If You Feel Lonely, Start Learning a Language

My life would have been a sad one had I never learned foreign languages.

Before I learned to love languages, I felt alone and misunderstood. I had a few friends and kept a mask to hide my “true self”.

Since I’ve begun learning languages, my life has only gotten better. I’ve lived amazing experiences around the world. I’ve traveled from the comfort of my room as well. I’ve learned a whole lot about myself as well.

Learning languages is a magnificent journey everybody should take. But if you’re alone and feel lonely, it could be especially useful for you.

Learning a language snowballs into joining a community

I began learning Japanese alone and soon met a guy who did too. I then met a community of learners on the forum How To Learn Any Language. Then, I met Japanese people in France. Then, Japanese people in Japan. Then, I met a Japanese girl who became my girlfriend. Then, people who helped me get a job in Japan. Then, other people who invited me to live amazing experiences like visiting hidden gems.

That’s only a very short list of what learning Japanese did for me. You can almost multiply this by 4, for the other four foreign languages I’ve learned (English, Spanish, Korean, and Chinese).

Learning a language enlarges what you can do and who you can reach. But it also works the other way around. More people can reach you. In my time learning languages, I’ve met other learners who shared their own passion with me.

Even when I didn’t speak well Korean, every Korean person I met or talked to was excited to see me try and supported the effort. They were more open to me because I could speak their languages.

As Nelson Mandela said,

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

When you begin learning a new language, you stop being alone. You suddenly open the door to connect with all the people of another country.

Imagine. If you learn Spanish, you can suddenly speak with 420 million more people. If you learn French, you can speak with 130 million more people. If you learn Japanese, you can speak with 127 million more people. And that’s only taking into account people who are native speakers or speak it as their second language.

If you learn Polish, you can speak with 46 million more people. Does this one seem too small a group in comparison to the others? Sure, it’s smaller, but nobody ever talked to millions of people anyway. And, as an added bonus, speakers of languages that are less commonly learned are even more thankful to those who make the effort.

Learning a language makes you more understanding

I dream of a world full of polyglots.

I see racism as an irrational fear. Racism isn’t only a wrong belief that you and your culture are “the best”, or that some others are “worse”.

It’s nothing more than a lack of understanding of the world. Every country, every culture, every language, every person, has positive and negative points. And you can’t understand well someone until you know his or her culture and language.

When you learn a language, you open your mind to new ideas, new ways of seeing the world. Obviously, the more languages you learn, the better, but learning one foreign language is enough to make you realize you’re nothing more than a tiny drop in this ocean of people.

By learning a foreign language, you get to understand more people. More points of view make sense to you.

Instead of learning to see “outside of the box”, you get a larger box. What would feel “outside of the box” for some others feels normal to you.

Final Thoughts

You also realize you’re not alone. You realize the world isn’t limited to the people around you or with whom you’ve exchanged online so far. You discover there’s a whole other world of people that exists.

People who could understand your misunderstood feelings. People who could support your dreams without putting expectations on you. People who could bring you into their own community.

We all know the world is wide. But when you learn a language, you don’t know it anymore. You feel it.

And there’s no better feeling than this.

Enjoy widening your world.

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