Language barrier sucks.
Language barrier sucks. And there are many reasons for it.
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Why do language barriers exist?
Through thousands of years, humans needed a form of communication to convey their thoughts, ideas, emotions, opinions, and more.
Languages were created to fill this need. Unlike other animals, humans found out that they can create different noises to create different meanings.
Moreover, they learnt to draw scribbles that eventually become their writing systems.
Soon, this idea has developed and has continued to evolve to this day.
Many society had thought of the idea to produce noises and draw scribbles.
You can see how this could create a lot of different languages around the world.
Over time, some languages continue to stay intact until this day
and some languages goes extinct because of historical reasons.
Nowadays, there are still hundreds of languages.
Language barriers exist because two speakers cannot understand each other using their native languages.
They needed to use a different language to be able to communicate with each other.
This is the lingua franca, and the most common one is English.
Life may be much easier if every country and everyone agreed upon a language to communicate and exclude everything else.
However, this thought process simply ignores the fact that languages are a part of a society's unique identity.
Protecting this part of the identity is important to preserve diversity, and respect the history and culture of the language.
How do language barriers affect people?
Those distant relatives from your family who live in another country or speak another language.
One day, they decided to visit your family after a long time. It's your turn to greet them.
However, even though they're your relatives, you're not be able to communicate to them because
they cannot understand what you're saying and you cannot understand what they're saying.
This is a language barrier.
It is unfortunate whenever you meet someone that you know but you communicate to them.
Fortunately, one of your family members can understand them, but it still leaves a bad impression of yourself on them.
Sometimes when you get the chance, you might want to travel to another country.
Whether it is to relax or explore the world, it is always a great feeling to get to meet new faces.
However, you don't understand the language that your destination is speaking.
This is a language barrier.
This is usually solved with a translator or an interpreter,
but you're stuck with taking out your device to translate and hope that it can translate well
or paying a person to follow you around and interpret the words. It is very inconvenient.
Literature is the form of art that use words to create artworks.
They're created so that everyone can read them, understand them, and show emotions and thoughts from them.
However, when you cannot understand the text from the language,
it creates a problem where you cannot fully enjoy the sophisticated meaning that the author wants to present.
This is a language barrier.
Typically, a translator would help. Translations also help as well.
Though, these can be unreliable and harder to convey the same meaning as the original text
without losing much of its context or relying on translator notes.
Living in a country where the majority of people no longer speaks their native languages
and use different ones can cause an individual to slowly assimilate into the society.
Their unique identity is slowly washed away by the external factors and their internal factors.
It is a choice to continue keeping their identity by preserving their ability for their native languages
or lose what makes them unique and forgetting one of the important parts of their identity.
It is because of the language barrier that makes them use a different language and it is because of it that makes them lose their identity.
What do you miss out?
Asides from convenience when communicating with foreigners, you miss out on many opportunities for your career or entertainment media to enjoy.
Your career may reach new heights beyond your beliefs once you realize how much you can grow as an individual in the job market,
simply because you know another language. A lot of doors will open for you to choose in your life and
you will feel grateful of yourself about the simple decision to simply learn another language.
It is a competitive scene, no matter which career you want to pursue, and that is to be expected,
but knowing another language gives you an upper hand over other candidates.
Your motivation might be to be able to enjoy entertainment media in their original form
without not understanding the key details and hidden meanings that make them great.
It is those small differences between the original text and the translations that could make or break the quality.
These medias can be a form of literature, movies, videos, and art.
Their existence is proof that they have created an identity for themselves and for the language.
Language learning curve
You may want to learn a new language because you want to break the language barrier.
When deciding on this, you need to remember that there is a learning curve.
Like anything, you should do your research about that language and see if it is suitable for you to invest your time into.
For most languages, the learning curve depend on your ability to learn a new language.
It takes a lot of time, energy, and discipline to practice, refine, and master the language.
Whether you want to become fluent or to understand your favorite entertainment media,
you should always remember those factors and shouldn't give up.
Whenever you hear about languages that are hard to learn, what it really means is that it takes a lot of effort to get used to it.
Once you find your flow, it is only a matter of time before you can become good enough to interact with a native community.
It is also important to note that there are communities of language learners that will assist you on your journey.
You mustn't be discouraged or shy about joining them if you need help. Every day is a new day to learn something new.
Whenever you feel your progress is not going to plan, reevaluate yourself.
It may be hard to understand that progress is not a linear growth. There are highs and lows everywhere.
Your task is to figure out where it is not working out so that you can work on it.
Because when you take a look at a bigger picture, your progress will always be going up.
Nevertheless, it is never too late to start. Your future is now, so make it count.
Conclusion
Language barrier sucks.
They exist because humans wanted to communicate, but because of this, there are many languages around the world.
No one wants to forget their language because that is a part of their unique identity.
It is unfortunate that this can affect a lot of people in their day-to-day basis
and it can make you miss out on a lot of things.
Nevertheless, it is never too late to start learning a new language to break this barrier between each other.
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