Speak to the heart | Marleen Laschet | TEDxTrondheim

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

About the fragrance of languages and how a sick frog can save your day.

Marleen is a philologist and a communication expert with a passion for storytelling and languages.

On her seriously playful blog, she writes about the joys and benefits of multilingualism and about cultural differences. Her blog stories are based on anecdotes from her life as a polyglot and anchored in linguistic and cultural insight and experience.

Roughly 365 million people
have English as their mother tongue.

More than two billion others
learn and speak English

as a second or third language.

If you speak English,

you can make yourself understood
to almost 2.5 billion people.

Why would you need to learn
any other foreign language?

Isn't that just
a ridiculous waste of time?

Nelson Mandela was fiercely criticized

by black South Africans
for speaking Afrikaans.

He replied,

"When you speak to man
in a language he understands.

that goes to his head.

When you speak to him in his own language,

that goes to his heart."

So here's the thing:

if you want to win somebody over,

you need to speak to their heart.

Popes know that.

John Paul II spoke
like ten languages fluently

and a dozen others
on a more elementary level.

Wherever he went,
he would greet the people

with at least a few sentences
in their native language;

and that was an important key
to his popularity.

People with foreign mothers-in-law,

or foreign mothers-in-law-to-be,
know it, too.

They may speak English
with their girlfriends,

but when they want to be
on good terms with the girl's mom,

young men are willing to learn
the craziest languages,

including Dutch.

(Laugher)

And it usually does the trick.

Why?

Well, our native language
is totally entwined with

our personality, with our identity.

Our whole personal history
is deeply rooted,

it's soaked in our mother tongue.

There are so many memories and feelings
connected to words, expressions,

even to the grammar
that we have grown up with.

So, If you learn
another person's language,

you show that you are genuinely interested

in their life. in their personality.

What mother-in-law wouldn't be flattered?

When you hear your own language
you feel connected.

When you're traveling,

and you've been speaking
a foreign language for days or weeks,

the moment you board a plane

where cabin crew greets you
in your own language,

you know you're going home.

If mother tongues had fragrances,

I think they would smell of cookies,

and of comforting chicken soup,

and of granny's cologne –

maybe even a little bit of mothballs.

This may very well be the reason
why constructed languages,

like Esperanto, have never caught on
as broadly as could have been expected.

However cleverly designed,

and simple, easy to learn,

no country has ever adopted
an artificial language as their own.

Nor as a foreign language
to be taught systematically

on a large scale
over a longer period of time,

though it has been tried.

But somehow, despite the difficulties
with natural languages –

like frustrating irregularities,

the discrepancy between
spelling and pronunciation,

sometimes absurd complexity
of the grammar –

but despite all that,

we prefer to learn languages
that have grown organically with people.

Constructed languages speak to the head.

Natural languages smell of cookies.

To Nelson Mandela, learning Afrikaans
was all about "knowing your enemy".

He said, "You have to know
their language, and their passions,

and hopes, and fears,
if you want to defeat them."

He did. It worked.

But it's not all about enemies
all the time, is it?

This applies to
all kinds of human relationships.

And I'll be the last person to claim
that mothers-in-law are enemies –

per definition.

Some seven or eight years ago,

I was driving through Poland
with my family.

And the shops were about to close,
and we needed to buy food.

Finally, we saw a supermarket
on the other side of the street.

The only way to get there in time
was by making a U-turn.

So that's what I did.

That was probably dangerous.

It was definitely illegal.

On the car park, before I even
had a chance to switch off the engine –

– I heard a knock-knock.

So I buzzed down the window,
and two pairs of eyes appeared.

Each pair of eyes was attached
to a policeman.

Now, I cannot claim
any level of real fluency in Polish

at the best of times,

but I used to be able to keep
a simple conversation going.

But in that setting, though,
with a guilty conscience,

eye in eye with two men
of the law, in uniform,

every sensible Polish word I had
ever known just drained out of me.

Yet, I didn't consider for a moment,

trying to deal with
this situation in English.

English would most probably
have given me the linguistic advantage,

but that might have made
the policemen uncomfortable.

So, I was determined to stick to Polish.

How?

That tiny Polish corner
of my brain had just gone blank

except for one thing.

There was one thing
that I had repeated so often

that I could have recited it in my sleep.

It was a children's poem,

about a sick frog.

(Laughter)

That's what I had.

I know it was a bizarre thing
to do, but I blurted out:

(Polish) A certain frog felt weak

so she went to a doc
and said she felt sick.

The doctor puts his glasses on
because he was rather old."

I glanced at the policemen.

And they were like staring at me.

(Laughter)

I seem to recall that one of them
like scratched his head.

And then they smiled.

They smiled.

And that, in turn, put me at ease,

well, enough so that a few
more relevant words

could come tumbling back into my head,

I could stammer
a few half sentences like,

"Very sorry, needed food,
will never do it again."

They let me off the hook.

As I ran into the shop, they called,
(Polish) “Szczęśliwej podróży!"

"Have a nice trip!"

It is not my intention
to incite you to learn languages

so that you can travel around the world,
break laws, and get away with it.

But this little episode illustrates
how a few words,

however simple or silly, just a few words,

can go straight to the heart and melt it.

By the way, there was
an alternative to the sick frog.

There was one thing
I knew equally well:

a drinking song.

(Laughter)

That might not have earned me a smile

probably a trip
to the local police station

for a blood test.

You don't need to learn many languages,

and you don't need
to learn them thoroughly.

A little can go a long way.

Ten words to the heart
can have a bigger impact

than a thousand words to the head.

You can choose to always use
English and meet in the middle.

But you can also choose to be
the person to cross that middle line

and meet your new acquaintance,
or your opponent, whoever it is,

meet them on their own territory.

Speaking the other's language
does not make you weak,

it proves you strong.

It's the person who has the courage,
and makes the effort to cross lines

that wins in the end.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes.
Mistakes make you human.

And in this case, there's a bonus:

If you make a mistake out there,

you give the others an opportunity
to help you, to come and meet you.

And in this way, the connection
you have just initiated will be stronger.

So, do you want
to make yourself understood

or do you want to connect?

Let's all continue to learn
and to use English.

So that we can interact with mixed
audiences, like we're doing here at TEDx.

English is a powerful tool
for sharing knowledge,

for international conventions
on global problems.

Above all, English is the highway
to 365 million hearts.

To 365 million people,
the English language smells of cookies.

But why stop there?

Why not make the extra effort

and learn at least
one other foreign language?

There are many flavors
of cookies out there.

Let's go and taste a new one.

Thank you.

(Applause)