There is no better way to learn humility than to study a foreign language.
Threre is no better challenge for the mind than to study a foreign language.
There is no better way to discover yourself and others than to study a foreign language.
When you think you know enough to successfully go through life, open a grammar book or a dictionary and suddenly you’ll feel that you know nothing at all. English, German, Swedish, Greek, Serbian, Polish... It doesn’t matter. Each of them will perfectly fulfill its role and will help you to gain alertness and get rid of self-importance.
When your mind seems to dozing off, translate a few sentences, half a page, a short story. Searching for a bridge between language shores will warm up your mind, will provide it with energy to think. The more often you train, the faster you’ll be able to travel through the deserts, glaciers and jungles that your thoughts create.
When you think that you can’t get to know yourself any better, try to have a simple conversation in a language which is different from your own. You can talk about the weather, a key that’s lost or the way to cut your hair, no abstraction needed. Every topic, even the easiest thing, will help you realise that you know neither yourself, nor the others. When you’re forced with difficulty to build understanding, you may discover in yourself anger, frustration, a tendency to panic and give up without a fight; or on the contrary – a sea of patience, self-irony, calmness and persistence that you didn’t know existed.
And then comes the time for the humility that you feel when every day, after 17 years, you learn something new. Day after day. Without an end.
Ps. I dedicate this text to Jamie – my teacher and student at the same time.
Threre is no better challenge for the mind than to study a foreign language.
There is no better way to discover yourself and others than to study a foreign language.
When you think you know enough to successfully go through life, open a grammar book or a dictionary and suddenly you’ll feel that you know nothing at all. English, German, Swedish, Greek, Serbian, Polish... It doesn’t matter. Each of them will perfectly fulfill its role and will help you to gain alertness and get rid of self-importance.
When your mind seems to dozing off, translate a few sentences, half a page, a short story. Searching for a bridge between language shores will warm up your mind, will provide it with energy to think. The more often you train, the faster you’ll be able to travel through the deserts, glaciers and jungles that your thoughts create.
When you think that you can’t get to know yourself any better, try to have a simple conversation in a language which is different from your own. You can talk about the weather, a key that’s lost or the way to cut your hair, no abstraction needed. Every topic, even the easiest thing, will help you realise that you know neither yourself, nor the others. When you’re forced with difficulty to build understanding, you may discover in yourself anger, frustration, a tendency to panic and give up without a fight; or on the contrary – a sea of patience, self-irony, calmness and persistence that you didn’t know existed.
And then comes the time for the humility that you feel when every day, after 17 years, you learn something new. Day after day. Without an end.
Ps. I dedicate this text to Jamie – my teacher and student at the same time.
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