HYPERPOLYGLOT
The Dictionary Diaries: Words that found me.
Entry 6: Hyperpolyglot
This seemingly complex word refers to one who masters or fluently speaks many languages (at least six or more).
I am nowhere close to being one, at least not yet, but the word made me think about my rather unusual relationship with languages.
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I have always been drawn to languages and the culture that birth them. Not much of a fan of the multiple languages in my region though. As beautiful as they are, the diversity does more harm than good, with linguistic and ethnic differences exposed and creating a much bigger wedge than any one here would honestly admit.
I was never taught any of my parents indigenous languages, and as I grew older, I never developed the urge to learn. Like I previously stated, the division caused by the different languages didn’t entice me. For some people, that makes me unpatriotic because I prefer foreign languages to the ones in my country of origin. But who am I if not an anomaly?
A few of the languages I have been drawn to and learned the basics are Spanish, French, Mandarin and Korean.
Spanish was a first love, I watched a lot of telenovelas as a kid and basically learned the theme songs without thinking. But my true learning process came when I watched Elite, Season 1 to 8. Untranslated and only subtitled, I picked a book and pen to write down a few words that could be used daily. I still have that with me and I regularly go back to remind myself what I learned. The series was amazing too; back to back drama without a room to breathe, I loved every second.
Enough of digressing, my next language is French. This one’s different. I studied it for half of my life, from half of primary school to all of high school. It was the only other language taught apart from the three popular languages in the country. I can’t say I learnt much in the classroom due to ineffective teaching methods but I can understand the basics and can recognize when it is spoken.
Mandarin is a tricky subject. I picked up five (5) words from a Filipino Telenovela I saw as a kid. In that episode, a boss taught his girlfriend a few words because she had an exam as flight attendant that required that knowledge. Hence the reason I can say Hello, How are you? I am fine, Thank you and Goodbye. This just proves that sometimes we can learn from movies. They are not just for entertainment purposes.
Lastly, Korean. This one was ultimately learnt from K-dramas. My first official one was Boys Before Flowers and I picked up quite a bit from there. There have been a lot down the line and even though I haven’t watched any K-drama recently, I can say that the few phrases I’ve learnt will stay with me forever. Maybe this is my nudge to get back into it. We’ll see.
So here’s my unconventional languages list, what’s yours?
