How falling in love can help you learn a language

How falling in love can help you learn a language Getty Images When the writer Lauren Collins set about learning French, she had no idea how it would change her life. Carol and Chedly Mahfoudh Carol and Chedly Mahfoudh in 1971: their story is like many others who forged a relationship despite linguistic and cultural hurdles Language, in delineating a boundary that can be transgressed, is full of romantic potential – Lauren Collins Carol and Chedly Mahfoudh’s story is just one of countless others: couples who met, fell in love and forged a relationship despite linguistic and cultural hurdles. “Language, in delineating a boundary that can be transgressed, is full of romantic potential”, writes The New Yorker’s Lauren Collins, whose own adventures in bilingualism feature in her new book When in French: Love in a Second Language, which is in equal parts humorous memoir, love story and serious exploration of the relationship between language and thought. “I think we all have these intentions and fantasies about learning a language but it’s a really hard thing to do unless you have a real burning reason,” she continues. As she writes early on in the book, “I have no way of foreseeing that French will reshape the contours of my relationships, that I won’t always consider people intimates until proven not to be.” This shift intrigues her: can learning a new language really change the way we think?