Tryst with my 4th Language
Lost in translation, and sometimes in words, grammer and spellings; saved by Rap, Hollywood and my imaginary sibling!!
Bilingualism/multilingualism is a common phenomenon in India. You can expect that any given person would speak (or understand) two languages, some more than two. The language of this newsletter is my 4th language (I tried making Italian/German my 5th, but my brain reached its linguistic bandwidth).
Surprising that my 4th language has become the language I think in.
Credits to our colonisers, English has somewhat become a threading language between the northern and southern parts of India. In a country, with numerous languages, it's (nearly) impossible for one person to know all of it.
For the first 6 years of my schooling, I was yet to learn about this language. I was not in an English-speaking school till the 5th standard. My elder sister, however, had been in an English medium school since childhood. Before my first day in an English medium school, she taught me two words - Yes and No!! That’s all I had in my armoury to go to battle.
The icebreaker with English was rather eventful on the first day. I reach school with a neighbourhood friend. We go towards a building where there were a bunch of guys (not kids, they were guys for me then). My friend introduced me to them and went on her way. The first guy approached me and said; ”Nice to meet you.”. Now I had two words in my arsenal and with careful thought I chose and replied,” Yes, yes”. I said it twice while nodding my head in agreement - perfect gesture if you don't understand something. Try it, it works!!
Then we switched to Hindi and headed to the classroom.
On the first day, the class teacher asked someone to say a joke in the classroom. Some guy got up, said a joke and everyone laughed, except me - because I did not understand a word of it. I could not even pretend to because, at that age, you only become awkward from being left out. Pretensions become a part of life as we grow.
On the same day, we got some instructions from the class teacher to get something done and inevitably, I did not turn up with that the next day - I hadn’t understood what she had said. The next day was awkward - again. I was the only one without the work and the teacher stood next to me and kept saying something - I am sure she was scolding but I have no clue to this day what she said.
Eventually, I made a friend who would translate these instructions in the coming time. Learning was primarily dependent on my home tutor and school mostly became a formality for me.
From the 5th to the 8th standard, the situation did not change. I could follow what was happening in class but still could not speak English.
By the time I was in 10th standard, I could read, write and understand it but still could not speak it very well. It was only after high school that I was able to speak courtesy of my job as a convincing man (that's an interesting incident too. You can read it here. After this, obviously ).
From then, to now - English has become the language I think of. Strange circle of events given that it is my 4th Language.
This, of course, did not happen overnight. There were some nerdy things I did. You might try these if you are trying to pick up a language.
Immersion
Immersion is a well-known way of picking a new language.
The idea is to immerse yourself in the language by constant, or at least continuous exposure.
It can be listening to songs/podcasts, watching movies, or staying in an environment where people speak that language. The first was taken care of by rap, the second by Hollywood and the third by surroundings.
As for listening, my phone used to have only rap songs, downloaded from shady websites. I could not understand a word of it but would try to decipher one word out of hundreds those breathless artists blurted out in seconds.
Self-talk
I assure you I am not a sociopath. At least, I think so. Ok, I have not been diagnosed so take that with a grain of salt.
Think about it like this.
We all have something or the other in our minds. Imagine that thing being a conversation between you and someone else (Remember the perfect reply you could have given, sound familiar?).
I transform that conversation into a dialogue of ideas. I present my idea and become the fiercest critic of it at the same time (like playing the devil’s lawyer, only there is no devil, lawyer or second person!). Give it a try, it will bring a sense of clarity on what’s going on in your mind. It will also stop you from being very sure about things (which is the reason for the intense polarity we see around you).
Side effect: Improvement of language skills!!
Now English might have become my primary form of communication but it would always queue behind Hindi, Bengali and Maithili.