You know the expression, “Smile, and the world smiles with you?” A better expression for this week in Cieszyn is, “Cough, and the world coughs with you.” Everyone’s sick. You walk down the halls at school and you hear coughing fits behind doors at every turn. My apartment building sounds like a hospital ward for people with upper respiratory infections. Thanks to the paper-thin walls, you can hear your neighbor two floors above you coughing. It’s oddly comforting to live in a building filled with illness. There’s a wonderful sense of solidarity. We’re all in this together.
Luckily I haven’t missed any school but my main extracurricular activity this week was lying on my couch (and coughing). (At school, there was the hilarious discovery that my students can’t understand me when I’m sick. With all the coughing my voice dropped about half an octave in pitch and all of a sudden my students were having a difficult time understanding my pronunciation. Kind of fascinating!)
During my couch-ridden evenings I’ve caught up a little on “popular culture.” A couple weeks ago I finally saw “The King’s Speech” (and thoroughly enjoyed it) and this week I’ve read a few fascinating articles about stuttering, learned more about King George VI, and watched a few interviews with the cast and crew of the film. And this post was inspired by something Colin Firth said in one of the interviews I watched.
Have you read Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time?” It’s a wonderful book and not, in my opinion, only for kids. “A Wrinkle in Time” is, in one sense, a beautiful reflection on the power of language and the intricacies, challenges, and joys of communication. There’s a character in the book named Mrs. Who and she speaks primarily in quotations because she “finds it difficult to work out words of her own” (28-29). Mrs. Who is always quoting – and sometimes I feel like Mrs. Who because I also like to quote, to borrow words and phrases first spoken by others. I love writing and talking but sometimes I can’t satisfactorily explain an experience, a feeling, or a thought in my own words. And for me, sometimes borrowing is helpful.
Today I’m borrowing from Colin Firth. I’ve often found it difficult to describe the experience of living in a country where you’re not fluent in the language. People are always asking me “how’s your Polish?” I think that question speaks to the importance of language in our lives and perhaps an unconscious understanding that language isn’t only practical (“I’d like five tomatoes, please”) but also (and I'd say more importantly) a form of personal expression, the way we tell the world who we are.
What’s most difficult, I’d argue, about learning a new language is not the grammar or the declensions or the pronunciation of 4 consonants in a row – it’s that you must first focus on acquiring “survival language” and survival language is practical, not emotional. You quickly learn the harsh reality that language as a form of personal expression is frequently out of your grasp as a beginner and even intermediate speaker.
Here’s what Colin Firth said in an interview with James Lipton. He’s comparing the experience of stuttering to the experience of speaking in a language you don’t know well:
“Anyone who’s tried to speak another language will find – if you’re limited in that language – that you end up saying what you can rather than what you really want to say. And you start to circumnavigate the real thing. So who then are you in relation to the world?”
What Colin Firth does in this quotation is link language with personal identity. Craig Storti, author of “The Art of Crossing Cultures,” also does this eloquently in his book when he writes: “Language is not simply how people speak; it is who they are” (101). He continues: “On a deeper level, if you can’t communicate your ideas and opinions to people, how can they know who you are? Language is the primary means of self-expression; when we don’t have language the self does not get expressed. When the self can no longer be expressed, does it still exist?”
There’s a conversation I had a few weeks ago that sometimes replays in my mind. It was a Friday and I’d left school only to remember that I’d forgotten my umbrella in the teachers’ room. Another teacher saw me return to get my umbrella and asked me if it was raining. I said, “No, it’s not raining now.” And then I stopped. I wanted to say, “Well, it’s not raining YET” and comment on the fact that whereas Chicago has two seasons (winter and construction), it often feels like Cieszyn has only one: the year-long rainy season. But it was Friday afternoon and my brain was a little tired and I couldn’t find the right vocabulary to express this playful thought (because nowadays I quite enjoy the rain). I could only say, “No, it’s not raining now. Have a good weekend,” and go on my way.
Perhaps Firth’s and Storti’s words help shed a little light on why I sometimes find myself thinking back on this 10-second “conversation.” The “umbrella incident" was, fundamentally, a successful exchange in Polish. Someone asked a question, I understood it, and I responded appropriately. But it’s also an example of a language interaction stripped of any emotional or personal quality. I could express the facts (“it’s not raining”) but I couldn’t express myself (my desire to playfully comment on Cieszyn’s rainy weather). And therefore, for me, the interaction was sterile and feels, to this day, unfinished. When I think back on this tiny 10-second conversation, it was my inability to say what I wanted that sticks with me.
The list of “things unsaid” at the end of a typical day here are sometimes numerous. Like Colin Firth wisely observed, I often find myself saying what I can rather than what I really want to say. It’s not that I have the vocabulary but I’m afraid to speak. One beautiful lesson I’ve learned from studying Polish is “not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” I’m a beginner trying to master a very complex grammar system and if I only opened my mouth when I felt confident every word was declined correctly, I’d never speak. But this willingness to make mistakes can’t solve the fact that I don’t have the extensive vocabulary I need to express my every thought or feeling. There also isn’t an easy “quick fix” solution. I continue to learn new words, new grammar points, and new expressions every week and I rejoice in every new acquisition, every new word I suddenly understand. Learning a new language requires time, patience, a sense of humor, diligence, and most importantly, self-compassion.
So, what’s it like to live in a country where you don’t speak the language? Sometimes it’s marvelous and exciting. I’m always learning and it’s wonderful how immediately I get to apply my new knowledge. I remember my first week in Poland when I only knew five words ("hello," "goodbye," "yes," "no," and "thank you") and it's amazing to realize how much I have learned since then. But sometimes I still wish I could say more than, “No, it’s not raining” when a colleague inquires about the weather.
