I grew up surrounded by languages. My father speaks fluent Kapampangan. My maternal grandmother spoke Ilonggo and Spanish. My brother and I had manangs who would sing in Bisaya and Cebuano. My grandaunts and uncles would tell stories in Hokkien laced with Filipino. On the shelves were books written in Chinese sitting alongside Western literature classics from authors like Shakespeare.

Being exposed to so many vernaculars led to my own attempts to adopt a third one. Most of these attempts were made through extra-curricular classes, random internet lessons, and several muted reminders from the Duolingo owl. There was Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, and even Mandarin—which I took for foreign language class for three years of high school but retained nothing more than a few words I can’t even recall the proper intonations for.

The technical complexities of languages have always fascinated me, spurring me along my study in tongues: Grammar, syntax, etymology, and so on. But what I find most attractive about language learning is that it is a means of storytelling. Societies are built upon the foundations of common speech. Codes shape our movements, our words, our actions in ways we may not even be aware of. They carry a dynamism and penchant for change as its speakers change. Language, whether written or spoken, evolves throughout the years, and with these evolutions come narratives of history, cultures, mythologies, and people.

There is a famous quote by former South African President Nelson Mandela that reads, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” One of the best ways to learn a language is to converse with native speakers. Not only does one learn vocabulary and grammar from someone more genuinely immersed in the tongue, but there is also a connection that exists between a person and their language. People come alive when they are conversing in a manner most comfortable to them. There is a sense of familiarity shared by those in conversation when the code is the same, even if they are strangers. When my Korean professor and I talked outside the classroom setting for the first time, it was stilted and awkward as I fumbled over honorifics and words I did not know, but her eyes were bright and her smile was warm as she guided me through sentences.

I’ve been learning Korean for six years. I’m due to leave for my semester abroad in Korea in late February. I can read and understand on a conversational level, but my vocabulary still has a ways to go. What began as a way to understand the lyrics of the songs I enjoyed listening to has developed into a genuine interest for a history and culture different from my own and an ongoing 15-unit journey to a getting a minor degree. It has been one of errors and misspellings, but also of stories by people who saw me as familiar and not-so-different after all.