The Ego Death of Learning a Language
Humiliation, Cosplay, and Existential Insights
Why do I put myself through this? I ask myself regularly as I navigate daily life in Spanish as an American in Mexico City. A few weeks ago, I was talking to a lifeguard at the pool and he laughed at me when I said, “tampons for ears” instead of “ear plugs.” “I only want to live!” I once told a shopkeeper dramatically, instead of saying, “I only want to look!” I still turn red when I think about the Bachata class, when I asked the teacher about the technique to smooth my hand over my hair and I said “pene” instead of “peine.” (That would be penis instead of comb.)
When we learn anything new, we expose ourselves to mistakes and embarrassment. But when learning a language in a foreign country, we become beginners at the task of being human. The language strips away our ability to order food, to find a lightbulb in the supermarket, to communicate our symptoms to a doctor. It’s vulnerable to be a baby in an adult body, squeaking in fragmented syllables trying to string together a sentence. And this process is never-ending. In the four years I’ve lived in Mexico, each new level of the language I’ve reached has only revealed how much I had left to learn.
In Spanish, I can’t always make the joke that I want to make or I’ll start talking about a movie and realize I don’t have any of the vocabulary for dinosaurs or sea creatures. I can’t rely on my go-to methods of “winning friends and influencing people”[1] by sounding smart or impressive or funny. My ego has been whipped around so much over the years that she has lost her rigid edges. I am both limited and liberated. And because of this, there is a side of me that comes alive in Spanish that was dormant in English. I can’t perform who I think I should be so I become more of who I am.
It’s destabilizing to move abroad and give up the ease in which we navigated life in our home country. Why would we sacrifice our ego’s sense of control, mastery, and security? It’s a ridiculous idea and it’s also great practice for the spiritual work we must do as humans. Every identity we cling to will eventually be stripped away from us. This past year, after busting my knee, I had to shed a lot of ideas I had about who I am. As I struggled with this grief, I was grateful for all of the those fumbled conversations, the embarrassing mistakes, the times I didn’t have the form or the structure to express myself. My ego knew what is was like to crumble to dust. And I also knew there was something on the other side.
Ego deaths kick us around, make us squirm, and destroy the scaffolding of who we think we are. It is not a comfortable or glamorous process. But with each ego death we choose to embrace, we get to experience a rebirth, an awakening, a more intimate knowing of who we are under all of the constructs. When I let go of my idea of who I think I should be, I open myself up to deeper possibilities. When I free myself from a fixed image of who I am, I also liberate myself from my perceived limits. As I’ve continued with Spanish, I’ve learned to speak freely and express myself in a way that I didn’t think was possible. I never thought I would never have a believable accent but then I said words over and over again until my mouth developed the muscle memory to create the sound. Sometimes I feel like a jazz musician lost in a trance, letting the syllables dance on my tongue as I puzzle together phrases and patterns in an improvised conversation. “It’s showtime, bitches!” I tell the little band members in my head, reminding them of all the hours we’ve spent in rehearsal, sitting in classrooms and cafes writing out verb conjugations.
My ego still thinks that speaking a language is a performative art but my soul knows differently. I am less interested in metrics evaluating my level and more interested in how Spanish connects me to friendships and community. There is no end—we are always learning and simmering in a language until it becomes part of who we are. In Spanish, I listen more than I speak, I absorb more than I share. I connect with people in ways that are different than I do when I have all my words and neuroses at my disposable. I am vulnerable and childlike and messy in ways that I never have to be in English.
Learning Spanish has also been a practice in cultural consciousness. Again and again, I remember that the word I use is not THE word for that experience or object or place, that the water I am swimming in is just water. This is another ego death, particularly valuable for native English speakers. Language is not just the default way we were born to express ourselves. Our descendants made creative choices reflecting their history, culture, and human experience. Words are ancient artifacts molded by mythology and stories. The words for the days of the week for instance did not just spring from nothing. In English, Tuesday is named after Tyr, the Norse god of war, whereas in Spanish, “Martes” comes from Mars, the Roman god of war. The suffering of the past is embedded in our everyday speech. Warriors live in words like insects trapped in amber.
As if destroying our egos and cos-playing archeologists wasn’t enough, learning a language reveals how muscular our brain can be, how capable of adaptation and growth we actually are. The first year I lived in Mexico, I was wildly impressed by how native speakers could correctly genderize an object when it is used as an indirect object at the beginning of the sentence. I couldn’t understand the ease at which children would use the subjunctive verb tense. I didn’t think I would ever be able to do that. But now after four years in Mexico, I sometimes hear myself saying “ya la tengo” without even using my conscious brain. I’ve completely fallen in love with subjunctive tense and I purposely say things just so I can use it. Partially for the sentence variety but also because I appreciate that feelings of uncertainty or desire can be integrated into grammar. I love that verbs have mood swings. I love that Spanish is comfortable with the unknown.
This is all just to say that learning a language can be a transcendent spiritual journey, wherever you go with it and wherever it takes you. I would love to hear from you. How has learning a language changed you? How has it connected you to yourself and others? Please share your experience in the comments.
Thank you for reading!
Love,
Em
[1] JK Never read this book but I don’t think I could pull this off in Spanish.
You said this so well. The word: destabilizing! And the ego does completely have to die and then be built back up again. It’s almost like bringing reborn. Same here in Italy and Italian. Thanks for your lovely post!
This is beautiful and almost painfully accurate to my experience. I've spoken many languages in my life, but the challenge I'm faced with now as an American living in Slovenia feels like the biggest ego death that I could imagine. And clearly I need it because it has been so excruciating. The death of the character I played for most of my life. That character wouldn't have worked here anyway because the culture is so different. All that said, this was so beautifully written — funny and profound. Thank you!