For foreigners like me who moved to Estonia as adults, learning the language can be the last barrier to feeling truly integrated. It is a humbling experience to move to a new country and learn a new language to which you’ve had no prior exposure. Trying to speak to locals in Estonian only for them to flip to English the second they detect uncertainty can be demoralizing. Even when you try to practice with other foreigners, the conversation level drops to choppy, stilted sentences, and it isn’t long before you all revert back to speaking English to be able to get your point across.
After taking two Estonian courses, I can now recognize enough words in everyday conversations to understand what people are speaking about, but not enough to actually participate meaningfully in the conversation. And I can carry out a basic retail interaction: “Hello. I’ll pay by card please. I won’t be needing a bag, thanks. Have a good day!” Rinse and repeat. I should have more to show for my nearly two years living in Estonia but the repetition of these interactions is what gradually builds the confidence to speak more. I think back to when I was still terrified to order food in Estonian. It took a little over a year, but I managed to shake the fear that a rogue question or deviation from my script would expose me as a long-term tourist cosplaying a Tallinn local.
My mindset changed when I met someone who told me it was intimidating to speak to me in English because I am a native speaker, and she got self-conscious of stumbling over pronunciation or having imperfect grammar. Meanwhile, I have only ever been impressed by how much of the population in Tallinn is multilingual. Not only can they speak multiple languages, they can attend university or work in a non-native tongue, or learn a fourth language in a class taught in their third language. As language learners we need to extend to ourselves the same grace and patience that we give others and allow ourselves the space to be wrong. There is a lot of courage in being willing to sound silly, be excluded from conversations, and carry on anyway. Language is about communication: not having perfect grammar or shedding your accent, but to understand and be understood.
These differences are apparent in how my Estonian partner and I have tried to learn each others’ languages: I have higher vocabulary recall but struggle with Estonian case endings, whereas he has more difficulty remembering Cantonese words due to the tones, but can more easily incorporate new words into sentences because of Cantonese’s relatively straightforward grammar structure.
This time around, I am wary of repeating the same mistakes I made as a kid. My family moved from Hong Kong to Toronto when I was just learning to speak full sentences so growing up, I was so afraid of making mistakes that although I understood Cantonese when my parents spoke it, I would respond in English, and now have a distinct Canadian accent when speaking Cantonese. It is a uniquely first-generation immigrant experience to have your first language not be your strongest one, and to grow up with a language barrier in your own home. Improving my Cantonese only became a priority for me in the past seven years or so, and with a lot of practice and consuming Hong Kong media, I managed to get my Cantonese to an acceptable level. Then came an unexpected move to a place where I had to learn an entirely unrelated language. Now, the struggle is not only learning Estonian but also making sure my Cantonese doesn’t deteriorate.
Estonian and Cantonese are both considered among the hardest languages for English speakers to learn, and for vastly different reasons. Estonian uses the Latin alphabet, so, for an English speaker, pronunciation is easy to sound out when reading (once you master the additional “õ”, “ä”, “ö”, and “ü” sounds). Cantonese is a tonal language with nine tones, where using a different tone can completely change the meaning of a word, making vocabulary and pronunciation a hurdle for beginner learners. Cantonese grammar follows a similar pattern to English, and future and past tense can be expressed by adding tense indicator words. Meanwhile, Estonian has no future tense but fourteen grammatical cases and complicated noun and verb conjugations which are completely foreign to most English speakers. These differences are apparent in how my Estonian partner and I have tried to learn each others’ languages: I have higher vocabulary recall but struggle with Estonian case endings, whereas he has more difficulty remembering Cantonese words due to the tones, but can more easily incorporate new words into sentences because of Cantonese’s relatively straightforward grammar structure.
When I speak to other Estonian language learners, they say that learning Estonian is important to them not for practical or employment reasons as one would expect, but simply because they want to show respect to people in the country they chose to move to. At the same time, when I meet a local and mention that I’m taking Estonian courses, their reactions range from “good luck, you’ll need it!” to “why would you do that to yourself?” It’s a common in-joke, and I understand why: instances of successful Estonian language learners are so few and far in between that they end up giving TV interviews or going viral on social media.
Like Estonians, Hongkongers feel extremely protective and proud of their language. Estonia’s low birth rate and increasing “Anglicization” threatens the longevity of the language, while Cantonese is under threat of being snuffed out by Mandarin, even in Guangdong, the Chinese province from where Cantonese originates. While the Estonian government has enacted policies to ensure its survival, the push to preserve Cantonese comes from the bottom up, especially from Hong Kong diaspora communities, often young people with ties to Hong Kong but who grew up in predominantly English-speaking countries. Like me, maybe they feel guilty about not learning Cantonese as children and are now recognizing the value of their mother tongue. There is now a wave on social media of first-generation immigrant Cantonese speakers (or even learners with no ties to the language at all) making content dedicated to improving their Cantonese while showing their audience the quirks and struggles of the language. When Cantonese language learners show their progress, they are flooded with support, praise, even gratitude for taking part in keeping the language alive. The push for Cantonese revival demonstrates how celebrating and encouraging learners can contribute to language preservation, a mindset which could also support the future of Estonian.
They say your personality changes depending on the language you’re speaking. Indeed, speaking a new language unlocks more people to speak with, but also different sides of the people you already know, and more ways of seeing the world and expressing yourself. My English personality is quick and expressive while in Cantonese, I am measured and sarcastic. I am looking forward to meeting the version of myself I become when I can speak Estonian.
