I look at the picture, and the picture triggers a concept, and the Hungarian sentence “Dolgozz keményen és nem bánod meg” comes to mind. Which means “work hard and you will not regret it.” Of course, the worker in the picture regretted it, but that’s what makes the phrase memorable: its falseness.
In theory it is a beautiful concept. It means that I will feel rewarded if I achieve something difficult.
So there I am. I know any language is difficult to learn, but that makes me curious – how can something that even the stupidest baby can master in a few years be impossible for the majority of even the smartest adults? So I make the first step: I announce to a Hungarian that I wish to learn their language.
And after the initial pleasure that flashes across their face that someone likes them, the response I get (and continue to get with Hungarians I meet):
Why?
Why. They wouldn’t ask their baby why. No more than I would ask my cat why she swipes the sock dangling from my hand when I am putting away the laundry. I want to do it because IT IS THERE.
No seriously, why?
And they are not so much asking why I want to learn it. No, they are more asking why they should be patient enough to help me with it. “BECAUSE IT IS THERE” is not enough of a reason for them to invest their time and energy into teaching me.
It is a different dynamic when someone wants to learn English. Everyone helps the person, because… because… because it’s important. Because everyone wants to help each other achieve something important.
And people don’t understand that Hungarian is important to me. That something about the way the language is put together, the way it twists and turns and teases me, the calmness it holds, the wisdom it holds, the incomprehensibility it holds, something claws into my heart and I can’t let it go, or it can’t let me go. No, nobody will understand.
And I will work hard, not because there is any reason nor any reward. I will work hard because something inside me compels me to.