Language - so much more than words

Speaking a language is not just knowing the words and what order to put them in to make other people understand what you want. Language is cultural and historical. A lot of expressions that makes sense to all the natives could be gibberish for a newcomer, even though the newcomer know the words.

I've come to accept that I won't get all the cultural or historical references in English. If someone tells a joke and everyone around me laughs, I'll smile politely and try to remember it so I can ask someone later. I won't ask in a group, that will give me too much of the spotlight and make me too self-conscious. But I'm not embarrassed to ask a friend what something means when we're alone. Friends help each other and I sometimes need help with this foreign language they speak in my new country.

Last Friday we went to see Spamalot. Even though I know the story and am fluent in English I knew that some jokes would be lost on me through language barriers, both cultural and in pronunciation. I was right, I got 95% of what was happening on stage, but every now and then a word or a reference would fly past me without me realising what it meant.

The show was still highly amusing and I don't feel like I missed out on the lost jokes. The same goes for the stand up comedy show we went to a couple of weeks ago, I had to ask A on a couple of cultural references, but I didn't feel like I missed much. The part I understood was hilarious!