The Polyglot Predicament: Five Rules for Bilingual Bliss

Many years ago, when I was a young first-time entrepreneur, I attended a conference where a well-known French business figure was giving a talk. He spoke good English but with the quintessential mangled th’s and guttural Gallic r’s. After he finished, I approached him and asked a question in French, thinking he'd be pleased to have me do the heavy lifting. His reaction surprised me, so much so that I haven’t entirely stopped thinking about it since then:

Oh my god, my English must be really bad!

This anecdote illustrates an aspect of multilingual communication that is under-appreciated, if not entirely unrecognized. Most people seem to assume that everyone, if given the choice, will prefer to communicate in their native language. Why do something difficult, like speak a foreign language, if you don’t have to?

The truth, however, is considerably more complicated. In fact, I've found that more often than not, the exact opposite tends to be true. I speak a few languages and live in a far-away land, and it happens all the time that both I and the person I’m talking to would clearly prefer to be speaking the other’s native language.

Why is this? Self-determination theory (SDT), a widely accepted psychological theory, provides a plausible explanation. According to SDT, humans have three universal and innate needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. In other words: we like to be in control, be good at stuff, and be with other people. All of these come into play when opting to speak to someone in their native language: I’m choosing the ground rules of the conversation (autonomy) and engaging in a social activity (relatedness), while getting an endorphin boost from exercising a skill that I’ve potentially worked hard to master (competence). Just as it can be extremely enjoyable to excel at a sport or musical instrument, speaking a foreign language fluently is just plain fun.

So what should you do when you come face-to-face with someone who wants to speak to you in your language, while you want to speak to them in theirs? This happens to me practically every day, but I’ve never seen the issue discussed online, or found any guidelines for how to approach this dilemma. So I decided to come up with my own rules... and here they are.

Local language über alles

The most important consideration, in my view, is the local language of the country you’re in. It’s virtually impossible to master a foreign language without speaking it regularly. To the extent that someone aims to learn the local language when moving to a new country, they need to be given the opportunity to speak it, even though at the beginning they will naturally do so very poorly. If the natives hear you butchering their beloved tongue and immediately respond in English, your chance of improving is practically nil. Hence my rule no. 1: whenever possible, be patient and give people the opportunity to speak the local language if they are clearly making an effort to learn it.

(Although I don’t want to turn this into a hit piece on the Czech people, I can’t resist pointing out that their attitude in this regard is really terrible. I regularly get astonished reactions when speaking Czech because “foreigners can’t speak Czech”, but when someone actually tries to do so, they blithely plow over them in English until the would-be learner gives up. The same thing happens in other countries, of course, but it’s particularly prevalent here, presumably because the language is so hard—and objectively pretty useless—that few foreigners make a serious effort to learn it. On the flip side, Czechs do make great beer.)

Context matters

There are exceptions to this rule, of course. For example, sometimes locals want to take advantage of opportunities to practice another language. I often go to events targeted mainly at expats, and the Czechs who attend typically do so in part because they want to hone their English skills. And I sometimes see foreigners with good Czech speaking English to everyone except the locals, leaving the latter understandably bemused. Rule no. 2: speak the language of the group you're with, even with those whose native language you speak well.

Capitalize on competence

All things being equal, the purpose of language is to communicate. Particularly in a work setting, it’s not about showing off your mad Mandarin skills or boning up on your Bulgarian. Don't start stammering in your ropey high school Spanish with a prospective client who clearly speaks great English. Rule no. 3: Especially in professional contexts, defer to your conversational partner if they are more proficient in your language than you are in theirs.

English patience

All things being equal, English is the lingua franca of the day. It’s the language most spoken by non-natives by a country mile. I still like to speak French when I get the opportunity, both because it’s fun and because I don’t want to get too rusty. But if I meet a French person here in Prague and they want to speak English, they should get precedence. We’re not in France, after all, and it's not their job to help me improve my French proficiency. Rule no. 4: When in doubt, speak English.

Conversational courtesy

Finally, consider whether you might not want to throw all these rules out the window and accommodate the other person, just because it’s the nice thing to do. I recently organized a meeting with a Czech startup founder that I didn't know. As is my wont, I spoke Czech when I called them up to schedule the meeting. When I arrived at their office a few days later, they immediately launched into (very good) English. And of course, my immediate reaction was:

Oh my god, my Czech must be really bad!

When writing a follow-up email after the meeting, I thought long and hard about whether to write it in Czech or English. (This might seem a bit pathological—and probably is—but as you may have gathered by now, this is something of a long-standing pet peeve of mine.) My counterpart had blithely ignored my rule no. 1, after all. Was I supposed to take this lying down!?

In the end, I channeled my inner Dale Carnegie and continued the communication in English. And guess what, it felt good and even empowering to “be the bigger man” and make a conscious choice to accommodate the other party.

It’s a bit of a conundrum. If you always cede to the other person, you’ll never master their language, because you’ll never get the opportunity to practice it. This option is therefore most applicable to those who already speak the language in question well. If that’s the case, try to accede to the other’s preferences when they clearly want to speak your language. Being kind can be its own reward, and it will probably make you more popular to boot. Rule no. 5: If you already speak their language well, do your best to put your ego aside and accommodate the other person.