I've always been bothered by the fact that I don't know any foreign languages. I had four years of German classes in high school... but I didn't get much out if it. Nothing, really. I know a few curse words, and I can conjugate a few verbs (I love conjugating verbs. I really do.). But, English-speaking-James just isn't as cool as more-than-English-speaking-James. True? Yeah.
Actually, it's also related to a deeper issue: my genuinely sh*tty vocabulary. While studying for the GRE, it became disturbingly clear: I don't know what lots of ordinary words mean! I have an idea... I'll get close... but I'll get the meaning not-quite-right. It's really quite embarrassing. Zach, and occasionally my mother, are the ones I field questions to: "What does [insert commonplace word] mean?" If they aren't around, I use a dictionary, and subsequently forget the definition.
Perhaps it's a mental block. My brain is already small-English-vocab wired. Perhaps I had a critical nutritional deficiency as a child that locked my brain in that sad, sad configuration. An English-only speaker in a world where some 5.5 billion people speak otherwise. How un-Renaissance Man.
But really, perhaps, psychologically, my unconscious has purposefully locked itself into an English-only mode for fear of speaking another language poorly. It doesn't take long, when speaking with me face-to-face, to know that English itself is a bit of a struggle for me. If this is how I "master" my native tongue, how can I hope to conquer another language? How shameful would it be to label myself as "James, bilingual," when my second-language skills are abysmal, at best?
Yet, I want to learn (Wow. I think we've just stumbled on my greatest weakness, here.) without shaming myself.
If you haven't caught on already, there is a solution... one that I thought of a year ago, but kept to myself...
Until...
I decided to go the University District yesterday afternoon for a haircut. While I was there, I stopped at several bookstores, including the UW Bookstore. I felt drawn there, for some reason... As soon as I walked in the door, I felt I had some purpose being there. I knew that, before I left the building, I'd do something new. Perhaps exciting. Perhaps wonderous.
And, as you should know by now, if I find something wonderous and exciting, it's going to be something stupid.
I wandered until I ended up in the foreign languages section. And then, there it was... what I'd been thinking about for the past year. The ability to fulfill my desire to learn another language, and perfect my language abilities in general, without the possibility of embarrassing myself.
When I showed Zach my purchase - a book to begin to teach myself Latin - he didn't exactly bow down and worship my cerebrum. He just kind of rolled his eyes and smiled. I think he was telling himself that he really shouldn't have been surprised by such a move. Then we ate teriyaki.
But, I've already learned to translate my personal credo into Latin: "Non sum, sed ero."
Posted by James at April 17, 2005 11:11 AM