{"id":7446,"date":"2019-07-20T16:08:34","date_gmt":"2019-07-20T16:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/?p=7446"},"modified":"2019-07-20T20:06:36","modified_gmt":"2019-07-20T20:06:36","slug":"how-to-learn-french-swedish-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/how-to-learn-french-swedish-spanish\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Learn French, Swedish, Spanish"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cHow about Italy?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was lying on my friend\u2019s couch. It was 2010. Los Angeles. I was 20, visiting from University in Boston. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That year I had stopped playing competitive tennis. I had a spinal injury. I was depressed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou love food,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2007. High school. End-of-the-year  evaluations. My Spanish teacher sat me at a desk in the back of the room, away from the other students. She opened a manila folder with my final course grade, and then closed it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have great tenacity,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut you\u2019ll never learn a foreign language.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a small application,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019ll finish it by the afternoon!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the plane to Italy I sat next to a girl my age, knees shaking, scratching her wrist. She was crying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d I asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy father died on September 11th,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We held hands. And we took Italian together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That summer we practiced Florence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to 2012. I studied more Italian at the Middlebury Language School. A couple teachers there helped me with my application to be a high school teacher abroad. I moved to Crema, Italy. The town is now known for the Oscar-winning movie \u201cCall Me By Your Name.\u201d Some days I\u2019m jealous. If only the director had spotted me years ago! Seeking male 18-24 American, speaks French and Italian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I speak French because I moved to Bordeaux. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because why not? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My roommate was a grandmother. I still remember her first email to me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMalgr\u00e9 my advanced age it\u2019ll be a pleasure to pick you up from the airport.\u201d What does malgr\u00e9 mean?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite. She was 74. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She stewed the best fig jam. Little dotlets of confitture and hot yellow butter, glistening against a crisp o\u2019clock baguette. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My new grandmother got sick. She had to stay in the hospital for several weeks. She couldn\u2019t swallow properly. I should\u2019ve noticed. All the little yogurt spoons in the dishwasher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had to leave France when she was still in the hospital. She held my hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGo, go, adventure!\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left for Los Angeles, a Master\u2019s program. When I finished, I thought I was moving to Sweden, a fellowship I was applying for, a project between Portugal, Sweden and the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had to learn Portuguese and Swedish, enough so that I could pass the speaking portion of the B1 proficiency exams in both languages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I touched every word I could find, working with online teachers, making sure I made that girl on the plane, and my French grandmother proud. Go, go, adventure! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I passed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I listed to you the languages I now speak, it would sound arrogant. But to recount the sequence of events that make me feel like any language is possible, I turn to the territory of the heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s quite random, who opens us. It would be easy to say that my high school teacher\u2019s ignorance was what fueled me to learn many languages. Perhaps a little fuel. It\u2019s a more profound idea to say that the ultimate compassion of friends, teachers, and strangers transform us. It\u2019s not one individual who lets us learn. It\u2019s the fragile edges of connection, from a sofa to a girl on a plane to a malgr\u00e9 grandmother, all who expressed self-love and towards-love simultaneously. Not romantic love, but a spiritual love, surfaced through the language of kindness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kindness is not about the expectation of others. I was a New England kid who expected to stay in Boston my entire life. I was expected to never learn a language. Ignore the preconditions. Start listening to the language of kindness – \u201chow about…?\u201d, a child\u2019s cry, the goodbye wave – as open acts to start a conversation. Language then becomes living – the courage to sit with others, which is a bodily language, a language of our senses, which I\u2019d argue is the easiest way for us to learn a language, to be an expat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resistance to foreign culture isn\u2019t necessary when we\u2019re close to the senses of others. Spoons in a dishwasher aren\u2019t just spoons. It\u2019s a physical memory I can recall. A relationship tied to a breakfast table. Jam is sweeter, adventure more of a quest than an itinerary. More words absorbed than \u201cdo you speak French?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I speak what needs to be held, with hands, with my eyes, with my stomach. That\u2019s real multilingualism. In fountains, gardens, kitchens, courts, alleyways, with the falling leaves, and flowers blooming. That\u2019s real learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go, go, adventure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Joshua Kent Bookman is a writer and artist. Like the characters of his book, \u201cclose to elsewhere,\u201d he calls several places home, and has worked in France as an agricultural laborer, as a high school teacher in Italy, and tennis instructor in the United States. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1990. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cclose to elsewhere\u201d was released this summer by the Swedish publisher LYS. This is Bookman\u2019s first novel. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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