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I don’t know anything. Not a thing.

I’ve heard the greatest pain with learning languages, and indeed with any intellectual endeavor, isn’t the ennui of long lectures or grammar/vocabulary studies. Nor is it the potential loneliness of these long study sessions. No. The true pain from learning languages is the utter confusion. The confusion and the knowledge that, “the bigger the circle of the known, the greater the contact with the unknown.” I don’t know who originally said that, it might have come from Einstein’s quote of a similar sentiment, but ultimately its origin doesn’t matter. What matters is that more than anything, studying languages has shoved this thought to the forefront of my mind.

But, to me, that isn’t really a bad thing. It’s not painful. In a way, it’s exciting.

Before I fully explain the relevance these concepts have toward my study abroad trip to Spain, I want to make a potentially inappropriate analogy with another one of my favorite pastimes: video games.

Learning languages, at least, the fun way of learning them, feels like a really good RPG (a Role Playing Game, for those of you not in the know). You begin with the baby steps, entering a world full of life and beauty. You see all of its possibilities and breadth without fully understanding—or appreciating—that those are lands you will soon have to visit. Not to mention conquer. You take those baby steps along a novice path. There might be the occasional branching path, or distracting brook, but you continue on that first trail with a naïve smile, unaware of what’s to come. Because then those branching paths begin sprouting up all over the place, like the decapitated necks of a hydra, and you can’t seem to escape them. Some go up mountains, through swamps, under bridges, across deserts, where ever. And once you’ve walked around a bit, and seen the lay of the land, your once tidy quest book now reads like an enormous novel—or a moderately sized language textbook wink wink. And for the dedicated gamer, and language learner, this is not a hindrance but an excitement. Just look at all the places I’m going to go. All the things I’m going to learn. Yes, it will be tough. I might even present a quest that’s far past my present level, but I’ll do it with a smile, even if it’s a naïve one, stretched across my face.

Spain, to fit the analogy, felt way beyond my level. I had been studying Spanish for five years prior, almost to the day, when I got on my first plane ride to Atlanta and then my second plane ride to Spain. This is five years of nearly daily study, from college classes, a nearly completed Duolingo course, hundreds of hours of reading/TV watching and a gross amount of time speaking in both online and IRL conversations.

But when that plane took off and I felt the G forces shoot to the moon, I began to get nervous. This was a new quest. A new brook or mountain or dungeon left to conquer. And how did I fare?

I went to over a dozen Spanish museums and read so much historical-jargon-filled Spanish, it made my head spin just thinking about going into another museum.

I stayed with Margarita, my host mother, who only spoke Spanish and I managed to live with her for four days without having to rely on any sort of translator. Plus, I never did feel like there was a language barrier. Maybe a language hurdle. One that I had to trip and stumble over like a three-legged stunt horse but I did it. And when I did, I sometimes felt more like an ass than some horse—a monolingual ass—but I did it.

I helped familiar classmates throughout the trip with translations and in-person speaking when their Spanish had been pushed to the limit.

And with all this said, did I conquer that mountain? That dungeon? Well. You tell me. Knowledge and experience are funny things, often best viewed over the back of one’s shoulder. So I guess I should know now, almost two weeks after the trip, but I guess I don’t.

I just can’t wait for what’s next.

The trip was amazing, and I can’t wait for another study abroad or personal study trip in the future. Maybe one to Germany, where I can finally practice my German, which I believe is almost as competent as my Spanish. Or I can go to Japan, and really cement in my brain just how bloody difficult Japanese is to the human mind and further understand that I really need to study more Kanji.

And this might sound tangential, but I think it wraps up my thoughts pretty nicely:

The US Department of State ranks languages into four categories based on their difficulty to learn by an English speaker. Spanish is a Category I, meaning it is relatively easy (or easier) to learn for an English speaker. Japanese is a category IV, which means it is the hardest to learn for an English speaker. But… this only excites me more.
I don’t know anything. And the more I study, the more I travel (thank you ÿ�մ�����վ Honors Grant Committee!), and the more I learn, the more I realize just how little I know. It’s a paradox. And for some learners, this is discouraging. They are constantly battling with themselves to attain as much knowledge as possible, just for knowledge’s sake, to somehow arbitrarily increase the percentage of available knowledge they have.

But it shouldn’t be like that.

For me, this constant discovery of new places to go and explore is exciting. And without this trip, this great adventure, I don’t think I ever would have fully realized that.

Tyler Nicholson
Linguistics & Modern Languages
Class of 2025