How To Make Your World Unlimited!

Featured Image by Teige Zeller

Quote by Ludwig Wittgenstein; Photo by Piktochart; Image by Teige Zeller 

After my last post on dialects, language just hasn’t left my mind. I love languages. I love hearing/seeing others communicate in different languages. I love when a heritage speaker of any language shares their knowledge with me. I love studying languages.

But that definitely doesn’t make it easy!

Becoming a Polyglot

My ultimate dream is to be a polyglot one day. That one day seems extremely far away, but they do say once you learn your first second language, the others come a lot easier. I’m praying that will be the case for me.

Why do I want to be a polyglot? A lot of my inspiration comes from Benny Lewis, the Irish Polyglot, as he calls himself. . . Can I say, “#goals”?

Obviously I love traveling, but a huge reason why I love traveling isn’t just because I love seeing the world and experiencing different cultures, but mainly because I love the people that inherit this world and encompass those different cultures. I know it’s possible to communicate without necessarily being fluent in multiple languages, but I don’t want my world to be limited by my language – or lack there of.

Nelson Mandela said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”

Call me cliché, but I want to reach the heart of as many people as I can.

Of course, I can’t reach them all, but I will try as long as I live.

My Most Wanted Language List

According to Ethnologue, Spanish has overtaken English in the world’s top 5 spoken languages and that is where I have decided to begin my adventures into the land of language. Spanish seems the most logical language for me to start with, especially, since I live in the United States. Besides, why not speak Spanish? It is such a beautiful (and not to mention, “romantic”;) language!

The other languages I would love to learn, don’t exactly line up with the top 5 of the world, but I do have reason for each of them:

1.  Portuguese (Because I feel it wouldn’t be hard since it is so similar to Spanish. Plus I have lots of Brazilian friends.)
2. Italian (I just LOVE this language! No explanation necessary.)
3. French (I also really love this language and I have learned lots of French words through ballet.)
4. Arabic (My parents were able to hold conversations in Arabic when they lived in Lebanon and Dubai and because I was born in Dubai and my name is Arabic, I hope one day I can speak my “hometown” language.)
5. Hebrew (To be able to read the Bible in its original language would be more than a dream come true!)

So at least that would cover 3 out of the 5 top languages (English, Spanish and Arabic).

Infographic by Teige Zeller; Source: Ethnologue and PocketCultures.com

Anything is Possible

Manderin honestly intimidates me a little bit, just because it seems like it would be extremely difficult to learn. And Hindi was a complete surprise to me to be competing in the top 5 languages. Don’t count me out though! Anything is possible when the sky is the limit!

“. . . come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away.” ~ Frank Sinatra

Thanks so much for reading! I’d love to hear your input on what languages you know and/or what langauages you want to learn. Comment here, or follow me and comment on Twitter and Instagram!