Bluebooking is always worse in the fall than it is in the spring. Every fall, my head spins thinking about all of the Level 1 language classes I could be taking: Japanese, Hebrew, French, Italian, Hindi… 

I guess you could say this is a sort of language-greed, this secret little dream I have to be able to rattle off a few lines of a foreign tongue at the drop of a hat or covertly understand overheard conversations at airports and on trains.

A big part of this addiction is fueled by my childhood, by growing up in multilingual Singapore, where learning a second language is mandated from elementary through to high school. I have personally borne witness to the transformative power of language learning.

Languages have the power to connect us to our heritage. An acquaintance of mine once lamented how she, having gone to an international school in Singapore, did not speak any Hindi. Her brother, on the other hand, was enrolled in a local school and was compelled — by the compulsory “mother tongue” policy — to learn the language. Their ailing grandmother, hearing the brother come home and ask for Hindi homework help, wept tears of joy. 

We live in a world of erasure, that prizes English and eclipses other languages. Seen in this way, language learning is a sort of protest against that erasure and a small part of the fight to keep cultural diversity alive. In many instances, I have seen how the heritage language tracks at Yale have powerfully connected people with their culture — their mother tongue. 

Language learning is also an incredibly humbling process. Yale, especially, is an environment rife with intellectual arrogance, and seminars are constantly peppered with high-falutin conversations about lofty topics. I think it particularly touching that amidst conversations about Plato, Homer and the perils of global warming, hundreds of students gather in small classrooms every single weekday morning to become children again. To learn the word for “fish,” for “chair,” or to simply learn to ask “how are you?” 

The best part? There are no “shortcuts,” no way to cheat the system if you didn’t do the homework. If you don’t know the French word for “fish,” you simply don’t. For people struggling to be heard in traditional seminar-style classes, this touch of meritocracy can be quite a refreshing change. The humbling struggle to learn a new language also opens our hearts to feel for people for whom English might not be a first language. If it is so hard for us to learn a new language, how much more should we not be quick to judge their English?

We live in a society slowly descending into division and hatred. Just thinking about the mounting hate crime against Asians and other marginalized groups in the past year breaks my heart. Language learning is one oft-overlooked path to build bridges and mend wounds. Because language learning doesn’t just happen in a vacuum — it is also a process of total immersion into a different culture, a different world. It invites us to open our hearts and minds to consider the very real lived experiences of other people and other cultures. 

Language learning does not have to be perfect for it to work. Indeed, even if your proficiency in a language is at a Duolingo level, just having a few handy phrases to thank a waiter or ask for directions can be incredibly powerful. 

An English professor once shared a factoid about how the Scottish people have something like four hundred and twenty one words for snow. Walking through a snowy landscape, an English speaker’s capability to appreciate the snow is limited by her vocabulary. Language learning is an inherently multiplicative process because it significantly expands the way we respond to and view the world. The world would probably be a better place if more people just stopped to open a phrasebook. Seen in this way, a tolerant and accepting society is not a fever dream, but a very real possibility, fully within our hands. 

Shi Wen Yeo is a junior in Morse College.  Her column, “Through the stained glass”, runs every other Wednesday.  Contact her at shiwen.yeo@yale.edu