a 20% sale, then we’d say it is 20% off. What’s always frustrated me, as a person who hates math, is that we essentially have to perform a double equation in order to figure out the end price.
100 — (100 x 0.2) = 80.
The English — and often Western — way of thinking is such that the consumer is primarily concerned with how much they’re saving (i.e. 20%), not necessarily the end price. Of course, if you are like me and get frustrated with this, then you probably care more about the end price than the savings. So, let me introduce you to another way of thinking — the Chinese way.
In China, that same discount occurs in reverse. Instead of 20% off, it is simply bā zhé, or x0.8. Thus, 100 x 0.8 = 80. Simple, easy math concerned with the final price after discount rather than the discount itself. How cool is that? I wish shops at home presented sales like that. A man can only dream.
Needless to say, people think differently. Entire languages and cultures think differently. It’s what makes language learning more complicated than people initially think. You’re not just learning a language; you’re learning a whole other way of processing the world around you. And yet, it is, perhaps, the most exhilarating part of the whole process. In my opinion, it is not a con of learning a new language but rather a pro. Not only do you take a step closer towards multilingualism — a great skill to have, indeed! — but you also open yourself up to new perspectives, new experiences, and new world views. The cross-cultural exchange is vital in today’s ever-expanding, ever-globalizing world. The ability to empathize and understand people of different cultures is needed now more than ever.
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