Última actualización Martes, 28/01/2025
Do you remember that time you went abroad on a holiday? Probably you made new friends there – peers with whom you chatted in a bar on the city square after sunset. Learning languages can happen in most unexpected ways. In this article, we will discover personal stories and practical techniques behind mastering foreign languages. Moreover, we will also examine the political context in which languages are embedded.
The use of multiple languages is recognised by European institutions as a value to celebrate and fight for. In fact, the EU seeks to promote both multilingualism (that is, the phenomenon of multiple languages coexisting within a community) and plurilingualism (the ability of a person to speak more than one language fluently).
This is not surprising, taking into account the rich cultural tapestry the European Union represents. It is home to 24 official languages, in addition to over 60 regional and minority languages native to particular areas. Furthermore, non-EU immigrant populations add yet another layer to the immense linguistic diversity. To promote and preserve this diversity, the Union has several policies in place. The Erasmus+ Programme, for example, whose budget amounts to 26.2€ billion for the period 2021-2027, encourages students to study abroad, helping them learn new languages and cultures. Moreover, the EU supports the development of digital tools that facilitate language learning. A popular and successful tool, for instance, is the Online Language Support (OLS), provided through the EU Academy portal. On the legal side, we shouldn’t forget the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages – a treaty of the Council of Europe that contains many language protection regulations. All this demonstrates that foreign languages are the key that opens the door to new countries, cultures and people. And in the next lines we will have a look at a few stories which will hopefully inspire you to upgrade your foreign language skills.
Starting with the story of Lærke and Roberto, a couple of physicians, now retired, who travelled from Africa to Asia because of their jobs. “We have to keep in mind – Roberto starts saying – that locals are the ones in charge. Being able to communicate with them not as white men who come to colonise but as respectful guests has always been a priority for us”. Roberto, originally from Grisons (Switzerland) had his first important role in Nairobi, Kenya, as the head of a big pharmaceutical company. While Lærke, originally from Denmark, played an equally prominent role in neighbouring Tanzania. “As a doctor, it’s very important to get in touch with patients and there’s no hope to succeed in it if you don’t speak their language”.
By a twist of fate, it was during their stay in Africa that Lærke and Roberto met and started their relationship. Later they kicked off their journey across the world – Mozambique, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Japan… They say that every time they had to move from one country to another, they always learned at least the basics of the local language. Today they live in northern Europe, where they spend their retirement. “If we want to tell each other something confidential, we still resort to Swahili”, they comment testifying to the lasting impact foreign languages have had on their lives.
A photograph taken in Tanzania by © Roberto and Lærke
The message that Lærke and Roberto convey leads us to the Foundation Statement of the European Day of Languages where it is underlined that learning other languages “helps to develop tolerance and understanding between people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.” Moving to the next story in this article, we will discover another good reason to expand linguistic knowledge. For instance, learning languages might help you connect to your past. This is the story of Greta, an Estonian student who, years ago, encountered a Georgian volunteer who was doing her project in Tallinn.
Starting as a fun challenge to make a new friend, Greta committed herself to studying the Georgian language. After a few months of practice, she became good enough to have small talks with her international friends. Once, Greta told her mother about her language study. Unexpectedly, her mother revealed an unknown family connection – Greta’s great-grandfather was Georgian. This discovery made Greta more interested in learning more about Georgian language, history and culture. “The biggest challenge”, she says, “was to learn the alphabet, which is completely different from the most common one we use in Europe, the Latin”.
A year and a half later, a project in Armenia provided Greta with the opportunity to visit neighbouring Georgia. She spent several days there immersing herself in the local environment. Despite the initial difficulties in understanding locals, her effort was met with warmth from Georgians. “As much as I talked to people, they said that it was really nice that I was learning. They weren’t used to that, it’s not common that a stranger wants to get fluent in Georgian.”
A photograph of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, taken by © Greta Orehhova
Broadening further our understanding of languages, we may have a look at a recent Eurobarometer survey from October 2023 which offers interesting perspectives. What kind of a relationship do Europeans have with languages? On the one hand, three out of five Europeans can have a conversation in a language other than their mother tongue. On the other hand, more than a third (39%) of Europeans cannot speak any foreign language well enough to hold a conversation. Another finding which draws the attention is the significant preponderance of English as opposed to all the other languages. According to the survey, English stands out as the first most spoken foreign language (47%), followed by French (11%), German (10%), Spanish (7%), Italian (3%) and Russian (3%). Collected data also shed light on the dynamics of the respective languages’ popularity – some of them become more influential since 2012 while others lose appeal among learners.
A chart from the Eurobarometer survey of October 2023, illustrating English proficiency in Europe.
The survey highlights that the benefits of plurilingualism are significant. It goes from ‘being able to work in another country’ (51%), to ‘understanding people from other cultures’ (45%) and ‘using languages on holidays abroad’ (42%). ‘Being able to speak and understand on the internet’ also matters as it was chosen by 25% of respondents. Plurilingualism affects friendships, too. Behind facts and figures transpire personal stories like the one of Gioia, an Italian student who spent part of her childhood in Brazil and currently lives in Catalonia.
“When I was eight, my family decided to move to Brazil, pushed by a willingness to live abroad and find opportunities for work and life in a warm and exotic place. We were living far away from big cities. I attended elementary school in Minas Gerais, living in a small community in that region. Upon arriving there, I didn’t speak a word of Portuguese but other kids held me,” she shares. Gioia remembers she tried to imitate the accents she could hear and the sound of words. Imitation – this is the word she chooses to describe the process of learning. “Regarding the language, I learned it by imitating my best friend, a classmate of mine. At the beginning, she was ignoring me just like anyone else. Anyway, I wanted her friendship. One day, I told her: “Tell me one reason why we cannot be friends.” From that day, we started to love each other.”
Many years later, Gioia hasn’t stopped exploring the language richness of the world relocating to different countries. She prefers to achieve fluency by ear, immersing herself in the daily life of a country and its culture. Getting fluent in Spanish and Catalan is a testament to this approach of hers. She moved to Barcelona because of a specialisation course. She already knew a bit of the language because she had studied it at school. But only by living in the country was she able to learn the language spoken in real-life situations. “With my Catalan friends, we were initially speaking in English, but when we switched to Catalan and Spanish, I knew and understood them much better. In other words, they opened up to me”.
A photograph taken by © Gioia from one of the many places she has been to: Tokyo, Japan
As shown in this article, learning languages can change the trajectory of personal and professional lives. Nevertheless, there are reasons that discourage people from learning. Furthermore, there is a lot of room for improvement in language competence since a third of all Europeans only speak their mother tongue. Alongside reasons such as ‘no time to study properly’ (28%) and ‘not enough opportunities to use the language with people who speak it’ (17%), an alarming concern stands out: ‘it is too expensive’ (20%).
Therefore, the concerted efforts of the European Union in promoting language learning and linguistic diversity (as discussed in the beginning of the article) should not come to a halt. Work must continue on giving equal access to foreign language education to an even larger segment of the population. Leaving aside the personal benefits of this, keeping the linguistic diversity alive is essential to all of us as a community. Each and every language carries unique characteristics, wisdom and knowledge of the world which have evolved over the centuries. As noted by the Endangered Language Alliance (ELA) that fights for the preservation of endangered tongues, losing any language “is like dropping a bomb on the Louvre”. As Pablo Trincia, a polyglot journalist, once said, “Get out of your country, travel and speak the local languages. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Try to speak what you know. Keep in mind that people appreciate the effort you make to give your best.”
In conclusion, I would like to share my personal experience with foreign languages. The school system in my country, Italy, allowed me to study languages from an early age. But I did not feel excited about them until many years later when I took part in a European Solidarity Corps project. I lived for six months on a small Danish island. There for the first time I realised how valuable the knowledge of foreign languages is. I could see the smiles of sincere happiness on the faces of locals when I attempted to say short sentences in Danish. My experiences in Denmark inspired me to improve the languages I had studied and to practice regularly. Now I am convinced that languages represent a rich legacy which we all as Europeans should cherish and celebrate.
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Young Journalists in Europe – Meet the author
Emanuele Gessi
Emanuele, 23 years old, coming from Italy, in between quiet and chaos, reality and ideas. My hair and eyes are brown, my nose is straight and I have a bit of a beard. I like my khaki backpack, Bolaño and working in the open air.
This article reflects the views of the authors only. The European Commission and Eurodesk cannot be held responsible for it.