a bilingual encounter

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.

onto today’s topic: a bilingual encounter 🗣️ 

i am now in tokyo and a few days ago after checking in, an elderly woman staying in the same hostel room approached me and asked something in french that i swear was just straight gibberish.

it took me a second to kick my brain into french mode and i soon realized she was just asking me where the bathroom was. i mustered out a “sur la droite!” and spent the next few minutes mulling over just how rusty my french has gotten.

i mean, it has been 2 years since i last spoke / learned french intensively (i finished that in grade 11 with ib french …) so it’s only natural, but that feeling of understanding what the other person is saying and not being able to string together sentences fluently in response is frustrating. 😞 

that woman, claudine, gained 2 things from that brief interaction: bathroom coordinates, and the fact that there was someone in this hostel that could understand her to a decent extent.

this realization prompted her to ask us if we knew where she could purchase souvenirs. however, there are some very important pieces of information to keep in mind:

• claudine doesn’t know any english and is traveling all by herself

• she is not willing to use the metro

• we are staying in a department store-type neighbourhood and she is looking for street markets (which are on the other side of tokyo)

• she refuses to use google maps or any map apps 🗾 

so yeah, it was a bit of a struggle trying to help this sweet lady out, but this chance encounter enabled by the wonder of language landed us literally taking claudine to one of my favourite souvenir store chains (loft) on foot. we walked for 15 minutes together and described the purpose of each of the store’s 5 floors.

she found her souvenirs and i hope she also felt a little less alone. language is powerful, soak in as many as you can!

daily opportunity + resource drops 🔍️