language of the heart
Are you learning to listen to your feelings? Learning to give them a voice? Learning to acknowledge them and interpret them? I am. Sometimes I feel like I'm starting from scratch. But that's okay. I have learned a lot about how to learn languages as I study linguistics, and now I'm realizing that I get to learn the language of my own heart. These are some of the things I want to keep in mind that I've learned about foreign language-learning, and that can apply to learning my own inner language:
Listen. There is nothing more significant. I want to soak in every opportunity. Accept every feeling. Seek them out.
Be patient with myself. No one can speak another language overnight! In our language-learning sessions this semester, we spent the first several sessions only listening, not even saying a word. There are no deadlines on this. I want to be so gentle with myself.
Don't ask for direct translations. In learning a foreign language, asking "How do you say _____?" can often lead to unnatural translations in the other language. Maybe they don't ask "How are you?" but instead say something like, "You good?" Rather than asking directly, it's better to put yourself in the situation and ask, "What would you say in this situation?" Similarly, as I learn the language of my heart, I want to put off trying to make things happen exactly how I think they should. I want to just listen and experience and perhaps learn new ways of communicating with myself.
Don't make assumptions. Similar to above, we can't assume anything about the language we're learning, not even that the sounds we're hearing are necessarily correct! I want to be assumption-less about myself, listening to my feelings with complete openness.
Take risks. When the time comes to try to say something in the new language, it will almost always be wrong. And that's okay! The risk is absolutely unavoidable in language learning; no one gets upset by the learner's mistakes because it is completely natural, and the only way to learn! As I learn to hear and then interpret my feelings, explaining them to myself or others, I want to be okay with mistakes, because perfection in language learning is a sign that you haven't even tried yet.
Spend as much time immersed as possible. A bit here and there won't get you far. I want to begin allowing my emotions to be more a part of everything I do; that's the only way I'll begin to really soak in the language.
Use what you learn to learn more. When we use a phrase in the foreign language to ask more about the language, we call it a "power tool." I want to take what I learn about myself and dig deeper with it, not with old patterns or assumptions.
Allow deviations from the plan. In language-learning sessions, we have to always be ready to let go of our plan. The relationship is more important than our learning objectives. And quite often we learn something in the un-planned portions that we would never, ever have thought to ask about in our pre-planned lesson. I want to embrace the unknown, uncontrolled parts of my heart and my life as deviations that hold perhaps the greatest potential to teach me.
Ask questions. As a linguist learning a language, it is my job to ask the questions that I need to learn. No one can do it for me. And if I don't ask, I won't hear anything. I won't know what to listen for. It will be directionless and ultimately ineffective. So in learning to hear my feelings, I want to ask direct questions to myself, like "How do you feel?" or "What does that feeling feel like?"
Listen to more than one speaker. If you learn how to speak a language by working with only one speaker of it, you will usually have a strange, incomplete dialect of the language. It is far more effective to work with many different speakers to hear the generalizations between them. Similarly, I want to ask questions of people who understand the language of their hearts and hear about how they learned.
If this still seems very nebulous and strange, you're with me. But that's how it feels to start a new language. And I do know this: I love languages.
Listen. There is nothing more significant. I want to soak in every opportunity. Accept every feeling. Seek them out.
Be patient with myself. No one can speak another language overnight! In our language-learning sessions this semester, we spent the first several sessions only listening, not even saying a word. There are no deadlines on this. I want to be so gentle with myself.
Don't ask for direct translations. In learning a foreign language, asking "How do you say _____?" can often lead to unnatural translations in the other language. Maybe they don't ask "How are you?" but instead say something like, "You good?" Rather than asking directly, it's better to put yourself in the situation and ask, "What would you say in this situation?" Similarly, as I learn the language of my heart, I want to put off trying to make things happen exactly how I think they should. I want to just listen and experience and perhaps learn new ways of communicating with myself.
Don't make assumptions. Similar to above, we can't assume anything about the language we're learning, not even that the sounds we're hearing are necessarily correct! I want to be assumption-less about myself, listening to my feelings with complete openness.
Take risks. When the time comes to try to say something in the new language, it will almost always be wrong. And that's okay! The risk is absolutely unavoidable in language learning; no one gets upset by the learner's mistakes because it is completely natural, and the only way to learn! As I learn to hear and then interpret my feelings, explaining them to myself or others, I want to be okay with mistakes, because perfection in language learning is a sign that you haven't even tried yet.
Spend as much time immersed as possible. A bit here and there won't get you far. I want to begin allowing my emotions to be more a part of everything I do; that's the only way I'll begin to really soak in the language.
Use what you learn to learn more. When we use a phrase in the foreign language to ask more about the language, we call it a "power tool." I want to take what I learn about myself and dig deeper with it, not with old patterns or assumptions.
Allow deviations from the plan. In language-learning sessions, we have to always be ready to let go of our plan. The relationship is more important than our learning objectives. And quite often we learn something in the un-planned portions that we would never, ever have thought to ask about in our pre-planned lesson. I want to embrace the unknown, uncontrolled parts of my heart and my life as deviations that hold perhaps the greatest potential to teach me.
Ask questions. As a linguist learning a language, it is my job to ask the questions that I need to learn. No one can do it for me. And if I don't ask, I won't hear anything. I won't know what to listen for. It will be directionless and ultimately ineffective. So in learning to hear my feelings, I want to ask direct questions to myself, like "How do you feel?" or "What does that feeling feel like?"
Listen to more than one speaker. If you learn how to speak a language by working with only one speaker of it, you will usually have a strange, incomplete dialect of the language. It is far more effective to work with many different speakers to hear the generalizations between them. Similarly, I want to ask questions of people who understand the language of their hearts and hear about how they learned.
If this still seems very nebulous and strange, you're with me. But that's how it feels to start a new language. And I do know this: I love languages.
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