Why you should always put your hand up


I took part in a quiz this evening. And I totally lost – I came third with minus 6,400 points. And here’s why this story is important for you if you’re learning a foreign language.

I arrived in Berlin today for the Polyglot Gathering. It’s Saturday and some of the train tracks are closed so there were no direct trains from the airport to the Berlin central station. I ended up in Lichtenberg, which is in East Berlin and had absolutely no idea how to get to the centre. Maps and schedules in the main station hall were non-existent. The only solution I could think of was to use my DuoLingo German and ask someone for help. And so I did. The answer was ‘Es gibt keine U-Bahn’ plus a lot of sentences I didn’t understand. I said ‘danke’ and walked away frustrated, embarrassed and angry with myself. I did finally manage to find my way to Berlin Hauptbahnhof and the venue where the gathering is taking place.

At 8 o’clock, there was supposed to be a quiz which I wanted to go to as an observer and maybe chat to a few other people who didn’t want to volunteer to participate. What I did instead was I put my hand up and got selected to sit on the stage alongside two other lovely language enthusiasts – Marta and Manuel. I thought to myself for a minute – ‘What am I doing here? I’m not even a proper polyglot!’ But I somehow managed to brush this thought aside – I didn’t let it stay in my head for too long. I thought – ‘I might have just failed when asking for directions at Lichtenberg station but hey, I can do this (or so I thought!)’.

The quiz was a ‘Jeopardy’-style one. I initially misunderstood the rules and then took a lot of risk, lost lots of points and found myself totally in the deep end with a lot of the questions. As I honestly said to the quiz audience, my specialism lies in ‘boring’ languages such as French and Spanish, rather than Esperanto, Cantonese and Finnish. I lost so badly that it became quite entertaining!

After the quiz, a lot of peole came up to chat to me. It was so nice to hear they were supporting the underdog! I had a great laugh with them. I found out so many things about different languages and the reasons why people study them. I was amazed at the extent of genious that permeates the language learning community, and fascinated by the amount of courage and passion that language learners have! But above all, I learned to put my hand up, despite the fact that I’m shy at heart, and to have a go – because you never know what’s going to come out of all this.

So, if you’re learning a language and you’re not confident in your ability, if you hesitate whether to say something or not when other people are talking, if you’re worried you’re going to make a mistake, I’d say – just go for it and embrace the unknown! If I ever end up at Berlin Lichtenberg again, I’m sure I know what I will do – have a go and see what happens.

Good night, polyglots.