Part 11 of 21 improvements BJJ has had on my life. This was inspired by Tangled Triangle: 21 Days of Improvement. You can read my Part 10 here!
11/21 Improvements from BJJ: Interacting with non-English speakers
I came to Korea in 2010. I could say “hello” and I could count to 10 in Korean. I started teaching Korean English-teachers how to teach English. Every day I interacted with people only in English, with the only real need for Korean when I went to the supermarket and had to ask “How much is it” or “Where is the shampoo” or at the restaurant to ask “Please give me lettuce.”
“Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.”‒Dave Barry
Honestly, aside from very practical Korean – getting to and fro, and living, I had no need to learn Korean. I did not need it to survive or for my social life – I was surrounded by good English-speakers. Jiu jitsu changed this. All of a sudden I was interacting with people more socially and had a need to introduce myself to them, find out how long they’d been doing BJJ, etc. Doing BJJ in Korea has created more of a need to learn Korean.
Am I perfect at it? Oh dear lord no. And yes, I often feel on the outside because of the language gap. It’s hard to connect with people socially when you don’t share a common language and when you’re operating on a very primitive language level. But it is really cool to get to meet and interact with folks and have a need to use my Korean.
Jiu Jiu’s Question: Has jiu jitsu created a need to operate within a foreign language for you? Do your instructors speak your native language? How do you interact with non-native speakers in your academy?
[…] Part 12 of 21 improvements BJJ has had on my life. This was inspired by Tangled Triangle: 21 Days of Improvement. You can read my Part 11 here! […]
As a non-native English speaker I owe big to jiu jitsu. I studied English for years in school but never really used it save playing video games. After I started in martial arts (first MMA, then jiu jitsu) I began to frequent internet forums, read articles and watch youtube instructionals. May vocabulary expanded greatly, as well as hearing comprehension. When we had an English exam as a part of our final tests in school I nearly laughted of how easy the listening part became for me during that year in martial arts. How one can even compare typical dialogue or part of weather forecast to trying to understand somoeone with heavy Brazilian accent and head covered in his own Gi? :)))
Jiu jitsu also opened me to Portuguese. It’s funny I had an opportunity to study it (European version) in school but wasn’t interested. Only after training camp with a Brazilian black belt (and watching “Tropa de elite”) I decided that in fact I LOVE the melody of (Brazilian) Portuguese. In fact I’m writing this comment as a sertanejo (Brazilian music genre) song plays from my speakers 🙂 Without jiu jitsu I would never thoght of learning Portuguese. I have alredy used it when talking in person to some accidentally met Brazilian. Jiu jitsu gave me the confidence to not be scared to try despite I learned all on my own.
I was always considered good with Russian, but I felt mediocre at best with my English. Now I’m feeling way more confident in using it. So yes, jiu jitsu had a huge impact on my foreign language study. I moved from “the Russian-speaking guy” to “the languages guy”.
Recently I started to blog about Brazilian jiu jitsu in Russian – the language I still love the most. I expect more great to happen to me because I do BJJ. Thank you, jiu jitsu (or “obrigado”)! 🙂
That’s very cool! Recently I’ve been taking Korean lessons, and I have the same feeling – the lessons feel simple in comparison to trying to sort through listening to directions in Korean.
Congrats on the blog – keep it up! It’s really easy for white belts and new blogs to wash out (quit).