Words signify man's refusal to accept the world as it is.

Learning a new language is almost the better way to open our mind on other culture while staying in our house. A language is not only a sequence of letter that forms a word. It introduces people to the history and the habits of this place. Often, languages create a membership feeling to the country where they speak it, because we can understand the people. While speaking their language, we are not anymore a tourist; we are a part or the community. 

Language is the means of getting an idea 

from my brain into yours without surgery.

I know now why I understand better the French language since I have started to learn German. I didn’t only learn a new language, I learned how it was to ignore. I can’t remember when I learned the alphabet; I must have worked a long time to memorize those 26 letters; I must have tried often to understand that the letters “e-a-u” together give the sound “o”. But nowadays, it is so far in my head. I know that when I was 6 years old, I must have counted 4 plus 5 on my finger, starting by one, two, three, and trying to remember in which order were the numbers. But now, I know that 4 plus 5 is 9, that 11x11 is 121, that “K” comes before “L” and that my name is spelling “O-d-i-l-e”. I know. But, not so far ago, I did not.

Learning German changed my life. Not only because it is a passion, but because now, I can imagine myself explaining to a person who speak a foreign language why in French, it is “La tasse” and “Le verre”. Because, I had to learn that in German that it was “Die Tasse” and “Das Glass”.  I was born in a total French environment. I didn’t learn why some words where feminine and other masculine; it was innate. I can’t remember how many time I laughed while hearing an English person said: “La français”. I know I did. Now, I wouldn’t. Because every time it would happen, I know I would be thinking at all the Germans who could laugh about I because I’m saying “Der Französische” instead of “Das Französische”. 

The one who does not know foreign languages 

does not know anything about his own.

I love the feeling to learn from nothing, to discover an entire new world. Sometime, I am listening to German interview and I’m so impressed to see them talking so fast, so easily, while I’m not able to say 2 sentences correctly in that language, while I understand the quarter of what they say. And, I understand that it is the same for a person who speaks a foreign language who would listen to us. With all our abbreviations, our idioms, our pronunciation, it should be a challenge for them to try, only to try, to understand us.

During all my life, I did not understand why people were so proud of talking French here, in Quebec. Now, I do. Because I understand how a language is important for the culture and particularly because I understand that our language is unique. I learn how it was to ignore, and I understand the happiness of knowing. My first language, my mother tongue, is not French; it is Canadian French.  

What words say does not last. The words last. 

Because words are always the same, and what they say is never the same.