“Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World." - The Alchemist

I’m just going to throw it out there that experience like this might be the greatest thing ever haha but seriously. Any travel, if used correctly, lets you not only learn about new cultures and new countries but also teaches you things about yourself and your own country, so an experience where you’re living in a new culture for any extended period of time just takes that potential and multiples it. Of course I’m learning a lot about myself and “what I’m made of,” but I’m also starting to appreciate aspects of myself that I never did before. I haven’t been this proud to be an American in a while; it’s so easy to get cynical about it when you’re constantly surrounded by Americans (or when you go places like Canada and the only other Americans fit all of the stereotypes), but here there are times when I’m the only one in a room of Chinese, Italian, Brazilian, Mexican, Japanese, Iranian students, and I feel a duty to be an ambassador of sorts to the United States. Because of the diversity of my classes, we do spend a lot of time discussing the differences among our cultures and our countries, and as much as I love hearing first-hand about things from all of these other countries, I find myself getting really excited to share with them what it’s like in America (granted, people from other countries have a better idea of American music, television, politics, etc. than we generally have of theirs, but it’s still an exciting prospect). It also puts pressure on me to know what I’m talking about and to not misrepresent myself or my country; of course it’s one American’s perception so mine isn’t necessarily accurate just like any of their perceptions aren’t necessarily accurate representations of their countries, but it’s interesting nonetheless. And in addition to my being American, I’ve also gotten really interested in my heritage, especially since it is so predominantly German; I find myself really wanting to learn all about Germany (better representations of it throughout history, for example) and definitely wanting to learn to speak German. My mom and I are planning to go to Munich, which is where some of our family is from, when she visits (that’s another blog post too), and I’m looking forward to standing on some of the same soil they did; even though yeah I technically have done the same in the United States, it’s just so much more exciting to be standing where they came from and where they called home. And everyone here talks about their heritage more than back home because most of us are ancestrally(?) from countries right around us; it has made me realize that it’s so much more complex than “American” and that being American isn’t an uninteresting thing (in fact, French guys think it’s exotic. Go figure). Another thing that I used to find “boring” that is actually not at all is being a native English speaker; I can’t believe how many people here either speak English or really want to. I feel so lucky to have learned it as my first language because it is hard and because I got to learn one of the most useful languages in our society today without even trying. That being said, I think everyone, especially English speakers, should still make an effort to learn at least one more language (and no, not just Spanish to “talk to the Mexicans.” So much ignorance.), especially since it’s so much easier than going from a completely different alphabet like the Chinese, Iranian, and Russian students in my class are doing (and doing well, might I add). I can’t even convey how many times in class there will be a word in French that someone doesn’t understand that is a cognate to English, which makes my life so much easier because probably 1/4 of this new language is similar enough to my first that anyone could figure out the meaning, much less someone who’s been studying and living in France. Of course learning languages isn’t easy, but I want to take advantage of the...advantage...I have by speaking English to learn French, German, Italian, Spanish, all of which are supposedly similar to English (Latin-based, holla!). There is honestly no excuse for how lazy and behind the curve American society is with learning languages. Yes, you speak English. Congratulations. Now use that to your advantage, open some doors for yourself, and learn a little bit about the world outside of America. We did one of those hokey, “get to know each other” activities in my class last month, where there were 3 Americans, and one of the questions was (in French of course) “Who speaks the most languages?” It was a 6-way tie among the non-American students with 3 each and then the 3 Americans only had English and French; I’m not going to lie, it was embarrassing. Of course there are plenty of people in the US who speak multiple languages, but as a whole there seems to be an idea that because we speak English there’s no need to learn any new languages and there’s an expectation of everyone else to know how to speak English too. I know not everyone has the opportunity to have an experience like this, and I do realize every day how lucky I am, but I just hope that other cultures and other languages will become more of a priority in American society because it has been and will continue to be for me.