A friend and I were talking about our childhoods outside the U.S.—how we grew up, what we missed, and what’s been hard to translate into our lives here. At one point, she said, a little exasperated but mostly resigned, “I wish people here knew that I’m funny in my other language!“ In English, she felt flat—less expressive, less herself. Her humor didn’t land. Her stories didn’t carry the same rhythm. And it made me wonder: how often do we think we know someone, when in truth, we’ve never known them in all the languages they carry?
Language is not just a means of communication—it’s a repository of self. It carries our ways of thinking, our modes of connecting, and how we move through the spaces we call home. In its sounds and silences live the cadence of our childhoods, the values of our communities, the cultural texture and emotional undertones we don’t have to explain. We don't just translate words; we shift ways of being. I felt this vividly while out with English-speaking friends at a dim sum restaurant. I ordered in Cantonese, navigating the menu and staff with ease and familiarity. After the meal, one of my friends said, “I’ve never seen you speak Chinese before." He expanded, "it felt like I was seeing a whole new side of you.” That moment stayed with me. Because it was true—they were seeing a part of me they’d never encountered. Not a different version, just a fuller one.
In monolingual spaces, especially ones dominated by English, so much of who we are can remain out of view—not because we’re hiding, but because there’s no space to be fully heard. If you’ve only ever known someone in one language, how much of their humor, history, or heart have you missed? How many layers of identity stay beneath the surface simply because they haven't been spoken aloud? Language limits perception—not just of what we say, but of who we’re able to be in the eyes of others.
For those of us who teach, lead, or learn alongside others, this invites a deeper kind of listening. Not just for what is said, but for what is withheld, translated, or reshaped to fit the dominant tongue. It means listening for the silences that signal discomfort, the pauses that carry meaning, and the expressions that don't quite land in English but carry weight elsewhere. To know someone well is to make space for all the ways they express who they are, and to understand that some of the most vital parts of a person live in the languages you’ve yet to hear.