Hello and welcome back! This month, I’m going to tell you about my favorite aspect of language learning: the potential to make international friendships, with interesting people who speak a different language than you, live in a different culture than you and have different daily life experiences and viewpoints. The best thing is, these people may also be fascinated by similar things to you and have similar hopes and dreams, leading to beautiful friendships. The point here is that having a different mother tongue or a different daily existence doesn’t mean that you won’t find lifelong friendships with people from different cultures.
The world today is a mix of various cultures bleeding into each other, a result of globalization, immigration, and the growing ability for affordable international travel. Thus, no matter where you live in the world, from a small town to a large city, you cannot escape this collision of cultures. For example, many products you buy are manufactured in other countries, many people you meet may be first or second-generation Americans, with family in other countries, and many stories you may hear on the news concern international relations.
In such a melting pot of a world, one of the greatest gifts you can receive is to make friends from cultures completely opposite to yours. A friend with a different cultural background will undoubtedly open your eyes to another way of living, another way of thinking, a new way of talking and a greater sense of acceptance. You may be thinking, “This all sounds great, but how do I meet someone with a vastly different culture than mine?” Learn a language! The absolute best way to meet new people is to learn a language and travel to a country where that language is spoken. Connecting to people through their language, instead of always connecting through English, is a great way to truly understand the differences in the mindset that exists.
To fully understand another culture, you must understand how they think; to understand how they think, you must speak the language; the way you think is dependent on what language you speak, so by learning another language, you are also effectively learning a new way to think.
“But,” you might say, “it is already hard enough keeping up with my friends who live near me! Why would I want to make new friends who live in a different place and then have to try and maintain that friendship, especially if it requires talking in a foreign language?”
This is a valid question, and it has an easy answer. First off, expanding your horizons by traveling and making new friends will take you out of your comfort zone and force personal growth. This is a wonderful benefit all by itself to learning a language. Next, keeping in touch with friends all over the world is not as hard as you may think. In fact, it’s much easier to do now than it was twelve years ago when I first started keeping in touch with my best (long-distance) friends. And it was much easier then than it was fifty years ago when you had to send letters. If you have access to technology, you have access to keeping in touch. You can easily keep in touch via Facebook, send voice notes via WhatsApp and video call with FaceTime. That’s nothing compared to keeping up a long-distance friendship in the past, where you would have to write a letter, wait for it to be delivered and then wait for a response. All that waiting could take weeks! Today it takes minutes.
Finally, if your friendship requires you to write or converse in a foreign language, then you are constantly practicing your language skills, so they can only keep on improving. What could be better than that? Talking to a friend and learning at the same time is a combination that can’t be beat.
Even better? The wonderful thing about true friendships is that even if you go a few weeks or even months without talking because life has become too busy, once you have a chance to talk again, it will be like no time has passed.
I’m not telling you to make international friends for no reason. I have plenty of experience with this. My friendships around the world are the most enriching ones in my life. I’ve been able to travel to many different places to meet up with friends, expanding my travel horizons. I have improved my French-speaking abilities by visiting my friend and her family in Paris, which greatly sped up my language acquisition process. I also learn new things about English and how it’s spoken in other countries from my friend in England. Through these friendships, I’m constantly learning and growing in my appreciation for other people and cultures, as seen through their eyes. This is truly a gift whose importance cannot be overstated.
Are you inspired to cultivate some international friendships yourself? The first step is to learn a language so that you can speak with a wider range of people. Next, go and travel! Not only will you see the world, but you’ll meet some incredible people as well. Happy friendship building and language learning!
À bientôt!
Shannon