Languages Are Interesting: Guest Lecture Review

The guest lecture this Saturday was pretty good. Actually, it was even better than I expected. Yet it's a pity that I forgot to take any image. So I'll borrow the nice image from the course blog and put it here:

Speaking of the most impressive part, it was definitely the experiences of Prof. Angles with both Japanese and English. In addition to "another self" with learning the second language, I think that there is a lot of fun to enjoy while living between two languages (three for me though).

Prof. Angles used an example of translation to show that sometimes it is not easy to convey some interesting ideas in one language with another language. As far as I'm concerned, this, on the other hand, illustrates the joy of learning multiple languages.

Knowing more than the native language opens a broader window of knowledge, and provides different angles to observe the world. This enables more potential to understand various people as well as cultures, and many of these are actually exclusive experiences that people knowing only their native languages can never meet.

From my personal experiences, it was at first shocking when I first arrived in the United States for study. Everything seemed alien. It takes time and effort to get used to differences of cultures. However, such complex feelings also notice me that this world is much bigger than I thought when I was simply staying at one place. This encouraged me to explore even more cultures and to embrace "differences" instead of worrying about them.

Hopefully, some day in the future, I will also be able to proudly talk about all the joys through exploring cultures revealed by all languages I know (Chinese, English, Japanese, and perhaps more? Who knows...).

By the way, the sushi were pretty delicious, especially given the fact that I attended the lecture without having lunch. I ate quite a lot (and still forgot to take any picture! what a shame). Thanks for the hospitality!