New kids in class
I mean, about time I finally press publish. I’ve had the bones of this site since December-ish, but time and life gets away, and well, you know how it is. Maybe I was also waiting for inspiration to strike? Whatever it was, doesn’t matter because we are here now.
I have been abroad for about a month and a half now, and while I wouldn’t say the “studying” portion of study abroad has taken up the majority of my brain space, it is what I have chosen to write my first blog post about.
The other day in one of my classes, I was speaking to my Portuguese friend who is a full-time student at IE. I was asking her about the grading for another class we are in together in which nearly our entire grade is based off of how we do on the final exam.
Personally, I hate exams. Truly one of the most redeeming things about last semester in comm was that I had relatively no exams, only a massive project. I would take a massive project over an exam any day of the week. This should give you some context as to how I was feeling about the majority of our grade coming from a final exam.
My friend reassured me that the exam should be no problem for me. I asked, “How do you know?” and she said, (in a less abrasive way than this may come off in text form) “You Americans are so good at bullshitting.” I remember laughing out loud and asking her what she meant by that. She said, “Anything you say sounds good because this is your language. Even for the professors, English is a second language. You could say anything and it sounds good so it must be smart.”
I thought about this more. This was a girl who was speaking to me in nearly perfect English (and who fluently spoke not one, but TWO other languages as well) telling me that my ability to speak in my one native language automatically set me apart dramatically.
Maybe this is some obvious conclusion, but it was somewhat eye opening, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
My best friend told me this quote once (and I have heard her say it several times since), speaking in relation to her own parents who’s native language is not English: You have no idea how smart I am in my native language.
In the context of going to an American school in Europe, I sit in class and cannot imagine what it would be like to learn in any other language than my native one. Here I am, though, surrounded by students from so many different countries for whom that is their reality. And they are so brilliant. Yet, I still cannot have any idea how smart they are in their native language.
That is what has been on my mind as of late. It is inspiring to see my classmates speak so eloquently in so many different languages. I often ask my multilingual friends what language they think in, dream in. It really is the ultimate super power to be able to speak so many different languages, and if I could have any one super power in the world, I would wish for that.
But unlike being able to fly or become invisible, multilingualism is a super power that is actually attainable. So it goes on the bucket list. I swear that thing keeps on growing, and I’ve yet to make a dent. Time and life keeps getting away. Now, to slow down and start listening to the Duolingo podcast again.
Love always, Arden
