Most of the time when people ask me ‘what is your biggest regret in life?’ I simply say, ‘I have no regrets, I learn from my experiences and that’s that.’ I am telling the truth, everything that I’ve ever disapproved of myself has been a lesson learned. There is no boy I have ever dated that I regret dating, no job I have ever worked that was a waste of time and no friends I ever made that were useless. All those ex-boyfriends, old jobs and old friends are the reason I am who I am today.

However, there is one regret I have in my life that I didn’t realize until I started traveling. My biggest regrets in life include not learning another language. This is not to get down on the French Canadians here, but I do not regret NOT learning Canadian French to the best of my ability. Last year in France I tried to speak Canadian French and they laughed at me… I don’t often make trips to Quebec so I don’t see much of a reason to learn the second national language of Canada. Although, there are many other popular languages in the world that would have helped me a lot in my travels thus far.

Spanish was the first language I ever really had a passion for. I visited Peru and had an opportunity to work with the public and the children in the shanty towns. It broke my heart when I didn’t understand what they were saying to me and all I could do was stare at them with this blank face. There was one moment in Lima, Peru where we had taken about 30 children from the shanty towns to the zoo. I had three beautiful girls hand in hand with me the entire time and though we enjoyed our time together without words, there were a few moments where I just wanted to sit down and cry. I felt selfish and rude, a feeling I had never hoped to experience. One of the girls was so adamant on visiting what I thought were the cougars in the park. I still don’t know Spanish very well so perhaps I will try not to butcher the language, but ‘jugar’ means ‘to play’ not the damn cougars at the zoo. Finally, after five hours of running through the zoo showing her all these incredible animals and having her sulk her way through the zoo, I figured out what she wanted as we reached the exit next to a massive jungle gym where all the kids her age has spent their day running around playing games and having a blast. I ruined this girls entire day because I thought she wanted to see cougars and went on a day long mission to find them. Luckily, I managed to make her day by buying her ice cream before she boarded the bus back home, but I will never forget the way that it made me feel.

Today, living in Germany, dating my handsome German man… it is so hard not speaking German. Many people in their 20, 30-somethings know English quite well here but the hardest part is speaking to groups of people or my boyfriends wonderful parents. I want to be able to show them my personality and my goofy ways, but gestures and small German phrases is the only thing I can use to converse with them. I feel terrible. They know much more English than I know German but even then, it is hard to have a real conversation. Most people here are bilingual if not tri-lingual. The fact that they can all speak better French than me is so embarrassing for me. Not only do they need to speak in English to converse with me, but they know more French and more Spanish than I do as well. I guess since Europe is much smaller than North America, they are faced with many more situations where they need to speak in different languages but at the end of the day, I wish I knew at least one more language.

I send my respects out to all the Canadians who learned Canadian French fluently through grade school. Now that I’m trying to learn German fluently, my brain feels like it’s about to explode on a daily basis. It is a lot to take in and I am so envious of all the people who know more than one language.

You may not realize it, but you, those of you who are bilingual, tri-lingual, or MORE, are truly incredible, intelligent people. After 17 years of schooling, I still feel more inadequate than the homeless people on the streets in Germany – even they know a few words in English.

Need a little push to get up and travel? Check out my blog on how to travel more and pay less!