A handwritten word list in Greek is a global citizen’s treasured gift.
© Joyce McGreevy

Language Lessons for Global Citizens

When you travel, what languages do you speak? After all, every day you navigate a rich linguistic landscape—and that’s before you leave North America.  As a global citizen, you’re more predisposed to becoming multilingual than you may realize.

For example, did you ever

• attend kindergarten, use a thesaurus, or study algebra?
• wear corduroy or khaki, moccasins or a parka?
• observe graffiti or a replica?
• blitz through work like a ninja, or do yoga on a patio?

Just by reading that list, you utilized German, Greek, Arabic, French, Urdu, Algonquian, Russian, Italian, Yiddish, Japanese, Sanskrit, Spanish, and more. Our everyday English speech is a mosaic of world languages.

In Bulgaria, poetry on a utility box (above) and remnants of posters (below) exemplify the linguistic landscape that global citizens inhabit.
© Joyce McGreevy

© Joyce McGreevy

Multilingual, moi?

According to the Center for Language and Brain at New York’s Colgate University, an estimated 85 percent of the world’s population will be multilingual—fluent to varying degrees in several languages—by 2050. Currently, 7,000 living languages are spoken across 195 countries.

While some view this as a challenge, I see it as an opportunity. When I travel, I love experiencing the food, history, arts, and natural wonders of a culture. But to visit a country without also exploring its language would feel like standing on shores, but never touching the water.

Learning languages can take us from skimming the surface
of a culture to diving in. (Türkbükü, Turkey)
© Joyce McGreevy

Today it’s easier than ever to explore multiple languages. These easy language lessons will get you started.

Don’t buy into age barriers.

As an Italian artist wrote, Ancora imparo: “I am still learning.” At 87, Michelangelo inscribed those words onto plans for a sculpture. We, too, are sculptors, thanks to the neuroplasticity of our brains, which literally change shape and size as we learn a language.

Research from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona shows that acquiring vocabulary in other languages actually becomes easier as we get older, since our pre-existing vocabulary acts as a kind of “welcoming committee” for new words.

Another surprising advantage of age? According to a study published by Oxford University Press, even though people use the same brain regions for two languages if learned in childhood, they engage different regions of the brain if they learn new languages as adults. The latter improves executive function, or higher-order cognitive skills.

The sun never sets on the human need to share experiences. (Tisvilde, Denmark)
© Christian Alsing/ Visit Copenhagen

Use your menu.

Many culinary terms that once were unknown outside of their countries of origin are now commonplace on menus around the world. I’ve had friends tell me they’re lousy at learning languages—and then place a word-perfect order for pappardelle con funghi porcini or umi masu sashimi.

“I’d be totally lost,” they say, even as they look up unfamiliar food terms on their smartphones or simply ask the waiter. But those same practices—familiarization, sounding out syllables, using an app, and asking a local expert for help—would also be effective for learning languages as they travel.

“I scream! You scream! We all scream
for sladoled!” (Zagreb, Croatia)
© Joyce McGreevy

Why not just ask for an English menu? Many such menus omit local dishes in favor of plainer fare, based on outdated assumptions about tourists’ palates. This can make all the difference between enjoying a savory bowl of cataplana and confronting a pitiful plate of fish and chips.

By learning a few more words and phrases at every meal, you’ll learn a lot more about the unique role of food in creating cultures.

What you already know of one language
can help you read another. (Malmö, Sweden)
© Joyce McGreevy

Focus on friendliness. 

When my siblings and I traveled as kids, our parents had a rule: Say please, thank you, hello, and goodbye in the local vernacular. One word led to another, and soon we’d be eavesdropping on conversations, spending our holiday coins on local comic books, deciphering cereal boxes, and brainstorming translations of billboards.

Today, I still begin with greetings. Yes, you can walk into many businesses around the world and be assisted by an English speaker. But just as a greeting expresses good will toward an individual, the greeting’s language expresses good will toward a culture.

Sharing even a few words in each other’s language can
help us connect as human beings. (Plovdiv, Bulgaria)
© Joyce McGreevy

Invite teachable moments. 

New to the language? In the rare event you’re mistaken for a native speaker, transition politely to English. You might say, in the local language, that you’re a beginner at that language.

Because this wording signals interest in learning more, it usually leads to insightful conversation and invaluable advice.  In bakeries and bookstores, on public transportation and at popular attractions, so many kind people have taken the time to teach me something of their language, and thus their culture.

Get out of your “komfortzone.”

Learning includes making mistakes. In one Breton village, an American wanted a five-kilogram roast for Easter, but ordered cinq kilomètres de jambon. That works out at 3.1 miles of ham laid end-to-end.

But humor can be bonding. Mark’s gaffe and his ability to laugh about it dissolved the usual social barriers and got people chatting. Voila! More practice for Mark.  

Oh, I see: From boosting brainpower to broadening the global conversation, exploring multiple languages offers multiple benefits.

See a familiar play in an unfamiliar language. Even the ticket offers language lessons.
(Can you spot the Croatian for comedy and seat?)
© Joyce McGreevy

Meet your neighbors.

You don’t need a grammar book to find language lessons these days.  Simply begin by exploring the linguistic landscape wherever you go. Now and then, hold a conversation in a language other than your first, even if it’s halting or brief. Because in this multilingual world, discovering what connects us may prove the most adventurous journey of all.

To see how a woman considered “bad at languages” became one of the world’s first simultaneous interpreters, fluent in 17 languages, read this.  

University of Glasgow’s free online course in multilingual learning starts today. Learn more here.

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