How many languages do you recognize when you hear them spoken? How many do you understand? How many do you speak?
Over the last few weeks I’ve had a particularly high volume of interactions with people (sometimes including myself) speaking a second language. Throughout my English-speaking work and home life, I’ve noticed anew just how many people speak to me in a language they have learned in addition to their first (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Xhosa, Hindi, Russian, Polish, Mandarin, and others I’m not even sure of). I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that in most cases the people I interact with were not bilingual from birth, and that English was a language they came to learn later after developing skills in their primary language. In many cases, these are people who serve in positions that aren’t awarded high status by society – laborers, restaurant workers, hair stylists – and yet non-native speakers put a huge amount of cognitive lift and effort into conversations that native English speakers like myself don’t have to. And we mostly don’t appreciate or even notice them doing it.
A few weeks ago I was struck by one facilitator colleague in particular, who set up a group of program participants for an activity which required skill, safety protocols, and patience. After sharing the instructions, she responded to questions with grace and clarity, and even joked around with the participants, all in English instead of her birth language of Spanish. And when one group ran into some self-inflicted challenges during the activity, my colleague stayed calm and gave clear action-oriented instructions to the group to guide them in solving the problem themselves; something that’s hard to do even in your own primary language.
A few days later I had the chance to experience things from the other side. My family and I took a week-long road trip to Quebec City and Montreal. While Montreal is certainly French-speaking, it would be unusual to interact with someone there who does not also speak English. Quebec City, on the other hand, is heavily dominated by the French language, and gave plenty of opportunities to resurrect my high school French skills from 30+ years ago. I quickly found that I could get a couple of sentences into a conversation before the other person asked a question I didn’t expect, or said something ‘off-script’… at which point I froze like a deer in the headlights. I certainly didn’t respond with grace and clarity, like my facilitator colleague. “Je suis désolé; parlez-vous anglais?” became a common refrain, which was usually met with a smile, and some grace and clarity from their end as they switched to speaking my tourist language.
I found that over the first day or so I moved more quickly to starting the conversation with “Bonjour; parlez-vous anglais?” But that also came with some sadness, recognizing that I was asking the other person to do more cognitive work to alleviate my discomfort. I noticed this in particular when visiting a local favorite spot for the mandatory “when-in-Canada” poutine order. The server who helped us spoke more English than we spoke French, and she very much wanted to get our order right, but we had a complicated order with dietary restrictions. At one point she asked to start the order over again, and in doing so missed off one of our items. Leaving there, though, I felt like we had let her down, rather than the other way around; we came in and asked her to conform to our needs – more than a little embarrassing now that I reflect on it.
That prompted a new desire to notice the opportunities in front of us by connecting with other people, and to re-engage in speaking a language that was not our own. All of which led to one of the most fun memories of our trip – a conversation in French with an older Montreal metro ticket agent, who took a shine to me and my stumbling attempts, and enjoyed letting me know – in French – what I was saying wrong, but in the most welcoming way possible; although I didn’t understand most of what he said, we had a lot of laughs and a fun connection; at the end of it, he left his ticket booth to point to me and tell my kids – in English this time – “Number one dad!” (And then, as he left, he added – almost to himself – “Me too! Also number one dad!”)
And of course, learning another language – especially one you speak every day – gives your brain a powerful, continuous workout. Researchers have shows that this daily juggling act improves focus, sharpens memory, and protects the aging brain against mental decline.
So as we go through our work and home life this week, how might you notice and appreciate the cognitive lift and effort put in by those you work with who speak English as a secondary language?
This Week’s Tips:
- Notice the wide variety of languages and accents around you on a daily basis. Chances are, there are more than you realize. Notice when someone is speaking English to you with an accent, and/or appears to be searching for the words they want to find. To honor them:
- Focus on their message, not the specific words. Listen to what the person is saying instead of getting distracted by an accent or minor mistakes.
- Don’t offer corrections. Unless the speaker specifically asks for help or confusion puts safety at risk, corrections might undermine self-confidence instead of feeling helpful.
- Let the speaker finish their thoughts without jumping in or finishing sentences for them.
- Show appreciation with active listening, and occasionally restate what you hear to confirm understanding.
- Find opportunities to leave your comfortable context and speak another language, even if (maybe especially if) you’re not confident and don’t think you’ll do it well. Perhaps a language-learning app will help, but use technology only as a tool to then connect with real people. This is where the connection, the fun, and the growth and development come in to play.
Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you.
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Building Bridges Leadership 