One day, while surfing the channels, I came across a TV show from Celebrity Chef Rick Bayless.  I have been familiar with Rick Bayless for some time.  He is an expert in cooking Mexican food, and an all around cool guy, in my opinion.  From 1980 through 1986, Rick lived in Mexico to learn more about the culture and cooking of Mexico.  These days, Rick has a restaurant in Chicago called Frontera Grill, and other Frontera restaurants around the country as well.  Additionally, Rick has a TV show about Mexican culture and food called Mexico: One Plate at a Time.  This is the show that I caught a couple weeks ago, and to be honest it is the only episode of the show I have ever seen.  While watching the show, I learned that Rick is fluent in Spanish.

Rick Bayless - Expert in Mexican Food

For those who don’t know me through my other websites, I am an American, but I have been living in the Philippines for about 11 years now.  About 4 years ago, I decided to learn to speak the language here.  There are many languages used in the Philippines.  There are two “official languages”: Tagalog and English.  But, if you get out and away from Manila, the number of languages grows a lot.  Here in the area where I live (the Southern Philippines) the most widely spoken language is Cebuano, so when I decided to learn the language, I decided to learn Cebuano, since it is the most useful in the area where I live.  Since I’ve been studying for nearly 4 years now, I am fairly fluent in the language.  Not perfect, but I can carry on a good conversation with the local people.

While watching Rick’s TV show, I saw where he would go to little out of the way restaurants in Mexico.  Not to the “tourist” places, rather to restaurants that only the locals knew about.  Many of the places he went to were street vendors.  Rick would go up to the vendors and cooks and speak in fluent Spanish to them, asking about the food, their cooking methods and such.  I sat there really enjoying watching him interact with the local people in their language.  I was thinking how important it is to learn the language if you are in a different country, and thinking how cool it was for him to be able to interact in the local language like that.  After a few minutes it dawned on me that I do exactly the same thing.  Any time that I go out around town, I only speak in Cebuano.

I made my shopping list in Cebuano

A few days later, I decided that I wanted to mimic what Rick did and just have a fun day out on the town, and experience the Philippine culture.  I decided to cook a local dish for my lunch.  My first step, though, would be to buy my ingredients, go to the local market for that, ride only local transportation, and so on.  First thing I did was to make a list of ingredients.  I even wrote out my list in Cebuano.  I rode a jeepney (local mode of transport) to the open air market for my ingredients.  I had fun speaking with the vendors there, asking them about their offerings, how to cook a certain dish, etc.  It was really a lot of fun.  I did come home and cook my food, using local style and flavors too.  What a great day, and a lot of fun that I experienced.

Learning a new language is not an easy task, but it is worth your time!  If you are going to travel to, and especially spend significant time in a different country, try to learn the language, at least enough to speak a few sentences.  You will find that the rewards of doing so are great.  The local people will appreciate it so much, and you will have a lot more fun on your trip, or your new home.

Learning a language is a good habit too.  It stimulates your mind.  It makes you feel part of the society where you live.  It’s a good thing!  Give it a try!

In truth, you can be smart, yet also be ignorant.  Smart only entails the ability to learn, not that you actually have learned many things.  Having a high IQ would mean that you are able to learn, not that you have actually accomplished the task of learning.

Albert Einstein was smart and also well learned

The truth is, though, that on average, people who are smart have also gone to the trouble of learning many things.  Still, though, smart people are very likely ignorant on some subjects, even many subjects.  For example. a person may be very intelligent, yet they may also have a total lack of interest in history, and have avoided the subject, thus they might be quite ignorant on the topic.

Does your brain have the capacity to learn?

Other people may have a great capacity to gain knowledge, but have lived a sheltered life that did not afford them the opportunity to learn very much in the way of a formal education.  Not having knowledge does not mean that a person is unable to learn, only that to this point they have not learned, even if they can easily do it.

So, a couple of things come to mind.  Firstly, if you are an intelligent person, it is not a good habit to get into to consider yourself a “know it all” or to think that you are overly informed on any topic under the sun.  If you give off this sort of aura, you may find it difficult to find friends, or people who even want to spend time with you.  Secondly, if you are smart, and come across another person who seems to have little knowledge, you should not assume that the person is stupid, only that they have not had the opportunity to learn the things that you know.

On the other hand, if you are only of average intelligence, or below, you should not assume that smart people know a lot more than you do, because in fact, they may not.  They only have the ability to learn more information than you do.  Being able to learn and actually doing so are not the same thing.

Think of your brain like a muscle.  When you go to the gym, or engage in exercise of some kind, your muscles become more toned, they develop, they get stronger.  If you are a smart person, your brain has the ability to develop and learn things.  However, you must exercise your brain in order for it to get the maximum benefit, and for it to be able to learn more.

About 2 years ago, I started learning a new language.  The language that I am learning is not a well known language, but it is the primary language where I live.  I am an American, and I live in the Southern Philippines.  I have lived here for nearly a decade already.  But, up until about 2 years ago, I did not make a serious effort to learn the language here.  Many people here can speak enough English to get by, so I did not motivate myself to learn the language widely spoken here, which is called Bisaya.

This is me with my language teacher, Bebe

I have a teacher who comes and gives me lessons once per week at my house.  She is an excellent teacher.  I did make two earlier attempts at learning the language, but I was not motivated enough and did not go beyond the very elementary stages of learning the language.  Now, though, with the right attitude, a willingness to learn, and the proper teacher, I am nearly fluent in the language.  I can carry on a fairly in depth conversation in the Bisayan language, and feel fairly comfortable in doing so.

The point to this, though, is that learning a language has really changed my way of thinking.  It has opened my mind to new ideas, not only ideas about the language itself, but the way that I think about the culture here has also changed for the better.  I am more open to accepting things that would normally be outside my box.  Getting outside your box, while challenging, is also a stimulant in itself.  Allowing your brain to think differently, and notice things that you would normally dismiss with only minimal recognition is a great habit to get into.  It helps you not only discover new things about the world and about yourself, but it also re-invents who you are in many ways.

Over the past couple of years, I have mostly learned through studying.  Reading books about the rules of the language.  Studying lists of vocabulary words, and memorizing them.  Some words have been tough to learn, and I have had to resort to tricks to make my mind remember.  For example, the Bisaya word for “farm” is “uma.”  I had a hard time remembering that.  Then, I told myself that Uma Thurman, the actress, lives on a farm.  I have no idea if she really does, I kind of doubt she does.  But, it was just a trick that helped me remember that “Uma” was “Farm.”  So, playing these little tricks helped my brain pick up on these various things that I was trying to learn.

Now, after a year and a half or so of “book learning” I started feeling comfortable enough in the language that I decided to try to use the language as much as possible when I was out in public.  I even make special trips to stores and to the public market specifically for the purpose of spending a few hours talking to people in their language.

Actually using the language in regular, normal conversation gave my mind a new way to learn!  Not only was I studying from a book, but I was picking up on the way the real people spoke in real day to day life.  Real spoken language is not always the exact same thing as language in a book!  By taking on this new way of learning, I found that I was easily learning concepts that I could never properly remember when I was just reading a book!  There were several key breakthroughs that came to me this way.  I knew these things from the book, but always had trouble remembering them when needed.  But, after just a few uses in regular spoken language, these became very natural to me.

So, my experience in learning the language has given my mind a new exercise that it was not used to.  Just like if you added sit-ups to your morning exercise routine, you started using a new muscle, learning the language, and doing so by different methods has exercised different parts of my brain that were probably pretty dormant before.  It’s a good feeling to see development happening in my brain, and how that manifests itself in my daily life.

Exercise your brain!  Force it to go outside the box!  I think you’ll be happy that you did it.  I know I am!