Language, in and of itself, is one of the most powerful and meaningful parts of a persons life. From a young age we slowly develop this tool that allows us to have our say and interact with the world, in some cases becoming great leaders or influencers through the strength of our words and expression of our character alone. It’s often said that the world becomes wider when you understand more of someone else’s language. That can be their personal understanding of the world or an entirely different tongue altogether. The benefits and advantageous to becoming bilingual, or even multilingual if you’re really on the ball, is that you have so much more access to content, cultures, careers and companionship. I feel the most important thing, and the reason I wanted to write about it today, is how much of a personal journey it can be. It comes with ups and downs and potentially a lot of mental fatigue and struggle but the rewards, even in the early stages, are satisfying.
My language background started the same way many of you might have. In school I spent some time learning French and Spanish but never really got hooked, in hindsight I would say this was predominantly down to poor lessons or a particularly cruel teacher as now I personal do enjoy a little bit of Spanish, but for the most part I was content continuing through life without thinking I’d need anything more than my English. It wasn’t until my early 20’s that I started to find a passion for other cultures and had my first hurdle that required a new way of thinking. Me and my brother were avid game fanatics (and still are, could you tell?) and I owe a lot of who I am to him and our time together adventuring through various fictional worlds. While I was in Uni, bored and without purpose, my brother gave me a copy of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd. This was the first time I had personally seen a console release of Monster Hunter as I had been reserved to the PSP titles so I was excited however, it came with the slight hiccup. The game was a Japan only release and was written entirely in Japanese….
I struggled through playing for hours, trying my best to pick up what I could from menus and dialogue but didn’t make very much progress at all. I delved into the writing scripts, found dictionaries, downloaded apps and pushed hard to understand every morsel that I could. This trend would continue on and on, to the point where now I no longer play games in English, much to the avail of my friends and family. I had followed this rabbit hole without even thinking about the consequences and ended up finding something amazing. From a small moment like this my entire passion for languages flourished, fast forward a few years and I come to the realization that I know what I want to do with my life.
It’s an unfortunate fact but I have suffered with severe depression since I can remember however I was always known as that sweet, kind person that would go out of his way at the drop of a hat to help those around him. I was content with doing everything I could for others while I hid my darker emotions and slogged through life. I never maintained any energy for myself and coasted through a lot of my years without achieving goals that would easily be attainable. I got older and older and continued to let myself down and be depressed, but I would continue to disregard this as long as my peers were happy.
With the the worldly situation turning more and more dire I ended up indoors constantly and being eaten up by more and more negative thoughts, but with the help of those who knew my passions I was able to start the tiniest of projects that helped people and had value. This is by no means a big part of any one’s life other than my own at this stage but I had built something that was my heart and soul. The depression is still there, but thanks to languages and the world I’ve been exposed to, I’m now sad for me, and I’m happy for me. From this point every step taken is going to find me new friends, new recipes, new media and new places and that excites me more than anything. Without going to much into the future of this platform I have hopes to continue this path through Japanese and onto other languages. Is it going to be feasible? Who knows, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it and if that’s the case sign me up. I’m no longer afraid of failure or not amounting to anything I’m just scared of what the future has to hold but in all the right ways.
My goal through all of this is to find even one person out there and to light the fuse on the passion they didn’t realize they had. If I’ve learnt anything from this long winding journey its that passion is the crux of everything and if language is your passion then join me and make your world wider.
Games & Kanji 