From Homeless to Homemore: Language Shock

Oh, how I love languages!

Last weekend I went to Busan (부산: a city on the coast in southern Korea) and visited a Korean couple who I grew up with while I lived in Turkey. They do not speak any English, and my Korean is 노무 처굼 (very little), so our conversations consisted entirely of Turkish.

Turkish! My Turkish is good, but speaking Turkish alone for four days can be exhausting. Though I speak well enough, I have never considered myself "fluent" until this past weekend. My vocabulary is fairly simple, I still need to work on my grammar, and my understanding level is not nearly as high as one would call "fluent", but I noticed that I could get any point across that I wanted to my friends. I spent four nights at their home speaking in Turkish, listening in Turkish, writing in Turkish and literally thinking in Turkish. I got to share stories and feelings from my heart with them, and we understood each other on an adult level, instead of the childhood level often felt when speaking a foreign language.

Call it whatever you would like - language shock, language confusion, a language game - speaking Turkish in Korea was definitely a brain enhancer. My brain was as confused as one can get. Here's a small glimpse of some language shock my brain went through:

Thursday afternoon through Monday morning I spoke Turkish with the Korean couple in Korea whom I met in Turkey.
On Saturday morning I went and visited a Korean friend from high school in Turkey, but we spoke English with each other.
On Saturday evening I went to a Korean child's birthday party of twin girls turning 100 days old - a very large celebration here. None of the family members spoke any English (or Turkish), so I spoke a tiny bit of Korean, and smiled the rest of the time.
For the party, we went to a restaurant with many large rooms. In the room next to us at the celebration were about 100 Turks doing a three-day tour of Korea and Japan. (Wow!) I heard them speaking Turkish as we were getting food from the all-you-can-eat buffet.

I assure you, my brain was probably more mixed up than the tour group was jet-lagged.

But despite the language challenges (and language feats!), it was a fantastic weekend visiting old friends and living life with them. I loved getting to take part in their daily activities as well as visiting sites that are important to their childhood. If it wasn't for our connection of Turkish, we wouldn't have been able to speak with each other.

Language is such an amazing tool that brings cultures together - and especially brings cultures together when the language you speak with each other is of a third culture! :)

For those who cannot speak another language, try learning one. At least a few words! It's well worth the struggle and can help you build bridges between cultures!

You never know when you may need to speak the few words of Chinese you know with a Russian-born Hungarian in Mongolia. (No, I haven't had that opportunity...yet!)