A different language is a different vision of life in Italian

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Learning a language can change our life completely and open doors to a completely new way of life.

In a globalized working world applicants with a diversity of languages are in great demand and are more likely to climb the job ladder. The companies are internationally oriented and expect their employees to communicate with their clients in their native language. But speaking another language does not only imply knowing its grammar and vocabulary, but also thinking in a different way. This seems a bit difficult at first, however with time, motivation and practice it can be achieved by every language learner.

For some time now, I have been empowering my language coachees to master their Spanish&Catalan and before that I was an English, German, French and Italian language learner myself. From my personal learning point of view, I believe I truly mastered my first target language when I internalized the new language and I let this process transform me into the new person I am now.

By internalize, I mean that as a language learner I first strongly and consistently provoked the thought process of connecting and associating my target language to my native language (as we coaches do in the NeuroLanguage Coaching®* process) and after that I started creating my new mental schemes. Learning a language involved becoming confident. Being aware of my own mental processes helped my brain to have certainty and develop and create new cognitive connections.

For me it was not just the language or the thought, but culture also played a role in the way I perceived things and the strong relationship between the language, the culture and the thoughts. Initially it was thought that languages labelled the objects around us. Now it is considered that when we speak different languages, we perceive the world differently and identify things for which there are only words in our language. Therefore, inside every language there lies a great secret: each language has its own personality and distinctive way of expressing ideas. Varying grammar structures and concepts drive us to rethink how to articulate certain ideas. Words can have different etymologies that might even subconsciously affect the associations we have with them.

As a result an important part of language learning for me was embracing these personality changes and being comfortable with them. That is why I only felt “fluent” when I adopted the mentality of a speaker of the language I was learning. This in return helped me to improve not only my communication, grammar and pronunciation, but also my confidence towards my target language.

Learning a new language broadened my horizon. As Marcel Proust once said "A language we do not know is a fortress sealed". If you feel you would like to unseal your fortress as I did, and take your Spanish&Catalan up a notch, do feel free to contact me. I would love to hear from you.

Mònica Barnés - LEARN WITH PASSION - www.monica-barnes.com

*registered US and European trademark in the name of Rachel Marie Paling

Last update Feb. 18, 2022.

Related quotes

„If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.“

—  Ludwig Wittgenstein Austrian-British philosopher 1889 - 1951

This actually first appears in Recent Experiments in Psychology (1950) by Leland Whitney Crafts, Théodore Christian Schneirla, and Elsa Elizabeth Robinson, where it is expressed:
: If we used a different vocabulary or if we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
Randy Allen Harris, in Rhetoric and Incommensurability (2005), p. 35, and an endnote on p. 138 indicates the misattribution seems to have originated in a misreading of quotes in Patterns Of Discovery: An Inquiry Into The Conceptual Foundations of Science (1958) by Norwood Russell Hanson, where an actual quotation of WIttgenstein on p. 184 is followed by one from the book on psychology.
Misattributed

„The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language.“

—  Jimmy Carter American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981) 1924

Presidency (1977–1981), Farewell Address (1981)
Context: I have just been talking about forces of potential destruction that mankind has developed, and how we might control them. It is equally important that we remember the beneficial forces that we have evolved over the ages, and how to hold fast to them.
One of those constructive forces is enhancement of individual human freedoms through the strengthening of democracy, and the fight against deprivation, torture, terrorism and the persecution of people throughout the world. The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language.
Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity, and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.
I believe with all my heart that America must always stand for these basic human rights — at home and abroad. That is both our history and our destiny.
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America.
Ours was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded explicitly on such an idea. Our social and political progress has been based on one fundamental principle — the value and importance of the individual. The fundamental force that unites us is not kinship or place of origin or religious preference. The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.

„When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, Sir, was then the primary object.“

—  Patrick Henry attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States 1736 - 1799

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Thursday, 5 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor (1836), p. 65
1780s

Related topics

• Life
• Difference
• Language
• Vision

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