Why Don't You Learn the Language?

My attempt to go from "Why aren't you trying?" to "What's stopping you?"

On my first trip to Japan, I spent three months trying to learn enough Japanese to be polite and order food. But my seatmate on the flight home lived there for over a year and had never bothered to learn Japanese.

My seatmate white guy in his early twenties, heading back to visit family in Eastern Washington. He'd been stationed at a U.S. military base for a little over a year. I asked him what it was like living in Japan.

"I don't know," he said. "I hardly leave the base."

"Why not?" I pressed—it was the first direct question I'd asked in months. (Japanese culture is very indirect.)

His answer stunned me: "Because I don't know any Japanese. And I think foreigners in the United States should know some English. So I just don't go out."

I was glad he could see his hypocrisy, but also felt sad for him. This young guy was squandering an opportunity to see the world—not as a soldier drafted in wartime, but as a military computer scientist.

Years later, his response makes me wonder: what does it mean to "speak some English or Japanese or [insert language here]" anyway? Is the goal to never be an inconvenience? (Good luck with that.) To speak enough to not embarrass yourself? (Admirable, but unavoidable.) To earn a specific score on a formal proficiency exam? (Finally, a measurable goal!) I wish I'd pressed him for details, but I was too taken aback.

I’d just spent the summer teaching in what was essentially an international adult summer camp. All the instructors knew some Japanese and the non-Japanese students were eager to learn from their Japanese friends, so I was rightfully blindsided by this guy’s response.

How could anyone could not be interested in learning a language while living abroad?

How Could You Not?

I took a job in Niigata prefecture, teaching at a tiny university in a rural agricultural area. These days, there's a lot more English in big cities and small towns, but back then, most everything was in Japanese. Travel SIM cards weren’t common and Google Translate didn’t have the camera capabilities it has now to translate and it was humbling to be temporarily illiterate. Grocery shopping was a game of “Who knows? Buy it!” I remember staring at a display of bottles, unable to tell which one was rice vinegar, and just picking one. I think I ended up with mirin (sweet rice vinegar).

That first of what would turn into 12 summers of working in Niigata was a dream. Ten years had passed since my way-too-short-six-week study abroad in Mexico. This time, I got to stay twice as long in a country I knew little about, but instantly loved. Months earlier, Japan had narrowly avoided nuclear meltdown in Fukushima. Once it was assured that travel was safe, I signed my contract and booked a flight. I was thrilled to be back in a language learning space, a teacher and a student.

Even though the program had a strict English-only policy, I was determined to learn some Japanese to communicate off campus. I memorized some canned phrases with Pimsleur listen-and-repeat lessons before I arrived and picked up tons of new words and phrases from my colleagues who had extensive experience living in Japan. My American friend clued me in on important social advice: say sumimasen (excuse me/I'm sorry) early and often, and do not skewer your food with chopsticks (at least not in public.)

I wish I’d learned more about the Japanese writing system, but given the circumstances, I could only prioritize speaking and listening.

Let’s try to stop side-eyeing each other and start speaking | Photo by Nan Palmero

Not All Languages Are Easy to Learn

I get the hesitancy to learn Japanese—it's exceptionally more difficult compared to Spanish. Japanese has three writing systems: one pictographic (kanji, like 食べる for "to eat") and two phonetic (hiragana and katakana). Spanish, bless its potato, uses the same alphabet as English, plus one extra letter (the adorable ñ).

Thankfully, Japanese and Spanish are phonetic, meaning their sounds mostly match their spellings.

For example, in Japanese, sakura (さくら, meaning cherry blossom) is pronounced exactly as written:

sa-ku-ra, with each syllable carrying a clear, unchanging, vowel sound.

Similarly, in Spanish, familia is pronounced

fa-MEE-lya, and every vowel behaves predictably with its singular sound.

English, on the other hand, is a linguistic grab bag over centuries of borrowing words from other languages, with wildly varying pronunciation.

For example, check out these four words with [ou] vowel clusters, ending in [gh]:

though (THO)

through (THREW)

rough (RUFF)

cough (CAWF)

Similar spelling—very different pronunciation.

English pronunciation is nightmare for many non-native learners.

Mercifully, Japanese and Spanish vowels are sonically consistent and not difficult for English speakers to master.

The point being: “It’s too difficult to learn” is not a valid excuse.

You Either Want to Learn or You Don’t

I come by this topic honestly as a language educator and learner. I love learning languages. I love the easy connection that comes from bridging a language and cultural gap.

If I'm being completely honest, I love (and sometimes loathe) the challenge and the respect that speaking another language shows toward another culture. The optics aren’t great when people from other countries freely relocate (read: are not refugees) to another without making any efforts to integrate. It reflects a form of privilege where cultural adaptation is seen as optional rather than expected. There is so much misunderstanding between people and talking is one of the simplest ways we can communicate to each other who we really are.

But life has been a series of events where I keep re-learning the very obvious lesson that not everyone is like me. So now I'm going to ask you something, and I promise I'm coming from a place of mostly genuine curiosity, with a only tiny bit of judgment, that I’m hoping to erase or at least examine.

Some of us Substack writers,

Based in Paris

and

Liza Debevec

, who live in France and Portugal—have discussed people's hesitancy or flat-out refusal to make an effort to learn the local languages. This isn't limited to tourists; it includes people living in another country for various amounts of time who’ve made little to no effort to learn the language.

To be clear, I don’t think anyone should travel if they’re unwilling to learn how to say hello, goodbye, please, and thank you in the language of the country they are living in or visiting. The worst offense is when foreign people start conversations in English (except for emergencies). Hello is so simple. Never in the history of time have we had so many free resources at our fingertips to learn words. Type them into Google Translate, you’ll get the translations AND how to pronounce them in 30 seconds—60 seconds tops if you're slow at typing or your phone chooses that moment to betray your thumbs and types in something like “guit meonitn” instead of “good morning.”

On the other hand, I know a thing or two about fear of social judgement. I know it can paralyze us in fear or prevent us from event trying. Speaking a foreign language can be a very vulnerable, especially when we’re jet-lagged or exploring a culture for the first time, especially adult learners.

On Fear of Failure or Peer Judgement

Speaking of social judgment, I know that sometimes the lack of trying isn't about looking foolish in front of foreigners—it’s fear or standing out among your peers. This speaks volume about other people and nothing about you, but the fear or being judged can be a powerful demotivator.

Years ago, I was out walking on an outdoor path. I saw a young Arabic couple approaching, pushing a baby in a stroller on a lovely spring day. I said hello to them in Arabic, trying to mimic the pronunciation my Gulf Arabian students taught me. They smiled and responded back. Mission accomplished! We understood each other!

We finished our greeting exchange and went on walking our separate ways. When we were out of earshot, one of the people in my group said, "Oh, so you wanna show off, huh?" What? No, man. Me saying hello in Arabic wasn't about showing off (also it was just "hello"—relax). It was about making them feel seen and welcomed, in a mostly white town, in a post-9/11 America.

I get how speaking another language in front of friends can feel performative, especially if they don't know the language or your intention. It’s so common that it deserved a spot on my language learning poll below.

Here's My Ask

For those who choose not to speak or learn the language of the country where you visit or live, I’d like to know—what holds you back from speaking a foreign language? I’m specifically asking about speaking because it’s the easiest (and scariest?) of the four language skills to observe. You can answer in the comments, which I promise to keep civil. Or you can answer anonymously with the poll below.

This an attempt to understand why people hesitate to learn or speak a foreign language. Rather than clutch my proverbial pearls with judgemental side-eye and wonder, "How could you not speak?!" I'm asking: "What gets in the way of your willingness to learn?”

When I’ve collected enough data (let’s say, 50 or more comments and poll responses) I’ll unpack the results in a future post.

I hope understanding what makes us hesitate to learn, practice, or speak a foreign language will help everyone understand each other better.

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What holds you back from speaking a foreign language, as a tourist or long-term resident? You can leave a comment, take the anonymous poll, or both. Thank you for your honesty and consideration.

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