I have had a very busy week! This is the first article out of 2 that I’m planning on writing about the exciting events of this week!

You may remember, from the article Abrazos, that my band STRIDE recently collaborated with the Mexican band RockDI to create an album. Well I am .very pleased to tell you that after 3 years of zoom calls, we finally welcomed our lovely Mexican friends to Scotland as part of their European tour this week!

For 3 days, the 2 bands were privileged to spend time together. We first met on Sunday evening for our first ever in-person rehearsal at the STRIDE studio, Berkeley 2. For the first hour or so, the two bands worked in separate rooms so it was not until the last half hour of the rehearsal that we truly got to combine the two awesome bands. As STRIDE walked into RockDI’s room, Mexican lead singer, Alejandro, burst into Twist And Shout, and, within minutes, everyone, Scottish and Mexican alike, were singing and dancing together which felt amazing! This might have been the first time we had shared a rehearsal room, but it definitely didn’t feel like the first time that we had met! When Alejandro stopped singing, we then went onto rehearsing the songs that we would be performing together the following evening. There was something truly magical about young people, who had previously been 500 miles apart, finally being able to come together in a single space and play the music that they created together over video calls for the past 3 years!

On Monday Afternoon, every young musician met at the gorgeous Cottiers Theatre in Partick, Glasgow . I was taken aback as I walked in because it was like an old Catholic Church. On the ceiling was a mural of a night sky. On my left was the performance space which had a dramatic chalky white backdrop with carvings in it. To my right was the audience space with tables and chairs sitting against a background of old fashioned windows, pillars and a back wall which had a balcony with blue seating and some statues. In front of me was an area furnished with black curtains and barrels. I have only ever performed as part of Stride in the CCA (and once, right before the pandemic, in a weird underground room) before, so I really wasn’t expecting a venue of such beauty!

RockDI did the first set of the evening. They sang a few of their own songs, which were all in Spanish, as well as Hey Jude, which they got the audience to participate in. Although the songs themselves were just enjoyed in the original language, the venue had organised a translator so that the things that the band said between songs, such as explanations of songs were translated from Spanish into English so that the band could just focus on their set without having to worry about speaking a foreign language. However, what was particularly interesting about this was the fact that, as with all Paragon events, they also had a British Sign Language interpreter. This meant that once the Spanish had been translated into English, that English translation was then translated into BSL.! Somehow the double translation went very smoothly for all of the set.

STRIDE then took to the stage to perform their set. We had one fully English speaking song (Be Happy) and then about 2 English-Spanish hybrid songs called Nueva Era and Two Pages. After our set, we then called RockDI back onto the stage for a double band all-in version of Rock Of Nations. The staging of such a collaboration meant that the two bands were mixed up. Scots stood beside Mexicans and people from Mexico stood next to people from Scotland, creating one giant band! This integration is perhaps proof that a so-called language barrier needn’t get in the way of friendship or creativity!

On Tuesday, we treated the Mexicans to a taste of Scottish culture with a goodbye ceilidh because, as many of my fellow linguists know, learning the culture of a country is as important as learning the language. People from the two countries spent the night dancing together and bonding. Towards the end of the night, Alejandra, the keyboard player from RockDI approached me and gave me a token of friendship, a little unicorn pin! I love unicorns so obviously I was happy but I was also happy because, despite our different languages and culture, I had made a friend because of the Abrazos project! If there was more things like Abrazos then maybe world peace could eventually be achieved

eemmcg

it’s been almost a year since I wrote my last article, sorry lovely reader, I have just been really busy working towards my Advanced Higher German qualification at Edinburgh College! This chapter of my language learning journey has certainly been challenging , however, at the same time thoroughly empowering and overall quite magical… despite causing multiple grey hairs!

Firstly, I was lucky enough to get the same absolute gem of a tutor as I had last year for my Higher German. As always me and Isobel connected and made a great team , therefore giving me an extremely strong start to my studies. We already had the ability to communicate efficiently, learned from last year, so I was able to just jump straight into the work like my verbal collegemates!

The first thing you realise, going from a Higher to an Advanced Higher course, is that Advanced Higher is almost 20x the work of a Higher so you really need a lot of spare time. For the first 5 months, I was trying to juggle Advanced Higher German, Advanced Higher French and also, an international dance and music project!! Please don’t try this at home! It just stresses you out so much, that you don’t actually have the time or headspace to do anything with any sense of quality or enjoyment!!!! Last month I actually had to make the hard decision to save Advanced Higher French until next year because , ultimately, it all became too much!! If you or your child are picking subjects for S6, please take this into consideration, know your limits!

An interesting part of the course, which is not included in Higher German, is the portfolio. This, you are expected to do mostly independently. You get to read a German book and write an analytical essay in English, covering a specific topic of the book. This year, my class did Der Vorleser (The Reader) by Bernard Schlink and I decided to discuss how the theme of illiteracy is explored in the book, due to my own unique language skills. At first, I was a little nervous about writing the actual essay, due to my somewhat questionable history of trying to gain English qualifications. (People who truly know me are probably laughing right now because they know exactly what I mean by “questionable”) However, I kind of enjoyed this aspect of the course. I have been reading German books since I was 17, but until now, I have never had the opportunity to truly study and deeply appreciate one. I know this is odd, but I actually think that I might have done a better job analysing Der Vorleser than I have done with any English literature that I have attempted to do in my life!! I don’t have any explanation for this as I have no German heritage, but I almost feel as though German makes much more sense to me than English does. It’s a mystery that I have been trying to solve since I started learning German back in 2020!

As is the same with Higher and National 5, I had to do a speaking assessment to contribute towards my final grade . However, this year , having a disability actually gave me a large advantage! Normally, unlike with lower levels where you just do your speaking assessment with your teacher or tutor, Advanced Higher students have to do their speaking assessment with the visiting assessor who is someone, usually a native speaker of the language, who comes into the school or college, solely to carry out the students’ speaking assessments. The thought of talking to a complete stranger really freaked me out! However a few weeks before my assessment, I received the most amazing (if slightly shocking) news …

Because of my alternative methods of communication, I am entitled to 80% extra time but the SQA essentially couldn’t be bothered to send someone out for the amount of time required for me to actually do the assessment, so who was granted the permission to carry out my assessment? None other than the lovely Katzenkönigin herself, Isobel!!

The morning of my speaking assessment did not go as planned, I ended up getting to college an hour late, almost crying with stress, to an equally stressed out Isobel! However, about 10 minutes into the conversation, something magical happened, something that can only be explained by mine and Isobel’s bond…the whole vibe just relaxed! I believe that I said something about marriage that made Isobel giggle and Isobel giggling might have caused me to smirk, which then just softened the air. Something like that! Anyway, from that moment on, I just forgot about the camera that was on us (as requested by the SQA) and forgot about the morning from hell , that I had just been through and put poor Isobel through, and from that moment until we finished, it honestly felt as if it was just me and her in the world, just putting the world to rights. Something, which, I personally believe, is a telltale sign of an outstanding tutor!

My finial challenge of this amazing chapter of my language learning journey will be on Friday May 5th…the dreaded finial exam!!! Advanced Higher German students have a four point exam which is split across 2 papers…

Paper 1 is reading and translation which is fairly straightforward and self explanatory. Students are given an article which is written in German and they are first given comprehension questions about the article, I.E what does Bob say about the immigrants in Germany? which you are supposed to answer in English, just like Higher and National 5 . However, the last question of the reading section , is something which is not covered in lower levels. It is called the Overall Purpose Question or the Inferential Question, depending on who your teacher is. Similar to the 8 marker in the National 5 English exam, you are supposed to analyse the language used in the article (word choice, imagery, tone, etc) and you can be awarded up to 7 marks for this question alone.

The second section of paper 1 is translation. If you are good at German, the translation is super easy, included in the article, is an underlined section of the text and , just like in Higher, all you are supposed to do is translate it into English. Watch out for idioms but I believe that it is the simplest part of the exam.

Paper 2 is what I am personally most nervous about as it requires a little more than just good German skills. I can’t remember the order of the sections off the top of my head, however, the most stressful section is listening. In this part students are (somehow) expected to simultaneously listen to a German tape, which consists firstly of a monologue, and then a dialogue and answer questions about it in English! Ideally you would take notes while the tape is playing and then write your answers after you have heard the tape…In reality, however, the tape is far too fast for you to actually take notes at the same time as listening to the thing , so it is basically a memory test!! I strongly believe that this is the worst part of the exam and that there surely must be a less traumatic method for assessing one’s listening skills in a modern language!

However, thankfully, the other section of paper 2 is slightly less hectic! This section assesses your German writing skills and , secondarily, your discursive technique. In this part, the students are presented with .4 different essay questions, each covering one of the 4 general study areas (society, culture, employability and learning) and the candidates are expected to write a 250-300 word essay discussing one of the topics. Personally, I do have some reservations about this section of the exam as, in my prelim, back in January, yes, I did write an okay essay, however I did forget to actually answer the question. Therefore I do have a few worries about actually staying on track in the final exam…

To help with this, over the Easter holidays, I have been visiting the SQA’s understanding standards webpage , which has some useful features, such as specimen answers of all marks, along with commentary on the answers so that you can see how many marks each person got and why. Going into exam season, I definitely recommend paying this site a visit if you are unsure of a specific exam technique, regardless of your subject as it quite literally has the answer!! I also used it to work on my skills for the Overall Purpose Question! I believe that it is a highly valuable resource to add to your revision arsenal.

In conclusion, I am really proud of myself for how far I have come in German. I still find it a bit weird that one singular person essentially opened up my entire future, solely because they happened to come from Germany! I guess it just goes to show, that sometimes, the right person just finds their way into your life at the right time and just dents it in the right way! I believe my ultimate dream is to be a modern language teacher for kids with alternative methods of communication, however, I think it’s best to take that journey one year at a time because I am still young (and slightly more importantly, currently possess absolutely none of the necessary English qualifications to actually get into any university 😂). What is more important is that, I never thought that I would be able to get an Advanced Higher qualification in anything, let alone a language. Therefore, if someone who can’t speak can succeed this highly in a foreign language, surely anyone can do anything!!

eemmcg

*Article dedicated to Isobel Maclean

recently I have been trying to improve my German as I have just had my German exam at college and I was really focused on doing well. however language learning is not all focusing and studying, here are 3 language learning hacks that can easily fit into your downtime

If like me you love a good book, then you might consider swapping the English version of your fav book to an edition in the language you are looking to learn. I have been reading German books since sixth year and I have noticed a big difference in my German reading and it also aids spelling and grammar

Reset your phone 📱

if you are confident using your mobile phone, a really good way to help with your word recognition and fluency is to go into settings and change your preferred language to the one you are learning. to begin with, it will be slightly confusing because nothing will be in your first language but you will soon notice where certain buttons used to be on the English version and start to recognise the words for things such as “like” ”comment” ”save” ”edit” and “done” as well as the days of the week and the months of the year.

Music

who doesn’t love a good tune? although today’s modern pop music market is largely populated by British and American artists, there are some foreign bangers out there so instead of putting on the “top 10” While chilling why don’t you research artists from the countries where your new language is spoken and listen to their music to practice your listening skills and broaden your knowledge of the culture of the country? if you really want to train your ear, you can also read the lyrics while listening to the music whether that’s by just having the lyrics in front of you while listening or by finding a lyric video of the song on YouTube

by doing this occasionally and not just passively listening to the music, you learn to associate words with sounds and you can still take this further by translating the lyrics after you have read and listened so that you also learn the meaning of words in context alongside the pronunciation and the spelling.

in conclusion, you don’t have to stop studying your language in order to take downtime. these methods of passive learning have been proven to be beneficial to language learners.

eemmcgrath💜🦖

2021 was a very unexpected year in terms of my foreign language learning journey. since this time last year I have attended a language learning conference in German, got my best ever grades, learned 2 new languages, delivered a dance class in one of the new languages, started a language blog and unfortunately had to bid auf Wiedersehen to the amazing woman who ignited this passion. however just because Lisa can no longer be by my side doesn’t mean I am going to slow down my rollercoaster of a journey

You may remember that in late September I had to start learning polish at a day or so’s notice? Well I’m doing so well that I can now use past, present and future tenses with relative ease, because of the speed at which I am learning, I have decided that my next step is to make my polish as good as my German because essentially, I’m in the exact same situation that made my German so good. I have to speak it in my own home every week and I am towards the end of my Rosetta Stone course. the only difference between my polish this year and my German last year is that unlike German I don’t have a fixed class 4 times a week but that’s made up by the fact that I have longer shifts with my staff so if you add the hours of learning a week up, it works out to be about the same amount.

my second language learning goal for next year is to travel to Italy and participate in a class with the same dance group as I taught this summer. this has actually been a goal of mine since august 2019 but I started conversations with my mentor about the logistics this month so I’m hopeful that 2022 is the year that it’s going to happen!

a friend of mine got engaged to an Icelandic woman this year and because in his head I am some sort of genius who understands every language in the world , he keeps trying to speak to me in Icelandic and I don’t speak Icelandic so every time I’m like “sorry, what? english please” therefore my third and final new year goal is to learn enough Icelandic to know what my friend is saying or even the phrase “Zac speak English please”

in conclusion this year has been great for my language learning journey and even though I have lost my inspiration for taking up languages in the first place, I’m determined to keep nurturing this gift because she may be far away but she will be in my heart forever and if she is still reading this blog she would be pleased to know that I am still reaching for the stars

e e m Mcgrath💜🦖

if you have read my article LANGUAGES AND THE DANCE AND MUSIC INDUSTRY you may remember me referencing the fact that I am in a band called STRIDE which recently partnered with a Mexican band called RockDI. on Saturday night i was lucky enough to be part of the first ever blended gig between the two bands, us STRIDEers were performing at the CCA which you may remember from the article MODERNA is very close to my heart. it was a very emotional evening but for now I am going to leave all the tearfulness behind and focus on the intriguing Spanish content of the songs!

Rock of Nations

Lara lara quiero explorar la vía será mia tu vas is one line of the chorus (if I have spelt it right, my only reference is the recording of the gig!) which both of the bands sung together. it means “la la la la I want to explore life if you come with me”. I have to admit that I’m quite proud of my bandmates and myself for repeatedly managing to sing that quickly in tune without getting tongue-tied!

Nueva era

“In este momento” and for the backing singers “nueva era” were part of the chorus, however they were in the middle of English lines! for some reason the band learned this Spanglish chorus with as much ease as we learn English lyrics! in the whole year we were writing and learning the song absolutely nobody managed to muck up the Spanish !

in conclusion half the band claim to only speak English and yet they managed to ssing perfectly in a foreign language which poses the question “does the brain already have all the world’s languages in it and do we only form neurological pathways to the ones we speak?

e e m mcgrath

Two weeks ago I finally got to teach my warmup that you may remember from my previous articles, I choreographed for an Italian inclusive dance group called SIIATE . it was an amazing opportunity which I still can’t believe that I was lucky enough to get so i wanted to share my experience with you.

if I am honest with you, the week leading up to my lesson i was a bit anxious because alex made the mistake of telling me that I had to nail the movement words which caused me to have visions for the rest of the week of me misunderstanding Alex when he was reading my script and not moving correctly on the right words. after two days of worrying, I sent alex a panicky email saying that I was stressed about screwing up the movement words. maintaining the cool calm supportive vibe that makes him the world’s best mentor, Alex told me not to worry and he agreed to do a little bit of translation so that everyone was absolutely clear on what was happening.

when I arrived on the zoom call, Alex was sitting beside a very friendly young Italian man who seemed interested in my life so he asked me simple questions such as “how old are you” and “where do you live” in Italian and using zoom’s chat function i was able to answer in Italian with minimal help from Alex which I treated as a warmup for my Italian skills.

when everyone was ready, me and alex began to deliver the warmup, he would say something in Italian and then repeat it in English for my benefit and then I would demonstrate it, some people say that dance is a language so I guess you could say that the lesson was taught trilingually! as soon as the Italians started to do the first exercise of the triple exercised warmup , I fell in love with them and all my nerves melted away. these were my Italians now and an enormous smile broke out across my face because not only did I have awesome students and a brilliant mentor who had given me the confidence to do this but I was also doing my granddad proud – you see, my granddad was a half Italian arts activist who opened the CCA in the 1970s and nowadays paragon (the company that runs the mentoring program that me and alex are part of ) have their main office in the CCA so not only was following him into the arts industry while speaking his language but I had also used his building to get there! I was honestly on cloud 9!

the most insane thing is that I was injured at the time and I had a finger splint on and on the Wednesday before when me and Alex met to go over my plan, I was reluctant to make any sudden movement but just three days later I was shaking, bouncing and moving how lightning would while wearing my splint with minimal pain !

in conclusion, zoom teaching is hard enough in your own language with all 20 appendages so I honestly don’t know how I managed to teach in Italian with a bad finger so I am proud of myself sure but I’m even more proud of alex for believing in me when I didn’t and giving me the skills and confidence to carry out this amazing feat.

Special thanks to Riccardo for helping me get my warmup perfect

Early on Tuesday evening I was just going about my day, still celebrating the new job that I had gotten the previous morning when an email pinged its way into my inbox saying that I had a meeting two days later with a potential new personal assistant. It turned out as I read, that she would replace the temporary one who was needed back in Stirling. I happened to mention the email that I had just read to Kirsty one of my other personal assistants who just happened to be on shift. Kirsty informed me that not only was she good friends with my potential employee but also that she was from Poland .

I felt like I couldn’t learn German for Lisa my German PA and just not bother learning any polish to help this person!

after a brief period of annoyance at the fact that on Monday I was just starting to get along with the temporary employee, I remembered Julia, the polish girl who I went to primary school with! Everything happens for a reason! Now excited, I decided to text my old friend even though I was not sure if she would even remember me as we hadn’t seen each other for eight years, and ask her for some polish lessons.

I was so pleased to hear that of course she remembered me and after a quick catch up we agreed the best way for her to teach me was for her to send me videos of written polish words and her saying them. She said that she would send me some the next day.

the next day, my temporary personal assistant was working but I was still quite annoyed with the situation so I mostly locked myself in my room and got on with my college work so I could speak to her as little as possible! Just when I was onto the second last sentence of my college work, Julia sent my phone into a pinging frenzy as she sent me my first ten videos! My brain has the special ability to seamlessly transition from one language to another in a second so I momentarily parked my German college stuff and opened my messenger which was still going cookoo-bananas and started watching the videos!

after a mere 5 minutes of learning, Julia happened to ask me a question and I responded with “tak” which is polish for yes! I couldn’t quite believe how quickly I was learning the language! By the end of the day I had totally mastered dziękuje (Chen-queer) which is thank you and I felt motivated to carry on learning.

the following morning my appointment with my potential employee went extremely well. I was keen to take her on so I emailed the woman in charge of my staff and said that I did in fact want her on my staff. Even though I can’t believe it, I have now made learning polish part of my daily routine!

in conclusion, on Monday morning I had no idea what was going to happen this week and if someone told me that today I would be writing an article about learning polish, I would have laughed but it just backs up my finial point in my previous article Why are We Doing This? that you are going to need a language. I am really looking forward to exploring the polish language with my new personal assistant and who knows? Maybe one day my polish will be as good as my German.

I would also like to say dziękuje to Julia for reconnecting with me and helping me on this unexpected adventure 💜

e e m mcgrath

Since I started learning German my number of German speaking friends and acquaintances has gone from a single family friend who happened to work in Germany for a period of time to him 2 German women, someone who grew up in Germany and even a girl my age all the way out in Switzerland! The curious thing is that these delightful people just came into my life by chance without me even looking for fellow German speakers! So when I am with these people what ratio of German to English do we speak? Well it varies from person to person

meret– Swiss friend

I don’t think we have ever had a English conversation between the two of us. When I met her she was on a school exchange and she obviously spoke English in class but whenever we text it’s always in German for two reasons #1 it’s her mother tongue so I think it’s respectful to speak her language and #2 only chatting in German allows me to work on my fluency so I love the practice!

Alexandra – German woman #1

I first came into contact with Alex when I was at school, about a year or so before I had to learn German properly. In the early days she used to have to attempt to communicate with me in fractured English and teach me a little German in the study periods, later on, when I knew that my new personal assistant was German, the German lessons became a regular in-The-timetable occurrence. By the time Alex left a few months before Christmas 2020, we were able to have short conversations in German and after she had left, we were able to email each other in fluent German and understand each other! Now that I have left school, we are able to be friends on Facebook and the only language we ever speak is German!

Lisa – German woman #2

I’m not going to lie, me and Lisa have always spoken some level of Dinglish, a mixture of English and German where you start your sentence in one language and finish it in the other or answer a question in one language in the other. However sometimes we can make up our minds, for example when I was still at school, on the mornings where I knew I had a German test that day, we would only communicate in German or if I need to tell her a secret I speak German. On the flip side if we have a conversation with somebody else, we speak English. I have noticed that whenever she wants me to do something, even if she is speaking English to everyone else or we are in the middle of an English conversation, she always tells me what she wants me to do in German. I don’t know if this is a conscious decision to exercise my German skills, or just habit because she speaks to her dog in German but I sort of like it as not only does it help me recognise German words but if she does it in front of others, it makes me look very intelligent and the other people always comment on my skills!

Rueben– family friend

in lockdown, when I was first learning German, it was agreed that I would text him in German every day after my Rosetta Stone class. At first I would tell him obvious stuff such as “I am 16 years old” or useless information like “I had a apple for breakfast” and he would have to correct me because I had made like a million mistakes but as lockdown progressed, our conversations got more sophisticated and more than a year later, if we had to talk to each other, I would say that we would be more likely to converse in German.

Theresa– grew up in Germany

Theresa went to an English speaking school and she has forgotten all her German lessons so we speak English day to day and just throw in the odd German insults where it fits!

in conclusion I have been very very lucky to have so many German speaking friends and colleagues. You have been essential to my German learning journey! Without you, my German would be nowhere near as good as it is! Whether you have gave me lessons or just chat to me in your lovely language, I would like to extend a giant Dankeschön for the help.

ANNUNCIO

io voglio una ragazza o una donna giovane italiana per mi scrivere in italiano. Studio italiano e voglio una amica per parlare italiano con. Io piaccio danzare, musica, cavalli, cani, mangiare il cibo italiano. Ho 18 anni e vivo in scozza . Mandami un e-mail eemmcg04@gmail.com

e e m mcgrath

Ever since my creative work went online due to the pandemic, I have been able able to liaise with my colleagues all over the world! I am in a band called STRIDE and over the course of the last year, we have been collaborating with our Mexican colleagues who are a band called Rock DI, on top of communicating with Mexico, one of our guitarists moved to Germany at the start of the pandemic and for a time, we were training a Belgian student so there were days when I spoke English, German, French and Spanish all in the space of two hours without getting mixed up which, believe me, is as tiring as it sounds!

on top of the linguistic “spaghetti junction” that was band practice, if you have read my introductory article you might remember me referencing the fact that a few weeks ago I had to seriously pick up the pace of my Italian lessons due to a choreographing opportunity. Well let’s go back to the beginning on this. I am a dancer and I have a fantastic dance mentor who is a fellow polyglot like myself and in our sessions we speak a so-called Engerliano (English, German and Italian without any actual pattern) and last year he was so kind as to support me to choreograph two warmup routines to German pop songs and I then tested them out on the dance group paragon M3 which we are both a part of. On top of his mentor work and m3, Alex also teaches at m3’s Italian equivalent in Milan, a group called SIIATE and as soon as he knew that I was learning proper Italian (not just Engerliano) he was quick to ask me to choreograph a warmup for SIIATE. Naturally, I was flattered by this request and also extremely excited as working in Milan has been on my dance bucket list for years so I accepted! Unfortunately I was just a few days into my Italian course on Rosetta Stone so it was a week before I could even write my introductory paragraph. However with a skilful combination of learn a bit, write a bit , I managed to accomplish the impossible and write a full double-exercised warmup in a language that was new to me in just three weeks! Even by my standards, I believe that this is an insane amount of talent and I still can’t believe I did it but it just goes to show that even when you think a task is impossible, there is always a way of getting the job done if you just think creatively!

When I was young I used to get singing lessons, I soon observed that the majority of singing technical terms were in Italian such as pronto (fast tempo) which intrigued me a bit. When I got a bit older I learned that it was because opera originated in Italy and the majority of classical singers actually learn Italian as part of their career training! As part of the Italian-Scottish community myself, I felt a sense of pride that my heritage had helped shape the musical world and although I have no real proof of this, I do believe that this is part of the reason why I have stayed in the industry.

in conclusion, my two true passions of languages and the arts often overlap. I don’t know if one has helped shape the other but what I do know that it is a beautiful combination that works so well. I believe that artists should think about learning a foreign language especially Italian or French because a lot of dance terms are derived from the French language and as I have said, music terms often originate from Italian.

thanks to

Alex the guitarist

Alex my mentor

Beth Taylor

Dorotè the Belgian student

Ninian Perry

Otokani àlvarez-garcia and the rest of Rock DI

paragon M3

SIIATE

if you are interested in checking out some of the organisations that I mentioned in this article please check out the links below

Paragon M3 https://www.paragon-music.org/m3

Rock DI https://www.efe.com/efe/america/cultura/rock-di-banda-mexicana-que-demuestra-discapacidad-no-significa-limites/20000009-4006950

SIIATE https://www.milanoltre.org/archivio/festival-2020/siiate-senza-esclusione-di-corpi-eng-version/

STRIDE https://www.paragon-music.org/stride

e e m mcgrath

One of the main reasons why I am so passionate about language came about during a second year French class when a classmate of mine felt compelled to shout out “why are we doing this? Everyone speaks English anyway” not only is this extremely ignorant and arrogant but it is also a false statement with 1.38 billion people speaking the language. Yes, this may seem like a large number, however it is only around 20% of the world’s population of 7.8 billion people and counting. This means that four fifths of the world do not speak English as a mother tongue and the arrogant person who said that narrow-minded statement that day closed a door to a whopping 6.42 billion people! So what are the benefits of taking the time to learn a new language?

Cognitive skills

learning a language has been scientifically proven to improve planning skills, memory and even delay dementia! This means that by speaking multiple languages, you are more likely to live a well–organised life well into your senior years. On top of this, studies show that school pupils who are studying a language often perform better in scientific subjects such as biology and chemistry when compared with students who are not studying a language.

employability

studies have shown that a bilingual person can earn from 5%–20% extra pay compared to their non-bilingual colleagues. Bilingualism is very useful in business as a person who knows multiple languages can be used to communicate with the company’s overseas partners or customers. Because of this advantage, in a hiring process, when faced with a candidate who is bilingual and a candidate who is not, an employer will almost always give the job to the bilingual person rather than the person who only speaks one language. This means that by learning a language, not only are you adding a valuable point to your CV but you are also increasing your financial stability.

social

I now know first hand that you never know when you are going to need a foreign language. This time two years ago I never even imagined that in just 6 months I was going to be working with a German speaker so I just focused on my French. Although my studies were somewhat rushed at first, I am truly grateful that I did learn German rather than rely on my employee to speak English all the time. As well as the unexpected things, learning a language is also essential for the average tourist. Most English speaking tourists just expect people to learn English! This is the equivalent to hosting a dinner party but expecting your guests to bring their own plates! Just as you would provide plates for your guests at a dinner party, so too should you at least try to learn a bit of a language before you visit the country, even if you only manage to get your head around how to say “hello, do you speak English?” Most people will be honoured that you are making an effort to speak their language.

in conclusion, we English speakers should have some empathy – by expecting everyone to learn English, we are forcing people into the precise embarrassing situation that we are subconsciously avoiding, being forced to communicate in a language that is unfamiliar to us. Presently, in Scotland, learning a language is only compulsory for children from P6-S2 while most other countries start teaching foreign languages at the start of primary school and keep it mandatory well into (if not until the end of) secondary school. I believe that if we put modern languages on the same list as English and maths (compulsory from p1-s4) then the next generation might not be so arrogant when it comes to languages

special thanks to jack for both putting the fire in my belly to learn languages and inspiring this article 😀

e e m mcgrath