So many lives lived simultaneously. So many realities happening at once when you can step in, and out of (and stay in) multiple languages. A wild and beautiful ride 🌸
“Spanish is the arrival at a home I never knew I longed for. “ I find this incredibly poignant. It beautifully sums up my own journey to a home I never knew existed for me, but which was drawing me in, slowly, for most of my life. This is just a lovely article.
This is so freaking cool. You discover so many parts of yourself when you learn a new language. What a gift. I hope to have the experience of being multilingual in my life one day!!!
This is wonderful, Monica, and inspiring me to think about my own language experiences and perhaps write about them. I also have five, with Dutch instead of Romanian.
I have so many questions. Are you still in Barcelona? How are Catalan and Castillian coexisting these days? How's your Catalan? Which language do you dream in?
Thanks, John! It would be interesting to read about your language experiences, for sure.
Yes, I live in a suburb right outside of Barcelona. Catalan and Spanish are both official languages here, they coexist peacefully lately, and in all honesty you don't need Catalan to live perfectly fine here.
I dream in English, I think. ... That's such a complex and fascinating topic for me. I think if I dream of myself in a childhood context I might dream in Romanian, but it's mostly English otherwise.
I have a deep affection for Barcelona. I first visited in 1981, just a few years after the death of Franco, on a work trip. By then, menus, for example, had to be in Catalan and Spanish. My colleagues from the Barcelona office were talking to each other in Catalan, but when it came to read the menu, they all read the Spanish side. Catalan was suppressed so long that they never learned how to read it.
When I went back 22 years later, Catalan seemed to be everywhere. We were there over Christmas and New Years. New Year's Day I figured I'd buy a book in Spanish. After all the books on quitting smoking, the next best seller was La Sombra del Viento by Carlos Ruis Zafon. So, so good!
I dreamt in Dutch when I lived in Holland, now strictly English. Thanks for the inspiration!
I can imagine it was a very different world here in the early 80s, but the fighter spirit still remains very strong and active among Catalans today, who wish to keep alive how much damage Franco did culturally against Catalonia.
That Zafon book was such a hit, I lived in the US at the time when it was published and even I heard of it all the way there.
Love this piece so much! Fascinating how the different languages taste, sound, feel and look to you 😍 I can definitely relate to the love for English and understand how you view German 😂
I love this! I always felt Chinese used a very different part of my brain than French; it’s very visual (obviously). I always wondered if we could make connections like that — if a more visual language used a visual part of our brain. I always felt it used the same part that did math, of all things. Highly conceptual, I guess. So interesting!
Oh what an interesting view, Leah! I never thought of it like that, but it's certainly one way of understanding various languages. I guess because I don't know any language that I perceive as visual. If anything, French seems to be more auditory than anything. :)
Ohhh, what a joy it was to read this. It brought me right back to long lost love affairs in Italy and summers working in France. When I was younger, I too devoured languages, learning French first and then Italian, followed by some German and Spanish. The latter two are almost entirely gone now, but the former live as ghosts in my mind, whispers of all the words and conjugations I once knew and have since forgotten.
I then went to university to study Mandarin for a "challenge", realised it was too much of a challenge as my aphantasia meant I couldn't learn and remember characters and stroke order fast enough, and got kicked off my course. I tried Korean but it was the same. After that, I ended up travelling for 7 years and picking up piecemeal words - I still speak a tiny bit of Cambodian but not as much as I wish.
Now, I live in Australia and I've slowly felt all the languages I've learned and all the lives I've ever lived ebb away the longer I'm here. I miss them. I hope in parallel universes there are still linguistically inclined versions of me out there!
Thanks for writing and sharing this magical piece. It's funny how many memories it brought back to read your own words. I love it when we see ourselves in other people's lives - a beautiful loving reminder of how similar we all are, no matter where life has taken us thus far! 💜
Thanks so much, Cassie, for the wonderful memories you shared! It's great when we can inspire others to see themselves in our writing, I think ultimately it's about that, isn't it?
I remember some of your stories of travels and languages from your own articles, I find it fascinating that you tried to learn so many non-European languages. Maybe that should be my next challenge. :)
This was so romantic and poetic and I will never see the world the same now! I loved the idea of giving the languages of your life a feeling, a meaning, a vibe. great article!
Monica, what a beautiful and relatable piece! A life split into languages, with each one being a part of you and linked to so many experiences and memories. Which language (aside from Romanian) do you find more at home with?
Thanks, Cristina! I feel most at home with English, even more than with Romanian. I think I have language attrition with Romanian - a new concept I learned and I'm exploring.
That’s very interesting. I often feel more free to express myself in English because I don’t feel as emotionally connected to the language and therefore words carry less baggage. If it weren’t for the long talks with my sister I suspect language attrition will have decimated my Spanish already as I don’t speak it on a daily basis... Funny how languages work.
Beautiful! I also have 5 languages in my life (maybe 6 at a stretch), but not as fluently as you I suspect. When I heard Romanian for the first time I was surprise to find out that I understood a little bit from knowing Italian!
What a wonderful read. Thanks Monica. I learned your beautiful Romana at age 36. Now twenty years ago. Swiss German is my mother tongue and I learned French, English and Italian in school.
Languages and the expression of feelings is such a great topic.
I live in Transylvania and speak Romanian almost perfectly.
So many lives lived simultaneously. So many realities happening at once when you can step in, and out of (and stay in) multiple languages. A wild and beautiful ride 🌸
Thanks, Dany!
“Spanish is the arrival at a home I never knew I longed for. “ I find this incredibly poignant. It beautifully sums up my own journey to a home I never knew existed for me, but which was drawing me in, slowly, for most of my life. This is just a lovely article.
Thank you so much, Mike!
This is so freaking cool. You discover so many parts of yourself when you learn a new language. What a gift. I hope to have the experience of being multilingual in my life one day!!!
That's sweet, thanks Paige! Yes, speaking another language is an enriching experience, I recommend it highly. :)
Beautiful essay, Monica, truly.
Merci, Gunnar!
So lovely to read. I also have 5 languages. With the difference of your French with my Hungarian.
I have the exact same feelings about German, love the logic in it, but not a love language😁
I need to start reading in Spanish though!
Hehe I think many non-natives have a similar view on German. A pity it's such an interesting language.
This is wonderful, Monica, and inspiring me to think about my own language experiences and perhaps write about them. I also have five, with Dutch instead of Romanian.
I have so many questions. Are you still in Barcelona? How are Catalan and Castillian coexisting these days? How's your Catalan? Which language do you dream in?
Thanks, John! It would be interesting to read about your language experiences, for sure.
Yes, I live in a suburb right outside of Barcelona. Catalan and Spanish are both official languages here, they coexist peacefully lately, and in all honesty you don't need Catalan to live perfectly fine here.
I dream in English, I think. ... That's such a complex and fascinating topic for me. I think if I dream of myself in a childhood context I might dream in Romanian, but it's mostly English otherwise.
I have a deep affection for Barcelona. I first visited in 1981, just a few years after the death of Franco, on a work trip. By then, menus, for example, had to be in Catalan and Spanish. My colleagues from the Barcelona office were talking to each other in Catalan, but when it came to read the menu, they all read the Spanish side. Catalan was suppressed so long that they never learned how to read it.
When I went back 22 years later, Catalan seemed to be everywhere. We were there over Christmas and New Years. New Year's Day I figured I'd buy a book in Spanish. After all the books on quitting smoking, the next best seller was La Sombra del Viento by Carlos Ruis Zafon. So, so good!
I dreamt in Dutch when I lived in Holland, now strictly English. Thanks for the inspiration!
I can imagine it was a very different world here in the early 80s, but the fighter spirit still remains very strong and active among Catalans today, who wish to keep alive how much damage Franco did culturally against Catalonia.
That Zafon book was such a hit, I lived in the US at the time when it was published and even I heard of it all the way there.
Yes, it became an international phenomenon. My wife was able to buy it in English just a few months after I read it in Spanish.
I hope they, and we, never forget what cultural suppression looks like, and never stop fighting back.
I will write about my language experiences.
Looking forward to reading about them, John!
Love this piece so much! Fascinating how the different languages taste, sound, feel and look to you 😍 I can definitely relate to the love for English and understand how you view German 😂
Hahah I wish I loved German more, I really do. Thanks, Carmen! 🤗 💛
Feel this in my bones as well as in my heart!
Ohh that's sweet, thanks Rachel!
I love this! I always felt Chinese used a very different part of my brain than French; it’s very visual (obviously). I always wondered if we could make connections like that — if a more visual language used a visual part of our brain. I always felt it used the same part that did math, of all things. Highly conceptual, I guess. So interesting!
Oh what an interesting view, Leah! I never thought of it like that, but it's certainly one way of understanding various languages. I guess because I don't know any language that I perceive as visual. If anything, French seems to be more auditory than anything. :)
Ohhh, what a joy it was to read this. It brought me right back to long lost love affairs in Italy and summers working in France. When I was younger, I too devoured languages, learning French first and then Italian, followed by some German and Spanish. The latter two are almost entirely gone now, but the former live as ghosts in my mind, whispers of all the words and conjugations I once knew and have since forgotten.
I then went to university to study Mandarin for a "challenge", realised it was too much of a challenge as my aphantasia meant I couldn't learn and remember characters and stroke order fast enough, and got kicked off my course. I tried Korean but it was the same. After that, I ended up travelling for 7 years and picking up piecemeal words - I still speak a tiny bit of Cambodian but not as much as I wish.
Now, I live in Australia and I've slowly felt all the languages I've learned and all the lives I've ever lived ebb away the longer I'm here. I miss them. I hope in parallel universes there are still linguistically inclined versions of me out there!
Thanks for writing and sharing this magical piece. It's funny how many memories it brought back to read your own words. I love it when we see ourselves in other people's lives - a beautiful loving reminder of how similar we all are, no matter where life has taken us thus far! 💜
Thanks so much, Cassie, for the wonderful memories you shared! It's great when we can inspire others to see themselves in our writing, I think ultimately it's about that, isn't it?
I remember some of your stories of travels and languages from your own articles, I find it fascinating that you tried to learn so many non-European languages. Maybe that should be my next challenge. :)
This was so romantic and poetic and I will never see the world the same now! I loved the idea of giving the languages of your life a feeling, a meaning, a vibe. great article!
Thank you, Barbs, so sweet of you! 🧡
Monica, what a beautiful and relatable piece! A life split into languages, with each one being a part of you and linked to so many experiences and memories. Which language (aside from Romanian) do you find more at home with?
Thanks, Cristina! I feel most at home with English, even more than with Romanian. I think I have language attrition with Romanian - a new concept I learned and I'm exploring.
That’s very interesting. I often feel more free to express myself in English because I don’t feel as emotionally connected to the language and therefore words carry less baggage. If it weren’t for the long talks with my sister I suspect language attrition will have decimated my Spanish already as I don’t speak it on a daily basis... Funny how languages work.
Yeah, I always think of languages as being alive. They age, they mold and change shape, they disappear partly sometimes...
Beautiful! I also have 5 languages in my life (maybe 6 at a stretch), but not as fluently as you I suspect. When I heard Romanian for the first time I was surprise to find out that I understood a little bit from knowing Italian!
Yes, most people are surprised how similar it is to Italian, especially in writing. After all, Romanian has Roman (Empire) within its name. ;)
What a wonderful read. Thanks Monica. I learned your beautiful Romana at age 36. Now twenty years ago. Swiss German is my mother tongue and I learned French, English and Italian in school.
Languages and the expression of feelings is such a great topic.
I live in Transylvania and speak Romanian almost perfectly.
Multa sanatate si spor la scris!
Heheh thanks so much Daniel! Very impressive that you learned Romanian, and I guess knowing French and Italian made it a little easier. ;)
Indeed, especially Italian helped a lot.
Breathtaking.
Thank you so much, Maria!
This is wonderful! I was also born to Romanian as my first language, then English, Italian and now (slowly) Greek :)
Thanks, Carla! Ohh Greek must be a tough one.