Why is it not enough for you to know only one language

“English will be the only language in the world. I shouldn’t study any other language. Why should I? Everybody will speak English and it is enough for me”, said one of my former colleagues.  Do you also think so? Forget it.

English is the main language but

not the only one. Yes, it will be even more powerful in the future and the role of another languages will be decreased (except Chinese) but the other main languages will remain alive. Language is the way to see the world around us in its unique way. Language will disappear only together with the culture which it represents. And that will never happen – strong cultures usually successfully defend themselves. There will be no ONE language. There will be always variety of cultures in our world. And it is great because diversity leads to progress.

But it concerns not only national languages. There is variety of the so-called professional languages, social languages (languages of certain social groups), corporate jargon, argo (language which is used to conceal the subject of communication), language of certain generations, women’s language, men’s language, customers language, etc.

If you need to influence people who are important to you (your target audience) it is better to use their language. At least you should use words and concepts which they understand.     

Until I was married I had been dating with different girls. From the very beginning I started to realize that women often speak some kind of language which I fail to understand. Some time passed till I began to understand that women often use hints instead of direct speech. Or it is common situation when a woman say “don’t do it” and you do not do it and in some time follows the dialog: “why haven’t you done it?”, “but you yourself have told me not to do it!”, “how slow you are! You should hit upon it yourself!”.  Here some more interpretation of their language:

“What are you thinking about now?” means “say some nonsense since pause lasts too long”

 ”she is so beautiful and smart” is “tell me that I'm better”

 “we need” is “I want”

 “up to you” is “the right solution is now obvious”

 “Do what you want” is “later you pay for this”

 “we need to talk” is “I need to complain”

 “I'm not upset” is “of course I'm upset, you idiot!”

 “I want new curtains” is “and carpets, and furniture, and wallpaper ...”

“hang a picture here” is “NO, I mean here!”

“I'll be ready in a minute” is “take off your shoes and look for an interesting occupation”,

“I do not cry!” is “yes, I cry because I think it's important!”

 “Go fuck yourself!” is “come up, hug me, kiss and soothe”.

At first it maddened me. But then I realized that they simply see the world in another way and

it is impossible and foolish to remake them according to my world outlook. I started to study their language and became more successful in communication with them.

What about programmers?

How do you like such pictures when you use a software program? First question that comes to my mind is “why do programmers hate us so much?”. Yes, programmers have their own way of thinking and their own language. But we are customers to them. Most of us don’t understand and don’t appreciate these mysterious combination of symbols in pop-up windows that we can see from time to time while using USER software. It will be much more better if they explain us in simple words what is the problem and what should we do to fix it. So, programmers, please speak to us in our language!    

I hope you are not so cruel to other peopleJ and usually trying to understand them and to be understood by them.