The importance of being earnest

In speaking a foreign language, we tend to lose years, as well as other kinds of time, to become gentler, more innocent, more courteous versions of ourselves. We find ourselves reduced to basic adjectives, like "happy" and "sad," and erring on the side of including our "Monsieur"s; and we are obliged to grow more resourceful and imaginative in conveying our most complex needs and feelings in the few terms we remember (like a child rebuilding Chartres out of Lego blocks).

... Speaking a foreign language, we cannot so easily speak our minds; but we do, willy-nilly, speak our hearts.

... And even when we're not speaking Spanish, but only English that a Spaniard will understand, the effect is just as rejuvenating. Reducing our own language to its basic elements, we find, of a sudden, that it becomes new to us, and wondrous. How vivid the cliché "over the hill" sounds when we're explaining it to an Osaka businessman! How rich the idiom "raining cats and dogs"! Speaking English as a second language, we find ourselves rethinking ourselves, simplifying ourselves, committed, for once, not to making impressive sentences, but just to making sense.

Pico Iyer, from the essay "Excusez-moi! Speakez-vous Franglais?"