I want to speak my language again
Speaking two languages made me forget who I am
We live our lives through words and language. No matter what langauge(s) we speak, words are at the core of what and who we are. No matter if the words are spoken, written, or signed.
Most of my life, I lived through two languages — English and German. The latter being my native tongue, the language that shaped my foundation in ways I only now begin to realize. The first being a partly forced, yet chosen set of words, I didn’t know I needed to become who I am today. You might think I am the same in both, but I am only now, 34 years into this life, starting to think, feel, and talk the same in both English and German.
Because for the majority of my life, each language served a specific purpose. One became the language of freedom and creativity, the other of heavy history and daily life. One person, split in half by language and circumstance: the older me, a confident, unashamedly curious, happy, and loving person; and the younger me, a scared and timid little girl, who was never allowed to be. The older me learned a second language, allowing her to be free, while the younger me was stuck with words she never chose.
Learning a second language no one in my immediate family knows how to speak or understand, is a special kind of freedom. Shame, sadly, is a feeling you learn early on in my family. Any shown interest had the potential to be ridiculed for. But reading about something in a language no one understood took the shame away. It allowed me to be me, unashamed, to learn what I like, love, hate, want. It allowed me to grow a confidence that I carry with me until today.
That is why, to this day, English feels like the language of freedom. It feels like the opportunities you have on a Sunday morning without any plans. It feels like getting internet for the first time. Hearing the dial-up sound, knowing you will soon enter a world that allows you to express yourself in ways the real world never could. Sharing my writing and art on Tumblr is one of my fondest teenage memories. There probably was a space to do all of that in German, but the fear of being found out, of being known for who I really am, was too great a risk to take, whereas the online English world was an easy reprieve from the daily life I was so desperate to escape.
Feeling more promising and safe, most of the content I started to consume was in English. Books, movies, articles, TV, news, social media. Somehow, the online world was strictly English, while the real world was in German. For years, decades even, I never saw a problem with this. Because in my mind, I wasn’t a person split by language but by technology — one that lived online, and one that lived offline. I became a person split in two. And only now do I begin to realize that these two halves should be one.
Because for a while now, this life online hasn’t felt the same as it used to. Up until recently, I thought this was simply a problem of the online world, a mess caused by social media. Surely, algorithms are at fault for the constant stream of bad headlines, cancel culture, AI photos, and negativity. And surely, they are at fault for me feeling exhausted by it all. But at the beginning of this year, something began to change.
In February, Germany had a (rather spontaneous) general election. Never has an election seemed as important as this one. My vote seemed more relevant than ever. But I found myself in a position I am embarrassed to admit: I felt uninformed. Having read news mostly online and in English, I only knew the basics of German politics and issues, but had no idea what each party’s position was. I had no idea who to vote for. Luckily, there is an easy fix for that: reading. And that, of course, had to happen in German. The language I speak every day, the one my entire social life is shaped by. But the one, I had neglected for years; spiritually, mentally, and intellectually.
I went all in, started to read about democracy, and refreshed my knowledge about Germany’s difficult history with it. I read articles and opinion pieces about each party, I even went as far and read every party’s election program. And through reading in German, I noticed that it isn’t the algorithms or the technology that are at fault for me feeling exhausted by the online world. It is the language and the cultures attached to it.
What has to be understood is that US content is the most dominant English-speaking content abroad. Only a few UK, Canadian, or Australian voices make their way onto my feeds and algorithms. The easiest way to explain this feeling is like standing in a wind tunnel where the wind consists of a lot of loud voices that speak directly at you. During the short TikTok ban in the US, I got a glimpse of what social media without US content would feel like. It felt like someone had finally turned off that wind tunnel and slowed it down to a calm breeze.
And that is the exact same feeling when I switched my language settings back to German. If you are only used to CNN-like news anchors, the German ones will feel like a sleeping pill to you. Clichés exist for a reason, and while some about Germans are absolutely not true, others really are. For one, we are very direct and take most things pretty seriously. And that is how we do news. The news anchors will read them to you — to inform, not to entertain. The feeling of constant negativity and mass hysteria vanished with every boringly phrased headline and article that I read or listened to. For the first time, I felt informed, but calm. And more importantly, I felt informed about problems that actually apply to me.
Because through this process, I noticed how I’d taken on everyone else’s problems as my own. All the pointed and opinionated (English) content is designed to cause a reaction. It is designed to attack you personally, to elicit an emotional response. I couldn’t help but feel deeply for all the problems that we ‘the people’ needed to solve. Yet, most of them I can’t solve.
A video essay titled “motherhood should radicalize you” by a US creator shouldn’t radicalize me. But it did, when in reality, I am currently on maternity leave for a year, paid. Articles on Medicaid being cut in the US made me angry to no avail. But why? I’ve never seen a medical bill in my life. Healthy food is accessible and affordable here, our social security is strong, life is simple if you want it to be. Sure, our system has its faults, lots of them, but why did I keep myself busy and occupied, stressed and strung out with problems that don’t affect me, and (more importantly) problems I could never vote on?
What instead should radicalize me is a topic I haven’t seen any content creator talk about: affordable energy. But why would an English-speaking creator talk about this, when most countries have fossil fuel reserves to cushion any price shocks? When most countries didn’t scale down coal and nuclear energy a bit too quickly before renewables could catch up? When most countries didn’t tie their national identity to climate leadership, making it a highly emotional debate? So, why would someone from another country take on this problem that doesn’t affect them? They wouldn’t. Yet, somehow, I did take on problems that weren’t mine — and lost myself in the process.
(I want to make it clear that all of the issues raised above are extremely important issues that desperately need solutions. But I hope people understand that other countries do have other issues and that it is humanly impossible to occupy yourself with every existing problem across the world.)
That was the starting point of it all: fulfilling my civic duty and voting responsibly. But I continued to read and watch German news 90% of the time. Not only to not be in the same position for the next election, but to enjoy being informed. A state of being I hadn’t experienced until then. Through that, the online world I so perfectly curated for the past decades changed. Algorithms caught on to me being bilingual. All of a sudden, German content creators filled my feed, and German book and movie recommendations were sent my way.
I started to explore, and a world I didn’t know I was missing out on opened right in front of me. I feel silly to admit how long it took me to accept my native language. To accept that it gives me the exact same freedom I thought it was holding back from me.
And the German-speaking world is beautiful, one rooted in satisfaction, not ambition. One focused on living, not consuming. And that is exactly the type of content and art I’ve unknowingly been longing for my entire life. One that allows me to arrive.
XOXO
Annika
Hey Annika, I really loved your reflections on re-engaging with your first language. It's so interesting that English was the language of freedom for you - I suspect it may be true for millions of people around the world, for whom English opens up many opportunities. Like you with English, I found learning Spanish in my teens freeing and especially as I gained fluency and spent time in Spain and South America, it was strange and beautiful to see how it opened up new facets of my personality, faith and identity. But I've barely spoken it in the last decade so I sometimes wonder where that part of me has gone, or if it was ever separate to the English-speaking part. Anyway, this is one of my favourite topics because my own journey with languages is quite layered. English is my "first" language but it's not chronologically my first language, so I also have this intimate yet dissonant connection with Cantonese as the language I knew first but barely speak.
Gorgeous piece, Annika!