An Analyst Looks at Languages, Cultures, and Translations

For many years I have been interested in languages. It gives me pleasure to use those that I am conversant with and to compare their idioms, their structures, and their patterns. I marvel at the enormous variety of expressions that they offer their user, at the similarities that are like bridges between them, and at the enormous differences that separate others like chasms.

I came to develop this avocation by accident rather than by intent, when the vagaries of history forced me to acquire fluency in several languages in succession. My first adventure occurred when, at age 19, I left Germany to resume my medical studies in Italy. As I struggled to learn to speak again I believed that my task would be completed once I had acquired some vocabulary, familiarized myself with the grammar, and learned to pronounce everything with the proper Italian intonation. After 2 years it dawned on me that the skills I possessed were indeed necessary, but that they were no more than a beginning. Even though I no longer made any obvious mistakes and my diction came close to the local usage, I remained somehow foreign. My way of thinking influenced what I wanted to say. My imagery, my associations, my likes and dislikes, and all the myriads of unconscious preverbal functions had developed in a setting where German was spoken. I realized that it would not be enough to master the new language. Even if I were to succeed in losing all traces of a foreign accent and never use a wrong irregular verb form, something would still be missing. I did not know at the time what the nature of this intangible something was that kept eluding me for years. I don't think that I tried to define it. I certainly lacked the equipment with which to tackle complex psychological problems, but I did sense that it involved more than language. In order to speak Italian like an Italian, I would have to be like an Italian, to act and to feel like one. I cannot describe how this is done, but I know that the task