Can This Woman Learn 12 Languages in 12 Months?

She can but only if it will make the world a better place

Two months ago my sister and I were driving to our yoga class and talking, as we often do, about what we want to be when we grow up.

It was a few days before her 47th birthday and we agreed that it will be really weird if in three years she’ll turn 50. Weirder still if eventually so will I. (I’m five years younger.) We talked about how the bigger we get the more we want to spend time on things that truly matter to us, that make us feel alive.

My sister is an artist and an art director at a baby products company, but when asked what makes her feel most alive she said ‘spending time in nature.’ 

As soon as she said it I flashed back to the moment earlier that day when I found out that in Finnish you use a different form of the noun ‘cake’ depending on whether you’re going to eat your whole piece or only some of it. Aion syödä kakun means you’re determined to finish that bastard, and Aion syödä kakkua is used if you’re only planning to take a few bites like a lady. (I mean, imagine having to choose the appropriate form of the noun on top of deciding how much cake is appropriate to eat in polite company.¹) 

I remembered how alive that discovery made me feel and also the burning desire I felt to share it with the world.

When you're a linguist doing research, you encounter stuff like that all the time, but linguists don’t usually go to the trouble of telling the world about it.

Which I think is a crime against humanity.

Imagine if biologists knew that in seahorses, males are the ones that get pregnant and give birth, and kept that information to themselves.

But the thing is, if you deal with seahorses every day, you kinda forget what’s so special about them. So, if you’re like a seahorse midwife, you go “Here is another baby seahorse coming out of his dad’s uterus…. boooooriiiiing….”)

I was excited about the Finnish cake-eating situation at first, but now I’m like, meh, whatever.

That’s when I first had this idea that maybe I should challenge myself to learn 12 new languages in the next 12 months and tell people all about the exciting things I encounter along the way before they become meh.

Then of course the war started and I was like, screw you, world. I don’t want to learn all your stupid languages. I cried to my therapist how the world is so unfair and why do they hate us so much, and how its especially unfair because now I don’t know who I am anymore. She shrugged “But that’s not new. The world never liked us. And maybe that’s the essence of being Jewish, to keep reaching our hand to the world no matter what.”

Sometimes I’m able to be this open-minded for two whole minutes at a time. In any case, I decided to go ahead with the 12 languages in 12 months idea.

At first, I thought my rules would be:

• No language with a separate writing system because it takes too long to learn

• No tonal languages because those are too hard.

• It has to be one of the 40  languages that Peppa Pig is translated into (I swear I’m not being paid by the Peppa Pig corporation although I don’t understand why.)

But now that Thai has entered the picture, all these rules have gone down the drain.

My only rule now is that there has to be a why. My why for learning Finnish was to understand the Peppa Pig episode about tooth fairies by the following Sunday. My why for learning Thai was the promise that I made to talk to someone in Thai by the end of the week (I’m still gathering the courage to tell you that story, but it will happen… next week I think.)

I guess I’ll just see what life throws at me next. If you have any ideas on what languages should make the list (and why), I’d love to hear them too.

Ideally, I’d love to learn a lesser-known or endangered language (one that is spoken only by a handful of elderly speakers). But for that, I’d need to find a sponsor who’d be willing to send me to a distant Polynesian island for a few weeks.

One note on what it means to ‘know a language.’

Some people can speak a language but not read it. Some people can read in a language but not speak it. Some people understand everything but are not able to speak it.

These are all valid ways to know a language.

On the other hand, knowing the numbers from one to ten and how to say “hello”, “where is the bathroom” and “I have a reservation” is not “knowing a little bit of Spanish.”

For my purposes, I’ll define ‘knowing a language’ as

1. Having a good grasp of the entire grammatical system (even if it’s a passive grasp, meaning I can read any text in Finnish with a dictionary even if I don’t speak grammatically all the time.)

2. Being able to have a (very) basic conversation.

FAQ

Are you insane?

I don’t know. Maybe.

Why 12? And not 8 or 14?

First of all, because it sounds neat. Much neater than “8 languages in 10 months” or “14 languages in 11 months” don’t you think? I mean, there is nothing exciting about these.

Second of all, in the ancient Jewish tradition, 12 is the lucky number that is said to bring love, peace, and prosperity to the whole entire world.

(Not really. But I figure it must be the lucky number in some tradition.) 

Is it because it’s very easy for you?

No. It’s hard work and is very time-consuming. But I like learning languages and I like doing it fast. In fact, once I start, it’s hard to stop or even slow down. I haven’t decided if it’s a feature or a bug in my system. But it doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Will you be fluent in all these languages by the end of the year?

No. It takes a lot longer than that to become fluent. I will have a good grasp of the grammar and basic vocabulary, so if you send me to that language community with a pocket dictionary, I’ll find my way around.

But I won’t be able to listen to the radio or talk about politics (thank goodness). Or write haiku.

Will you not forget all these languages just as fast?

I don’t know. One of the things I’m curious about is how these many languages get along in your head. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they fight all the time, like Israelis and Palestinians. (Sorry couldn’t resist.). Maybe one of them thinks the other shouldn’t exist and storms in one morning while you’re sleeping and slaughters its tiny baby words (Oh my god I need to stop.)

But even if I forget them, that’s ok too. I’m more interested in the learning process itself, what works and what doesn’t, and how to go about it without having to memorize phrases like “How do I get to the Thailand insurance building?” in your second Absolute Beginner lesson.

How will you keep yourself accountable?

I don’t know, maybe I’ll record a video of myself telling you about my day in that language. That would be a fun way to embarrass myself in public.

Meet my very nerdy childhood self back when my only exposure to foreign languages was the voice of the lady announcing bus stops in Ukrainian in the city of Mykolaiv (Nastupna zupynka…… “Next stop is…”).

1. I’m simplifying here. In reality when you say kakkua you are referring to a general cake-eating event, as in “Let’s go eat cake!” and when you say kakun you’re talking about a specific piece of cake… and nobody is going to crucify you if you promised to eat the whole piece but didn’t (except, that is, for the person across from you who wanted that piece but didn’t get it.)