When I was in my mid 20s, I had a friend named Vince or Vin or Vinny or Vincenzo, depending who he was talking to at the moment. At that point I had never been to Europe and the only place I had visited with a foreign language other than Spanish had been Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
I was out with Vin one day and he ran into a friend. Vin spoke English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. But with this particular friend he started talking another language I didn’t recognize. Turns out his friend was Moroccan and Vincenzo pulled out some Arabic. I was amazed envious all at once.
Shortly after, I read an interview with Quincy Jones in a magazine. One piece of advice he had struck me and had stayed with me ever since. Before any trip he would take to a foreign country, he would learn thirty words or phrases to be able communicate with the people of that country. He understood that it was important to be able to connect with people and language, even just a few words, could facilitate that connection.
That’s sage advice. Short of everyone in the world becoming fluent in Esperanto, we could all use a reserve of words, sentences or phrases in other languages for when we travel or when we meet people from other countries here on our shores. It leads to smiles, new connections, fosters friendships and could breed goodwill amongst all. Being able to say a few words to each other in someone else’s native tongue helps us show humanity and humility to our fellow women and men.
Now, years since that day with Vinny, I’m not only fluent in Spanish and English but also picked up Japanese and can defend myself in Italian, Portuguese and some French to boot. A Chinese phrase here, a Tagalog (the language of the Philippines) word there and I have broken down many a wall in both domestic and foreign soils and gotten into some amazing adventures because of it. Next up, I want to pick up some German, Polish and Russian.
If you have been itching to learn a new language, are traveling for business or pleasure to a foreign country and are dreading trying to speak to anyone who doesn’t speak English, take that amazingly powerful tool in your hand and get yourself an app like Duolingo, Babbel or Rosetta Stone and learn a few key phrases. You never know, you may end up like “The Machine”.