Life Kit - Start learning your family's language

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Heritage language learners are different from people learning a second language for the first time. They often grow up hearing it, but that can come with its own set of challenges. Experts offer their advice on how to learn your heritage language. This episode originally published May 31, 2022.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Life Kit, from NPR. Hey everybody, it's Marielle. I was at this event one time when an acquaintance said to me, you're Puerto Rican, right? Do you speak Spanish? And I said something like, I mean I do, but I never feel like I'm fluent. The truth is, estoy aprendiendo, I'm learning, poco a poco, little by little. What was jarring about that interaction though, the guy who asked me, who wasn't a Spanish speaker, by the way, responded, It's kind of a wild thing to say.

Condescending, judgmental, but common, right? When people know that your parents, or in my case, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins speak another language, they have expectations that you'll speak it too. Many of my uncles would call me the khareji, which means the foreigner in Persian. When I speak with my mom, it's a bit embarrassing because I know she's not judging me, but I feel that she might be, or she might be a little embarrassed for me as well. And then we go out in broader society where there's assumptions about where we speak Spanish and how we speak Spanish and we don't live up to those assumptions. We have all this baggage.

What I wish I had said in that moment is there's a reason that I don't speak Spanish fluently. And it's true for a lot of Latinos and immigrants in the U.S., the pressure to assimilate. At some point in the family tree, somebody is told, you're American, speak English. Don't speak Spanish or Chinese or Polish or Farsi. And with that, your heritage language starts to disappear. For years, I've been trying to get it back. Not because of the expectations and judgments of rude people, but because I love the way I feel when I speak Spanish. Because I want to be able to talk to my family in Puerto Rico.

And because reclaiming this part of my heritage feels like healing. And it feels like a middle finger to assimilation. Whoever you are, whatever your reasons for not speaking the language of your family or for wanting to learn it now, this episode is for you. It comes to us from Shirin Marisol Maragi, a former host of NPR's Code Switch. She grew up in California. Her mom is Puerto Rican and her dad's Iranian. She doesn't speak a lot of Persian or Farsi. She's not fluent in Spanish. Pero está aprendiendo poco a poco. In this encore, she talked to experts about how to learn a heritage language learning journey.

Say that 10 times. As well as those of you who've been trying to do this for a while now, like me. First up is the academic expert. I'm going to let her introduce herself. Hello, my name is Maria Carrera, or if you want to say it in Spanish, Maria Carrera. Maria is a professor of Spanish, but she assured me that what she's going to say is applicable to nearly all heritage language learners. She recently started a program called the Heritage Language Exchange. And prior to that, Maria co-founded the National Heritage Language Resource Center at UCLA.

So this is her life's work. She's been at this for like 25 years or more. At least. At least. At least 25 years. In California, it's really important work. And this is one of the places where it started. Yeah.

So let's start from the beginning. What makes a heritage language learner or a heritage language speaker different from somebody who just wants to learn a second language? Heritage speakers are different from L2 learners, second language learners, because they grow up hearing that language at home, living part of their lives in that language. They don't have to start with, say, my name is this or that, or by start conjugating the basic verbs. They already know how to do that. I grew up and my abuelos spoke Spanish,

and they took care of me most of my young life while my parents were working. And so I was listening to Spanish all of the time. I was responding back to them in English, however. Shireen, that's typical. A lot of heritage speakers do not feel comfortable, but they can understand a lot. And I suspect, Shireen, that you can do a lot. Just the mere fact that you can understand so much already puts you ahead of individuals that start from zero. So here we are at takeaway number one. You're ahead of the game and you probably know a lot more than you give yourself credit for. I'm looking at all of you who are already like, oh, but you don't understand. I'm really, really bad.

I'm way more behind than you can imagine. Maria says, nope, you're really not. Part of the shame comes from comparisons. And then part of the shame also comes from the extreme criticism that heritage language learners are frequently the target of. It comes from native speakers of the heritage language telling heritage speakers, oh, you don't know this language, shame on you, right? Or even when they're being kind, kind of they laugh, oh,

that's so cute the way you say that, right? So there's the native speakers that criticize you. There's also English speakers who say, why are you speaking that language? This is the United States. Come on. All you need is English. It's not unusual for teachers to say, what? You don't know your language? What is this? On the other hand, it's also common to hear things like, what are you doing in my class? You already know this language. Bottom line, you can't win if you're a heritage language speaker. I feel seen and I hope you do too. Which brings us to our second takeaway. Acknowledge what you're up against. Name it to tame it. You're not alone. This anxiety you feel is very common. This desire to get better is very common too. What we find is that when children are young, let's say when they're in middle school, they want nothing to do with the heritage language. As we get older, that desire to connect with our roots

and to develop our linguistic skills grows. And so it has been studied. We have put a great deal of effort as to how do you go about developing this language, Because frequently, we focus on the mistakes, the I can't do this or that. But if we pause for a second, Shireen, you said you can understand Spanish. That is huge. So if we start with that mindset that you can do a lot with your language, that's a very good starting point. Takeaway number three. Know your strengths. Maria says take note of what you can do best. Like maybe your pronunciation is on point or you're a strong reader. Maybe you can't read the script your heritage language is written in, but you're totally comfortable having a conversation about food, the weather, sports, with your family or close friends.

Whatever it is, Maria says be confident in what you can do. In my case, I can understand a lot and I'm a good listener. Start with what you can do fairly well, listening, and then strategically move to reading on the same topic as whatever it was you were listening to. And then from there, now you have a lot of background because you've listened and you've read. Move to writing or speaking with somebody else about the topic. Identify your strengths and build on those using the four skills, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This is so different from the approach I had been taking for years.

I'd go straight to the thing that I was weakest at, which is trying to have conversations, you know, fluid and fluent conversations. I'd get really frustrated because, of course, they weren't fluid or or fluent and I'd get embarrassed and I'd want to give up. Maria says you're much less likely to give up and stop if you start not with your weaknesses and go right there, but with your strengths and build on them. What about just the logistics of doing this? How much time does one spend trying to get better at their heritage language? So you hear two things that are wrong. One thing you hear on commercials that are trying to sell you products for learning a language is that you can learn in no time. In a few months, you're gonna sound like a native speaker, not so. Wait, they're lying to us about that? Oh, can you believe it?

It takes a long time to master a language, right? And so you have to be patient. At the other extreme, I work with people, linguists, who say, oh, well, if you didn't start out early in life, forget about it. It's not worth it. That's because they have the native speaker model in mind, right? It's true. You'll never sound like a native speaker, but that's because you're not a native speaker. You're a heritage speaker. But you can sound like an extremely proficient heritage speaker, or you can be a heritage speaker that has acquired the skills that you need to do what you want to do with your language. I'm going to jump in here with our next takeaway, which is number four.

Spend time thinking about what you want to do with your heritage language. Do you want to be able to talk with your family rather than responding back to them in English? That's definitely one of my goals. My other one is using Spanish more when I'm out reporting in the field. Do you want to be able to read or write or give a presentation or have more formal conversations? Or are you like, forget the formality. I just want to watch TV and sing along to the radio. And don't forget, when you're thinking about all of that, you're a heritage speaker.

You're not a native speaker. So take that pressure of native fluency off of yourself. So we heard from our academic expert. Let's hear from people who are in the process of learning their heritage languages. I spoke with a couple who are doing just that, Joe Hyun and Donna Huchmend. They have My Dream Life. They run this website called Discover Discomfort, where they get to explore different cultures and languages around the world.

And they share what they've learned with the rest of us. You know, we realized along the way that we're starting to speak all these other languages and become familiar with all these other cultures much more than we are familiar with our own heritage cultures. Dana is Iranian-Australian, and Joe is Korean-American. And Joe told me that she gets that where are you from question

in nearly every country they've visited so far. I would say the U.S., but in a lot of those countries, they kind of see an American as being primarily white. They really wanted to know, you know, where my parents were from. So as I was saying, you know, as Korean, I felt like quite a big disconnect because while, you know, my heritage is Korean, I didn't actually know the language. That's where I really started to identify a gap and I started to really prioritize relearning Korean. Both Joe and Donna grew up in homes where their heritage languages were all around them. My parents spoke to me in Persian, but then they didn't push it.

Their priority was that I do well at school and integrate. They sent me to Sunday classes because what else do you do? And I hated it. I actually think everyone does. And then eventually I just dropped it. Jo also stopped speaking Korean pretty young. I think it was maybe around junior high where instead of responding in Korean, I would respond in English.

So my mom and grandma would speak to me in Korean and I would respond in English. So my mom and grandma would speak to me in Korean and I would respond in English. And then gradually, I kind of forgot how to actually speak Korean. I think a lot of it was, you know, when you're in junior high and high school, it's just survival. You kind of want to blend in. Joe and Donna are real life examples of what Maria was talking about earlier, the heritage language learner who abandoned their language around their preteen years, who are now looking for deeper cultural connection. And because Joe and Donna are on the move,

they use a lot of online tools to help them improve their language skills. Joe loves the site viki.com, where she can watch shows from Korea. The site even has a learning mode where you can see subtitles in both English and Korean. Viki.com, that's V-I-K-I, also has television and film from Vietnam, Thailand, China, and Japan. And both Jo and Donna highly recommend sites that allow you to converse with people in your heritage language online, which is a great option if you can't uproot your entire life and immerse yourself fully, which I know we would all love to do. But it's easier said than done.

So you can go online and you can talk to people in your heritage language. Check out sites like italki. That's I-T-A-L-K-I. And I find a tutor in Persian and set up some time. And italki is this platform. I don't want to like sound like I'm a marketing shill for them, but they are like an Airbnb. So you can see the highly rated teachers who've done a ton of lessons. You can watch an intro video with them and become comfortable with them and think, yes, I would like to speak to this person for 30 minutes. I've had this experience so many times where I go in super stressed. It doesn't matter how many times I've done it before. And then I

start speaking to them and then they're patient, they're kind, they're accepting. And then I realized that I'm far from the first person to have gone through this with them. And they've coached many other heritage language learners. I come out at the end of the conversation thinking, hey, I've made a new friend and I've learned something about Iran, a place I can't even go to. Which brings us to takeaway five. Find the tools that work for you. Look for podcasts in your heritage language, download lots of music if you're a music lover. If you can understand the script, read, read, read, read books, read magazines, newspapers,

bilingual news sites, children's literature. YouTube is also full of language instruction videos. Maybe that's the place for you. But if self-guided learning isn't really your thing, you can try an online tutor. Like we said, there are sites that help you connect to them. You can sign up for a class that is geared specifically to heritage language learners. I'm doing that right now and it's amazing. I've learned way more in two semesters than I have in all of the time I've tried and failed to do this over the past 20 years. If your heritage language is not common and it's difficult to find a class or resources online,

take the initiative. Find other people looking to learn. I guarantee they are out there and organize a regular meetup. And don't worry, if you don't catch all this, we're gonna have it all on our episode page as well. But make sure that whatever you decide to do, that the language is all around you.

You want lots and lots of input, says heritage language expert Maria Carrera. You maximize exposure or input and you produce output. You talk to other people. Force yourself to produce something. Maybe, Shireen, you said you're not comfortable speaking. Keep a journal and write something that only you will see so you don't have to worry about, oh, I'm ashamed of my Spanish.

Write something. React to something you watched or something you read. But do it in Spanish. I've been doing a lot of note-taking and journaling in Spanish, and I can tell that my vocabulary and my comprehension has grown exponentially, which is great. But I'm still a little bit timid when it comes to having conversations in Spanish. I still get really, really nervous and forget everything that I've learned and that I've been practicing. And I'm trying not to be too hard on myself, but I'm also not going to lie. I still get very discouraged

and, you know, want to do anything but practice Spanish. How do you motivate yourself when you just feel completely unmotivated? This is something I have to deal with. I don't feel like doing it or I don't feel like going to my lesson. I try to figure out what do I love about learning languages? What is the joy that I have in the practice? So for me, that is having a little conversation and speaking Korean like to my mom or something. I get this little release of dopamine and I feel really excited and I like how she feels when we're speaking. And so I make sure I have, you know, little doses of that throughout my practice. Donna, through this process that you've been in to get better at,

you know, speaking formal Farsi, formal Persian, do you feel differently? Do you feel more connected to who you are? I do. And I like, I think this is different for everyone as well. People feel connected to their culture in all kinds of ways. And for me, I just really wanted to overcome that obstacle where I could like talk to my uncle about stuff. And I remember like there was one moment, I don't think he knows, but I was talking to one uncle who's a relatively recent arrival from, from Iran. I think we were talking about economy and inflation. And I knew all these words. And I was like, wow, I know words like inflation.

I heard later that they were talking about me. And they were like, wow, Donna's person's really good. And I felt so proud. Well, Donna and Joe echoed Maria. If you focus on the fact that you're not perfectly fluent in six months or whatever ridiculous goal you set for yourself, you're going to be frustrated and defeated because the more you learn, the more you realize you have even more to learn. That's how this works. Another way of saying it is the more you know, the more you know what you don't know. It's a long, slow process and it's okay to take breaks and come back to it. But most importantly,

and this brings me to our final takeaway, takeaway number six, celebrate your wins. Focus on the joy and share that joy with others. You heard my husband, Nico Espiritu's voice at the beginning of the show talking about all the judgment and shame that he feels for not being able to speak really good Spanish as a Latino. And we were talking about it one day at the beach in Puerto Rico when we were visiting my family. How would you describe your Spanish? No comment. It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. As bad as he says it is, I noticed he was using it way more than he normally does. And he gave me the credit.

It's helped me a lot because I've seen you be more courageous in trying to speak Spanish, to acknowledge where you don't have fluency and nevertheless try to keep going. And what it's shown is that I could do that too, or I can do that too, and that it's okay. To recap, takeaway number one, give yourself some credit. You're probably a lot better than you think you are. Takeaway number two, acknowledge that you're up against a lot. It's true. People have unrealistic expectations of your abilities and are very critical and judgmental. That sucks. The anxiety you feel, it's based on real difficulties, but it's nothing that you can't overcome.

Takeaway three, take note of your strengths. Is your comprehension on point? Your pronunciation? Are you great at having a basic conversation? Lean into those strengths to build your confidence. Takeaway four, know what you want to do with your heritage language. Dana wanted to speak more formal Persian. Jo wanted to have conversations with her mom. I wanted to stop responding to everyone in English when they were talking to me in Spanish. Takeaway five. Find the language tools that work for you. Is it a class?

Listening to podcasts? Reading a children's book? And then find opportunities to utilize what you learned. So have a conversation with a nonjudgmental family family member or friend or journal in your heritage language. It's all about maximizing input and producing output. And takeaway six, celebrate your achievements. This is a slow process. I don't know how many times I've said that, but it is. And joy is what keeps you coming back for more. So pa'lante siempre pa'lante, vale la pena. Next stop on the heritage language learning journey for me, Farsi, joda fes. That was Shireen Marisol Maragi. For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes. We have one

about how to get to know your ancestors and another on how to learn a new skill. You can find those at npr.org slash Life Kit. And if you love Life Kit and you want even more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash Life Kit newsletter. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Audrey Nguyen. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan and our visual producer is Kaz Fantoni. Our digital editors are Malika Gharib and Claire Marie Schneider. Megan Cain is our supervising editor

and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tagle, Margaret Serino, Sylvie Douglas, and Thomas Liu. Engineering support for this episode came from Daniel Shukin. Also, here's some special thanks from Shireen, Stephen Aviles, Bree Seeley, Mark Castaneda, Jen Jalati, Julia Lurie, Patricia

Alaya, and Dave Mayers. Thank you also to the folks who helped us out with background. That's Sarah Beaudry and Maricela Becerra-Garcia. I'm Mariel Cigarra. Thanks for listening. Thank you.