Living life in a new language feels like an escape

I have been trying to learn Spanish on and off for years, but life always seemed to get in the way and I never was able to give it the time and effort it needed. Then, COVID-19 arrived in Montreal, and for the first time in years I found myself with some extra time to kill.

One of my former Spanish teachers informed me that she would be offering classes online, and I decided now was finally the time to get committed. I wound up taking semi-private online classes with her four hours a week during the first few months of the quarantine. It was the most time I've been able to commit to studySpanishsince my undergrad.

While it seemed like most people I knew were scrambling to figure out online learning platforms, my Spanish teacher had apparently mastered the virtual classroom within a matter of weeks. She managed to make the classes stimulating and interactive, and I was surprised to discover that I felt more involved during our intensive online course than I ever had been in a physical classroom.

While I am not quite fluent yet, I am proud to say that I can hold a conversation, watch TV and even read novels in Spanish now. Immersing myself in the language has felt like an escape from the pandemic for me, and I am now indulging in even more escapism by pre-emptively planning a few months in a Spanish-speaking country whenever travel is safe again!

Julia Green is a student at the Faculty of Law at McGill University who hopes to pursue refugee and human rights law after graduation.

No more regrets: It's time to learn French

You know you're Canadian when the first word you feel the need to learn in another language is "sorry" and its many variations.

But am I Canadian? I thought the whole Canadian identity was based around the notion "you're Persian when you're in Canada, and you're Canadian when you're back in Iran" an ever shifting perspective.

Since COVID-19 hit, I've started speaking with my mom more she's an ER nurse working in one of the less fortunate areas of Toronto. We talk about life, our lives really, inside and outside the "war zone" walls of this pandemic. In this way, we keep up with our losses as they come rolling in; loss is one thing but regret is something else.

The pandemic has put things into perspective, as humans we shift and align with whatever it is we face each day. It wasn't until I started talking with a friend of mine, when I began to see how disconnected I am from the very culture I've been too squeamish to immerse myself in. Why? Call it past traumas of the immigration process, or the lack of time with what memory I already dedicate to learning and forgetting script lines, no more disposable than an N95 mask.

As someone who adores languages and the deep geography, history and community that comes with every way of life I've been blindly robbing myself of an opportunity to not only learn but live in a different language. Learning Farsi was to be born into the world, meanwhile learning English was a pure survival tactic. Yet, I didn't have an excuse for French, in fact, I purposely chose to be here in Montreal for a reason so why not learn? Why not now?

This time it's a choice, not dictated by necessity, fear or survival, but by a desire to form a genuine connection to the people around me. There's so much to life and what better way than to start in my very own backyard?

Quarantine began my formal relationship with death my death where I no longer live my life with timid lethargy. A little bleak and morbid perhaps, but it helps welcome grief with warmth while ensuring I hold less room for regret.

In the end, what really matters is making choices that weren't because of embarrassment, failure, fear or rejection things I face far too often in my professional life as an actor with no career security.

What's the worst that could happen?

Kimia Pourazar is a Montreal-based voice and television actor of Persian descent with an affinity for sword handling and dance. Her training includes studying at the International Centre for Meyerhold's Biomechanics in Italy, to Theatre Studies at Friedrich-Alexander-Universitt in Bavaria, Germany, to sword fighting at Temple University in Philadelphia.

We are sharing stories of people trying new things during the pandemic as part of our special CBC Quebec projectOut of the Dark: Real Talk on Mental Health.If you are having a hard time coping,here are some resources that could help.