Letter From The Cities Intern

Want to hear an outrageously hot take? So, there is this really interesting fact not many people know about me. I can speak six languages in total and am currently learning a seventh. It pains me to say this but last year I realized just how useless having this knowledge is in this world. Let me go through this fabulous learning journey with you.

Of course I can speak Portuguese because that is my native language. I come from Rio de Janeiro and for me Portuguese is the language of footb…I mean, soccer, the language of food and curiously heavy expletives. From an early age I was enrolled in an English language school and soon after beating all of my video game campaign modes in English I was able to say it was my second language. English became the language for work and study as it took over my life in the university years. What pisses me off is the fact that all the other five languages for me seem to be useless when considering my life choices.

In fact, the decision to learn to speak the other five languages all arose from two common factors: an appetite for discovering the world and an unparalleled jealousy of those kids who grow up in trilingual families. I learned Spanish in high school because none of my classmates cared about it as most of them thought Spanish speakers would understand the ‘Portunhol’ (the ‘Spanglish’ but for Portuguese speakers). I learned German because I wanted to look cool and thought I needed a bigger challenge (why does it have to be so hard!). I learned French because at the time I wanted to be a diplomat and it was a required language in many admission exams, but then I learned to love it (the ‘beautiful’ language). I learned Italian because I had to during the summertime in Sicily, Italy. I am learning Chinese because not only was I intrigued by how it sounds but also most of my friends speak it.

I learned that I can’t use any of those skills for anything other than the “fun fact” in meetings. So far, all of my attempts at effectively communicating through those languages have felt short of my expectations as people impulsively switch to English. It gets even worse when I see companies creating from time to time the new definitive translation device (maybe powered by AI, who knows). The language hype is over.

I believe there really are good sides to a world where everybody can understand each other because they speak the same language—most of my experience in Europe was like that, as people would switch to English at first glance. But that ruins it. That ruins the experience of feeling so lost in a place you are forced to learn the language or else. The real quality of a multilingual world is the diversity of culture, as language inherently carries it. How can I discover the world if the world has already discovered me before I even met them?

I stand by my decisions, nevertheless, and will keep forging ahead in this endeavor, even though some robot AI will eventually make me obsolete.

Atenciosamente / Kind regards / Atentamente / Cordialement / Mit besten Grüßen / Cordialmente / 此致 敬礼 ,

Gabriel Matias Castilho (江涛 )

Cities Intern