Numbers bring me out in a rash. Having decided to train to become a modern foreign languages teacher in the UK, I was horrified to learn that you had to pass two skills tests to get onto a PGCE course: literacy and numeracy. Literacy – no problem.

Numeracy? Cue panic and a total refusal to even try answering the questions that were flashing up on my computer screen with a rapidly decreasing timer as part of a practice test.

This is what I always try to remind myself of when people express the feeling that they don’t have the “language gene” or “gift”, because I had that same feeling about maths.

There is no scientific evidence of any such gene that dictates our ability to learn a foreign language.

3 things that peddle the “language gene” myth

I think that there are three main barriers that people can encounter, which lead many people to identify with the language gene myth:

1) Classroom trauma

For years I was convinced that I didn’t have a “maths brain” (same bogus myth as the language gene), when in reality I’d developed an aversion to anything numbers related due to negative experiences at school.

In the past, I’ve preferred to say “I don’t know” to simple maths questions or deferred to someone else “more mathsy” to help me out, rather than taking the time to work it out. I still count on my fingers when no one’s watching!

To prepare me for the stupid numeracy test to get onto my PGCE, I got my brother to coach me over a couple of weeks. I failed by one point first time, then passed second time. The pressure was on because if you fail three times, you’re banned from applying to teaching courses for five years.

The struggle was less my skills but more the unpacking of years of messaging that had me thinking I just didn’t have that kind of brain.

This is something that’s worth interrogating if you feel this way about your potential language skills but you’d like to learn a foreign language. Think about ways to disassociate from any past negative experiences. Hated group language classes at school? Try a private tutor. Feel wobbly about grammar? Check out my post on English speakers and our grammar fails for ways to remedy this; spoiler alert: you’re not alone!

2) Dyslexia

Did you know that Italian speakers are only half as likely to show signs of dyslexia as English speakers? And levels of dyslexia are far lower amongst native speakers of languages with symbol-based writing systems.

Studies show that dyslexia is often language specific, meaning that you may be dyslexic in your own language but not in another. How liberating!

If you are dyslexic (in your native language), try learning a language from a completely different language family or with a completely different writing system.

3) Lack of success stories

If you grow up somewhere like Germany and everyone from Jackie’s sister’s brother’s boy to your halfwit uncle Fabian can operate in a foreign language, you are more likely to believe that you can learn a foreign language.

In countries like England, we just don’t have many bilingual or multilingual people around us. When do we encounter one of these “rare beasts”, we assume they must be exceptional in some kind of way. I recommend following people online who share your native language and/or native culture; then you’ll see what you’re capable of!

Also here’s a useful reminder that monolingualism isn’t purely a British affliction. There are people all over the world from many different cultures, who only speak their native language, as this map by Landgeist shows:

My final recommendation for finding language success stories is to look to the past! There will be people in your family who perhaps spoke a different native language to you or learnt a foreign language whether formally or due to changing political or geographical landscapes.

An inspiring story from my past

A travelling chest

Whilst the many accolades of the men in the family were well-documented, details of the women’s histories were mostly domestic. However, through meticulous research, my mum managed to find some really inspiring stories about some of the women in our family; of particular note was my great-great aunt Dorothy, who, like me, was a linguist.

Great-great aunt Dorothy: linguist and code-breaker

We discovered that Dorothy was recruited into the Hush WAAC during World War I, named so because of its secretive nature.

The Hush WAAC on the other hand, was top secret, and isn’t even mentioned in the below video created by the National Army Museum, in their explanation of the WAAC:

In total, only 17 women were sent out to France to make up the Hush WAAC, Dorothy being one of them. Dorothy’s mother’s “Birthday Book” documents that Dorothy joined the Q.M.A.A.C at the age of 26, in 1915 (The WAAC was latterly called the “Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps”, when Queen Mary, so impressed by its work, became its patron).

In 1918 Dorothy was sent to St. Omer in France in an Assistant Administrator Post in the Intelligence Department of the Army, this role was the equivalent of a male junior officer role.

By the time Dorothy was posted in France – one year after the first group of women codebreakers were sent out – only two of her five brothers were still alive. Teddy had died as a teenager in a horse and cart accident. John and Gerald died in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Monty was shot through the neck in the same battle, but survived, for which he was awarded the Military Cross, given by King George V at Buckingham Palace. Her eldest brother, Frank, spent his career in the Indian army.

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Jim Beach, James Bruce and Joyce Hutton, in The Hush WAACs – The secret ladies of St Omer detail the project:

After spending a first night in a hutted camp, they reported next morning to an office in the centre of town.  They had been recruited because of their German language skills, but had not been told what they would do in France.  Now, confronted by a large table laden with papers, they learned they were going to be codebreakers. 

Soon afterwards the six were divided up to work with the teams of men who were already attacking multiple German codes.  Despite their initial fears, as Mabel later recalled, they soon began to find the work “intensely interesting”, with it eventually “monopolising all our thoughts both waking and sleeping”.  

[…]

Toiling alongside their male colleagues, the women put in long hours. Every day, including Sunday, began at half nine in the morning and ran through to midnight, albeit with fairly lengthy lunch and dinner breaks to allow them time to walk back and forth to their women-only Mess. The only break in the routine was a four o’clock finish once a week.

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Dorothy is listed on the Hush WAAC Roll of Honour on the GCHQ website, which also details that she was promoted to Deputy Administrator during the WWI; she had arrived in France as an Assistant Administrator in the Intelligence Department. Presumably this made her a captain in male terms?!

The women worked alongside their male colleagues, withstanding German air raids. They suffered gas attacks, which affected Dorothy’s health for the rest of her life.

Dorothy’s obituary describes her as “a fluent linguist, she did valuable work with the W.A.A.C. in France during the first world war in decoding and translating enemy messages.”

It also details that Dorothy contributed to the war effort of WWII, doing some kind of “very important secret work at the Foreign Office.”

Final thoughts

Do I take this story as proof that there is a language gene in my family? Of course not. Although her sister Winifred ended up serving as Head Clerk at the Red Cross HQ in Rome, so perhaps she spoke Italian!

Dorothy and Winifred were my great-great aunts so they aren’t even in my direct family line. And they’re two relatives of many who didn’t do anything as cool. I’ll still take Dorothy’s story as an incredibly inspiring one, though.

I recognise that as a woman educated at a private school in the early 1900s, Dorothy was incredibly lucky, but it’s still a great story of women’s empowerment in a society that failed to see women as anything more than mothers and wives.

Do you know something about, or have some material relating to the Hush WAACs? I’m doing a research project to uncover more about their experience. Please get in touch (use the contact form in the “about” dropdown menu, or drop me a line on Facebook), if you have anything you’d like to share!

Have you ever battled with the language gene myth? Do you have any cool stories like this from your past? Comment below!

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