Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language 2022
Eighteen years after arriving unable to say anything, a note on what learning a language actually gives you, written on the day set aside for it.
A greeting on the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language.
Eighteen years ago on this day I could say almost nothing. I have written about that before. What I want to note now is what the other side of it is like, because nobody tells you in advance.
You do not simply gain the ability to communicate. You gain access to how people actually talk when they are not accommodating you. Jokes, which are the hardest thing and the best evidence you have arrived. The particular way a supplier says no without saying no. What a colleague means by a pause. The difference between the register someone uses with a customer and the one they use with a friend.
None of that is available through an interpreter, however good. It is the difference between doing business in a country and doing business with it.
To everyone marking the day, and to everyone still working at it: keep going. It is worth more than you can see from where you are standing.
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