Language tips

Language learners are all, deep down somewhere, actors. Its something I've been saying for awhile now, in regards to language learning, and I ruminate on the thought again and again. I think it's almost the most important part of the process: you must be an actor, somewhere in your soul. And of course what is one of the most important things an actor has going for him or her? I'll tell you: Many times, they aren't all that enamored with who they actually are. Major A list stars (shockingly enough) say this again and again if you listen to the theme of their tales and their interviews. I've heard Johnny depp say it almost every time he pops up somewhere: I like to escape being me, to become someone else...it's like breaking out of prison....

Someone like Donald Trump, for example, probably could never hope to learn a language because Trump is a narcissist to the core who thinks literaly every aspect of himself is already the top tier and most interesting combination imaginable. Nothing else in the world is more interesting than Trump to Trump. Actors -- even if they do oftrn wind up rich and cozy-- instesd oftrn start on a path that is all about the shedding of the boring and plain self. Johnny Depp begins as a boy from destroyed Louisville, Kentucky...and he goes on to shed the skin and slip right out of it and pick up quite literally another language of sorts by becoming the British scally wag pirate Jack Sparrow, or the Libertine John Wilmot, earl of Rochester. It was a mighty journey but the key part of it was the beginning , the origin point of his ability to shed the skin, which was all born out of dissatisfaction with his own self, and his own "language". If Johnny had loved himself all along, the transformation never could have happened.

When I first started studying Italian for instance, and wound up picking it up rather quickly, a cousin of mine who has been perpetually successful (a valedictorian, graduated from an Ivy League) couldn't believe that I had managed to do it. He was in awe that I had actually picked up the tongue with no teacher, no classes/- nothing but a set of music albums and people on the Internet. He, after all, had that same stupid story alll these collegiates have: "I took 4 years of Spanish at a $64,000 a year university , got straight a's and can't speak a word of it. Ahahaha!"

Well, one part of the reason I'm convinced cousin Jacob couldn't pick up another tongue is because, being a wild success for the past 15 years now, he's utterly forgotten what it feels like to be at square zero, with Jack diddly in your hand. My cousin Jacob has pretty much been respected in every room he has walked into for a long long time now. The last time he probably felt truly intimidated or novice at something was probably whne he was 11. He lives his entire life in a bubble where he has his fancy little diploma and title attached to him-- and he's basically always had this in some form since early childhood. It's thus the case that becoming someone else , especially, as it is in the case of learning a language, someone particularly stupid and full of errors, is an unfathomable condition for him. He thus feels very uncomfortable making that transformation, because all the glorious pretense of being little perfect Jacob the Ivy League graduate is gone. He's suddenly like a Mexican begging for meat on the side of the road. You almost can't blame him....

To a degree, of course, this is in some way the situation for everyone who tries to journey into the world of another tongue, since all of us, even if we are nobodies in English, still command a certain degree of respect just by being able to speak it . However, it doesn't change the fact that there's still something there when it comes to what I'm saying about acting and having this need to transform that one imagines most successful people just can't relate with. For example, when I first began my language journey, one of the first advice websites I stumbled across was being run by an Irishman by the name of Benny Lewis. The site was called Fluent in 3 months; and it is full of good advice. I only mention it of course along with the fact that Benny is Irish because, wel, to me it's no coincidence that it wasn't someone from Britain who was running the site. Britain is the cousin Jacob of that world: it has long forgotten, as a culture, what its like to lose, or be mocked, or not taken seriously. It's therefore no coincidence that it, just like America, tends to have an issue learning other languages.

In fact, when it comes to the English language in general, it can be much harder to find a window or doorway out of it, like Benny Lewis the Irishman offers by way of motivation and a lot of "you can do it!" idealism. Look at the other languages like Spanish or Italian or German and run searches in them and you'll often find that there are TONS of resources for how to successfully get out of the language. In English we think we're better. We don't need another langauge. We're smarter.

But then the awful irony here of course is that we are actually now dumber because there those other folks are, who all have a duel or even triple language view of the world, whilst we are sitting around with just one , ahd trust me: there is a big difference between knowing one language and knowing two. Even if you are only stumbling around somewhat blindly in your second, there is still a very big difference. Having a second language in your brain is sort of like having a Harley in your garage that you can take out just for the summer. It's wildly different than having just the one car for everything. Wildly different. It's a luxury vehicle in many ways. And having a third tongue (which I don't) is probably like having a pick up truck or a van on top of it the two others. You see things -- especially in the first two years worth of the journey --- that poor cousin Jacob shall never see, trapped in his prison of success as he is. It really is like that old Dylan song "Like a Rolling Stone" whne he sings "....when you ain't got nothing , you got nothing to lose."

So there you have it really. I thought I'd type up some advice for you as I ate my pizza here at this restauruant in Brooklyn .....and that's basically it: you gotta be willing to feel like a migrant Mexican, if you wanna be able to learn a tongue. After you learn it of course, you'll feel like Sir Lancelot or something .....


CIAO. CIIII VEDIAMO'n