There were times in my life when I should have listened to my father…

But after watching this video, I am so glad I didn’t…

He taught me English and always insisted that I speak it with a British accent. He was horrified when, after spending several weeks in the US, I started saying “somebody” instead of “someone”.

That’s why I almost fell off the chair watching Democratic Congressman Weiner say that you cannot believe anyone from BP who talks with a British accent…

The fact that I speak different languages and I have not used my mother tongue on a daily basis in  over 20 years is such an integral part of who I am. I don’t think much of it any more.

But sometimes statements like that of EU Commissioner Leonard Orban make me stop and think.
I was delighted to read on his blog that “languages are crucial bridges between cultures. To learn a new language is to explore new ways of thinking, new value-systems and to open our horizons to the richness of other cultures and ideas.”

But I was even more ecstatic about this part :
“Each of the many national, regional, minority and migrant languages adds a facet to our common cultural background.”

And I was so happy to hear Benedict XVI mention in his New Year address that Italy should get used to having classes with pupils of different nationalities in its schools.

Finally!!!
Is something changing? Is a new wind blowing?

Having learned four languages over the years has certainly helped me to relate to other people’s realities and ways of looking at the world.

If I think of it… If I were only speaking Italian, I would not be able to communicate with some of the most important people in my life.
I am so grateful to my father for drilling English into me at an early age and to my German teacher in high school… Where would I be without them?

I’ve always believed that passions make people bond beyond cultural and ideological barriers.

The story I tell in our book about my encounter with a Kazakh immigration officer only a few years after the end of the Cold War is an example.

Last weekend, I found another one.

I was reading an article in The New York Times about the anniversary of Isaac Stern’s trip to China.

The famous violinist toured the country in 1979 giving concerts. People travelled miles by train to see him perform. This happened at a crucial time. China was emerging from a long period of isolation from the rest of the world.

Stern is credited not only with spreading the love for classical music but also with enabling cultural exchanges between the West and a country everybody had learned to fear.

You have to watch the video about Stern teaching young Ho Hongying to play the violin. It contains one of the best lessons in cross-cultural communications I have ever come across.

Without knowing a word of Mandarin, Stern manages to tap into Hongying’s passion for music and, instantly, her performance improves.

What would be the equivalent of this in corporate communication?

Our spirit cannot travel as fast as our body. That’s how someone explained jet lag to me.

I just got back from San Francisco and my spirit is all over the place. Although I have been desperately trying to tie it to the cup of Ghirardelli coffee on my desk, my mind keeps replaying many of the conversations I heard last week in California.

One bit keeps coming back again and again.

Sir Ken Robinson, the innovation expert, was talking at IABC’s conference about the ability of human beings to learn foreign languages.

His take is pretty much that if you don’t learn a foreign language at an early age, your chance to be able to do it in your 20s is slim.

What a sad and elitist view…

And this coming from an otherwise inspiring speaker.

If Sir Ken is right, this would mean that only those children who have the fortune to travel or live abroad or grow up in a multicultural household, will be able to speak other languages and function in a multicultural setting.

Luckily, this is not how the world of tomorrow is likely to turn out.

China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world. I believe not all the Chinese who are studying English today have learned it from their parents or by travelling abroad.

The ability to develop a passion for communicating with other cultures and learning foreign languages is not a prerogative of the more fortunate and has never been.

Take the example of Billy Wilder who grew up in Austria-Hungary speaking German, had to escape first to France and then to America in the 1930s, learned French and English in his 20s and went on to write the screenplay of what is considered an icon of American film making.

Thank God for “Some Like It Hot”!

“You speak five languages, you must be hungry…”

Our guest Xiuwei made dumplings for me this weekend.

Coming from a family that was never quite sure about the exact location of the kitchen in the house, I am always extremely grateful when my friends cook for me.

Xiuwei’s remark got me thinking…. while I was chewing my dumplings.

Is it true that if you speak different languages you get hungrier than other people? Have you ever noticed that?

I left Dubai with two regrets last week: not having spent more time in the sun and not being able to speak Arabic.

It has been raining on and off since I got back to London. So I decided to go the gym and work myself into a trance while listening to my favourite Arab singer, George Wasouf.

While doing this, my mind took off and began thinking of my post of last week about languages (I really enjoyed Daneeta’s and Maria’s comments).

I was thinking of all the reasons why I am glad I learned other languages:

• Another language adds a new dimension to your life. It makes you realise that there are many different ways to interpret reality. An example I like to use is the verb “to take a walk”, spazieren in German. In Czech, it is reflexive: prochazet se. The fact that it is reflexive turns the experience of taking a walk into something you do for yourself, something that is good for you. I love to use the verb prochazet se when I am about to take a walk.

• Going through the pains of learning another language is a humbling experience. I remember when I learned to write in German and had to have friends check my texts. I wrote very well in Italian and would have never needed this. Languages are great destroyers of egos.

• I can think of those situations when you encounter people who look down at you because you have an accent that they consider “foreign” or because you use expressions different from theirs. Remaining polite in their presence is a great exercise if you are trying to develop compassion for your fellow human beings. Believe me! It is more powerful than 10 hours spent in meditation.

• Learning other languages brings new people into your life. I can’t even begin to think of all the people who would not be in my life if I only spoke Italian. And this has always been the strongest motivation factor for me. What is yours?

There is something special about the desert wind.

I landed in Doha the other night and getting out of the plane felt like being embraced by a giant warm force. It went right through the essence of my being, warming up not only my London-weather-battered bones but also my soul. Deserts are such spiritual places.

And the spell continued on my connecting flight to Dubai. I watched a fellow passenger in the row next to me reciting his prayers. The small light above his seat shining on the beautiful Arabic characters of his book and the sleeves of his djellaba forming a snow-white aura around it.

I imagined his prayers merging in the air with those my 100-year-old grandmother in Italy recites every time I fly. Words in two very different languages travelling to the same place.

I have to admit the shopping spree I embarked on yesterday afternoon at Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates was somewhat less spiritual.

So I thought I would buy myself a book likely to make me think: Creating a World Without Poverty by Muhammad Yunus. My readers know how fond I am of Prof. Yunus and will understand that I could not wait to be back to the hotel to open the book.

I sat down in a corner of the mall and began reading….

As expected, I did find something that made me think. In the list of things he would like to see emerge by 2050, Yunus writes:

“Everybody will read and hear everything in his own language. Technology will make it possible for a person to speak, read, and write in his own language while the listener will hear and the reader will read the message in his own language. Software and gadgets will translate simultaneously as one speaks or downloads any text….”

I don’t doubt this is likely to happen. I am only thinking of all the hours I spent learning the languages I speak and how much the experience has become part of who I am.

Will people stop learning languages in the future? Will technology replace the effort to understand other cultures? Or will it make it easier?

“Five languages are too much! That’s crazy”

This is what a Chinese friend of mine told me recently after she found out the number of languages I speak.

I had never looked at it this way. But may be she has a point.

You do have to pull yourself through some crazy stuff if you want to learn a language.

Then, there are times when you are tired or sick, and you happen to mispronounce a word. Your friends give you that look. You are no longer the person they used to know. You have just morphed into a monster from the lagoon and are regurgitating gibberish mixed with greenish foam at their feet.

That’s why I was so intrigued to find out about Crazy English.

The Chinese entrepreneur/motivational speaker Li Yang came up with this method to teach English. He encourages his students to shout English sentences at the top of their lungs.

He draws enormous crowds from all over China. The 2008 Summer Olympics’s Organising Committee has hired him to help make sure that visitors will be taken care of by people with sufficient English language skills.

He uses motivational sentences like: “I can totally conquer English. I am no longer a slave to English. I am its master. I believe English will become my faithful servant…”.

Li Yang’s technique taps into the dreams of millions of Chinese who see English as a passport to professional success and wealth.

I have to admit it…. it is a little creepy, but the psychology behind Crazy English is fascinating.

Li Yang has been able to turn learning a language into a life-changing experience.

He is selling hope packaged in exercise books. And he has managed to turn the anxiety that everybody experiences, when uttering new sounds, into an outlandishly joyous experience to be shared with thousands of people.

All this reminds me of how learning a language has always been about much more than learning grammar and new words.

A Czech friend of mine has never been able to learn English. During the cold war, she had learned French and Italian, two languages considered “neutral” by the regime. English continued to have that “capitalistic” connotation in her mind. She knew that learning it would have helped her a great deal in her work. She just could not overcome the mental barrier.

I am beginning to wonder whether it wouldn’t be more effective to deal first with the emotions we attach to a language.

Wouldn’t grammar and vocabulary follow much more easily once we have taken care of that?

Photo: thanks to newyorker.com

I struggled for years with Slavic languages (Czech in my case) and I can really feel for Tony Henry.

The British opera singer opened the Euro 2008 qualifier (England against Croatia) by singing the Croat national anthem ‘Lijepa Nasa Domovino’ (Our beautiful homeland).

However, instead of singing ‘Mila kuda si planina’ (You know my dear how we love your mountains), he sang ‘Mila kura si planina’ translated as ‘My dear, my penis is a mountain’.

The Croat footballers were grinning of course. And poor Tony Henry is now being blamed by British fans for helping the enemy to relax and win the game!

Slavic languages aren’t easy, Tony. Believe me. I know how you feel.

And so does Jimmy Carter.

On one of his visit to Poland, the former US president was assigned an interpreter who spoke fluent Russian but little Polish. He promptly turned Carter’s ‘I am happy to be back in Poland’ into something a bit too warm even for the Slavic soul: ‘I have great lust for the Polish people’.

On her visits to Prague in the 90s, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright always made a point of correcting her Czech interpreters (she spoke Czech as a child).

I used to find this a bit extreme, but hey, who can blame her?

Since I spoke at the Brand You World Telesummit the other week, I have been having several conversations about the joys and tribulations that come from having lived abroad for most of your life.

One of my listeners asked me about prejudices.

What is the worst prejudice I have ever encountered and how did I deal with it?

Apart from having to deal with the fact that people think that Italians are chronically late (which has turned me into a punctuality freak), there is another one I find rather disturbing.

And I was extremely glad to discover years ago that I was not the only one experiencing it.

Here is the story.

An Italian friend of mine had been working for a major international news agency in Brussels for many years. She wanted to move within the organisation and applied for a job in London. One of the first questions her future boss asked her was ‘Can you write English, dear?’

What is it that makes certain people think that, if you grew up speaking and writing one language, you will never be able to write well in another? Have they never heard of Joseph Conrad?

Even if they haven’t, they must have seen ‘Some Like It Hot‘.

The person who wrote the screenplay of this icon of Hollywood’s golden age had grown up in Austria-Hungary speaking German. Billy Wilder was already well into his 20s when he emigrated to America and learned English. He had been writing in German (as a journalist in Berlin) for his entire life.

Joseph Conrad and Billy Wilder are just examples. There are so many others. I am absolutely convinced that if you write well in one language you can write just as well in another.

I guess what you need is a sense for the rhythm of that language and you need to do a large amount of reading. And yes, at this point, I have to give credit to Ian, the editor of Central European Business Weekly, the English newspaper I wrote for at the beginning of my career.

We spent several hours drinking Becherovka (we were after all in Prague) and going through my articles, which used to have far too many subordinate clauses (from having written in German for too long).

So my answer to my listener would be ‘Never let other people’s limits become your own’.