All my friends prefer not talking to me a few minutes after I speak to my parents.
My grade has been saved by the kindness of my French teacher, who watches me struggle as I try to sift through the folders in my brain and decide what "travaille" means.
My friends in India like to count how many times I switch languages when I speak to them, and when I make a grammar mistake in my first language, Marathi, the result is an eruption of laughter that lasts as long as the conversation does.
It has always been like this.
I speak four languages — Marathi, Hindi, English and a little French. I know people who speak more languages; but I know more people who look at me, astonished, when they learn this about me. At this point, my internal monologue even bounces back and forth between languages.
I can assure these people that this is not a 'fun fact.' I would like to remind them that I am a master of none of these trades.
Being fluent-ish in four languages has only gotten me to pure, unadulterated annoyance. It has caused me to have a constant argument with my brain, where I try to remember slang, find words in other languages for "saucepan" and remember AP Stylebook rules.
We are often told learning languages from a young age is great for brain development, and that notion has been pushed throughout our educational endeavors. But no one ever discusses how annoying it is to have to switch modes to speak to people.
But it gets worse: Learning languages and speaking like a "local" means adapting to slang. Even though I have now learned what the appropriate response to "How's it hanging" is, I am still upset that understanding the literal meaning of words is not enough.
I text my parents in a mixture of languages and often leave it up to them to determine what I mean. However, doing this in school or at work is often deemed "unprofessional" or "uncooperative." As a result, I have had to learn how to speak another language: Corporate English. But even then, I've been told my emails sound "indifferent."
None of my jokes in English land as they do in the other languages I speak, however, the insistence of my humor is often met with rolling eyes from my friends. My puns only make sense to a select few — and sometimes, I have to translate jokes from one language to another till they lose their comedic effect.
The entire point of creating language was to make communication simpler! And none of this seems to be achieving that goal.
We should all adopt a language that is easier to understand and one that includes minimal slang. Even then, emails should be written as they are spoken.
All this complaining is just in an effort to say this: Don't learn a new language. It's overrated. How much can your brain develop now, anyway?
Edited by Andrew Dirst, Abigail Beck, Tiya Talwar and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at ktale@asu.edu and follow @KasturiTale on X.
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Kasturi is a sophomore studying journalism. This is her second semester with The State Press. She has her own blog and has worked in creative writing.
