I’m a 20-year-old girl from Poland and I’ve been passionate about learning languages since I was about 7,8 years old. At the moment, I can speak Polish (mother tongue), English, French and Spanish (all the three fluently); I can maintain a decent conversation and listen to the radio in Swedish; I’m also picking up on some Italian at work. And, guess what? I study Applied Linguistics!
And you know what? My identity changes with every language I speak!
This is not an innovative concept, but it’s amazing to test out the psycholinguistic theory that identity changes with language; it’s a hands-on experience of us polyglots.
When I speak Polish, I am… just me. I’m much more self-conscious when it comes to mistakes; I am kind of awkward at times, and painfully aware of how much I would like to say but how much I’m not saying.
English, which I speak mostly with my co-workers and my USA-loving friend, gives me a new power. Writing in English, speaking English, I become a confident girl who will never fail to make you laugh. I’m less insecure when it comes to errors – I mean, it is my second language after all, right? So, to me, English will always be the beautiful language I feel confident in. Even if my accent gets kind of Polish at times, I don’t care.
French… I started learning It at 12. French became the language of poetry, art, everything sophisticated in my life. Speaking French at university or even at work, I feel like a literary critic sipping expensive wine in her penthouse. My pitch changes, I speak faster, I deliberately raise my voice to sound like a girl excited to be talking about very serious matters. Even if it’s just cancelling a customer’s account at work.
Spanish? Now that’s weird. It’s this language that I’m supposedly fluent in, but still sometimes make silly mistakes while using. And it doesn’t have any particular connotations for me. When I talk to myself or want to say something in a foreign language to a friend, I use Spanish. Interesting, huh? My fourth language, and it’s the language of my thoughts whenever I don’t want to think in Polish.
Swedish is yet another case. When I speak Swedish, I just feel so… free. I’m a girl who’s studying Swedish for fun. Inspired by Scandinavian fashion, I wear turtlenecks, warm coats, mom jeans like Noora from SKAM.
But I add my own pieces to this mix. With my platinum blond hair, I like feeling stereotypically Scandinavian and reading articles in Swedish during boring classes. It’s like an escape to a different identity.
I don’t have anything particular to say about Italian yet. What I feel when I manage to say something in Italian could be simply called relief and pride at the moment. But does it count as yet another identity? We’ll wait and see…
So, my identity? Hard to establish. I mostly speak Polish, so I’m just… me most of the time. But, it’s good to have all those gateways to other Kates.