Learning Languages...

I've been lucky this summer to have fallen into a Turkish language class in Boston. Prior to the class, my entire background in language has been with the Classics. Although, it was an enriching experience to learn about the ancient Roman and Greek societies. My Turkish class has been a very different class.

The difference is expression. In Latin and Greek, we constantly translated the opinions and verses of Caesar, Ovid, Vergil, and Homer. However, our classes never focused on expressing ourselves with the language. For me, it's been somewhat discomforting when I would sometimes try to find the words to respond to my teacher or name the object on our homework pages in Turkish. However, when the words were found, I felt a sense that I can only describe as a greater feeling of connectedness. An ability to reach out to someone or a group that I otherwise would not be able to fully connect to because of the "language barrier".

For example, I have had many personal experiences with the "language barrier" in my family. Although, my stepfather speaks both English and Arabic, there were plenty of times where I've felt blocked by the wall including when I watched television from Lebanon with my Dad, sat at cook outs with my Dad's friends, and my own ability to communicate with his father(my grandfather) during his time with us. For me, not knowing Arabic always kept me at arms length from being up close with my Dad, his friends, and family. However, I got used to that feeling and worked on other ways of getting as close as possible, without taking the involved step of learning the language.

My work this summer has shown me how much I have missed through not knowing Arabic more completely. With that said, I hope that I will be apply my work in Turkish, but without a doubt this summer has at least given me the chance to see how beneficial the process of learning spoken languages are. It's obviously clear that schools should keep emphasizing foreign language learning although I feel being graded for what is a difficult subject for anyone often makes students disgruntled at the class versus looking at what it's meant to do. But that is another discussion for another day.

That's all for tonight. iyi Geceler! (Good Night for those not up on their Turkish)