At any moment of any day, a huge number of people from almost every country. The reasons for studying may vary. Sometimes the reason is simply one of interest, sometimes it is because the student intends to visit a country that uses that language, and sometimes it is to help with a future career. For some people it is simply because the language is a subject at school or college. Whatever the reason, one thing that all language learners are certain to discover is that mastering a new language while it is exciting, can also be an extremely frustrating experience — and one which almost always leads the learner into embarrassing situations at some time or another. Just last week I took a taxi to visit my friend and decided to try out a few words I had recently learned in Cantonese. I leant forward, tapped the taxi driver on his shoulder and said what I thought were the words for “Block 4,” the address of my colleague. The taxi driver turned white, stopped the car and looked very frightened. I later discovered I had confused the tones of the words for “Block 4,” and had told him that he was dead!

Learning a new language is not simply a matter of memorizing lots of vocabulary and grammar rules. So much of the meaning of a word or expression is carried in the context in which it is used. In one context, a word can be a perfectly innocent term. However, in another context, it can be totally inappropriate. It can be either simply incorrect or very insulting. Things are made even worse by the fact that a literal language is like a living organism in that it grows and develops. Words can change their meanings quite quickly so that their meanings are no longer the ones most people understand.

English, with its rich and varied vocabulary, extensive range of idioms and colloquial expressions, and complex rules of pronunciation, is particularly difficult for the learner. It is quite possible for non-native speakers to sound rude and offensive simply because they use the wrong tone. The way we speak says a lot about our mood, personality, attitude to the listener and state of mind at that time. It would be very easy for the speaker to send the wrong signals to the listener and unintentionally create an awkward situation. A Spanish speaker recently visited my house for dinner. My wife had spent all day preparing a wonderful meal. At the end of the meal, our guest said that the meal had been “quite nice.” My wife became upset and thought that our guest had been very rude. However, the word “quite” can mean “very much” or “a little.” Our guest had meant the meal was very nice; my wife had interpreted it as a little bit nice!

Another problem is that attitudes towards the names of things and people vary from country to country and even from person to person. Some people attach tremendous importance to names, while others see them simply as a convenient and accurate way of referring to something or someone. For example, over 300 years ago the famous English writer, William Shakespeare, said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Even a seemingly innocent word like “foreigner” can be insulting and can cause offence to certain people if used in a specific context. It may be interpreted to mean not only an individual from a foreign land, but also an outsider, someone who does not belong. How is the non-native speaker to master such subtle shades of meaning? Other words can be seen as showing good or “positive” qualities by the language learner when they actually have the opposite meaning to the native speaker of the language. Examples might be terms like “working class”, “cheap” or “plain.” These terms would all tend to have positive meanings to a Chinese language learner but a more negative meaning to the native speakers of English or, perhaps, to other non-native speakers of English who are not Chinese.

Things become even more confusing for the learner when terms that can be offensive are regularly used by native speakers of a language. For example, all languages have words that refer to different nationalities and these terms are not always complimentary. The English are called by a variety of names all over the world. Americans often called them “limeys” because the British sailors used to eat large quantities of limes to help prevent disease. Australians call them “pommies,” a name derived from a number of possible sources including the fact that British skin, often fair, became very red under the hot Australian sun and soon resembled the local fruit — pomegranates; or that their skin is as white as a potato and the French term for potato includes the word “pomme” — neither term is very complimentary!

Scholars tell us that words reflect a society’s values and prejudices. The Chinese have many words for “rice” and for family relationships; the British have many words for “conversation” and “rain!” This is because these things are important in these cultures. On the other hand, in certain languages, there may well be no word to describe certain things simply because that thing does not exist in that culture. For example, in Chinese there is a specific term for “happy noise” which does not seem to have a corresponding word in most other languages. Sometimes, then, the language learner may not understand a word simply because the word can not be translated accurately into his or her own language. This term is likely to be always misused or quickly forgotten.

Of course, as most language learners will have already discovered, the real challenge for a non-native speaker of a language is the correct understanding and use of idioms! These are groups of words that have a meaning different from that expressed by the individual words. One of the beauties of the English language is that it is very rich in idioms — which is not good news to a learner of English. It is difficult to imagine the meaning conveyed to the language learner by such terms as “raining cats and dogs” (raining very heavily), “he’s all fingers and thumbs” (he’s very clumsy) or even single words such as “I was stumped” (I was unable to explain or answer).

So why do so many people study a new language? Of course the answer is that despite the difficulties, most people succeed in learning the language to different levels of proficiency. The answer is determination and hard work — learning a language is never easy. However, the answer is also to enjoy the language and enjoy the actual learning process involved in learning the language. My experience with  the taxi driver did not make me decide to stop studying Cantonese, it made me even more determined to succeed. My Spanish guest’s accidental insult to my wife is now an amusing after-dinner story which both of them enjoy telling. Language learning does take a lot of work, but it also takes a lot of sensitivity and a willingness to laugh at ourselves when we make mistakes. If ever something was best learnt by trial-and-error methods it is a new language. Use the language confidently, make mistakes, and be confident that the mistakes can be corrected and eventually the language can be mastered.