When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies to watch was The Nightmare Before Christmas. An animated film about Jack Skellington, a leader of Halloween Town, who discovers the wonders of Christmas. As a kid, I never stopped to imagine that deep implications of the film, or how Jack’s curiosity could mirror my own.
This year I have been working diligently on learning a new language, Portuguese. And through these past 6 months, I’ve learned a lot about how to learn, and how to retain information. However, watching The Nightmare Before Christmas in my target language (called O Estranho Mundo De Jack) I realized that Jack’s own journey through Christmas Town and my own journey through the Portuguese language have so many similarities. I could even go so far as saying that the story of The Nightmare Before Christmas can serve as an apt metaphor for the process of learning a new language.
In the beginning of the film, Jack Skellington feels ennui. He feels a sense of longing for something greater than he currently has. And it’s not that he is ungrateful for his title as “The Pumpkin King” he simply needs something more to help spice up his life. He comes across Christmas Land and is enraptured by the trappings and traditions of Christmas. This leads to his well known song “What’s This” where Jack is excitedly wandering through Christmas Land exploring all the different aspects of the world. He is curious and he is enthusiastic and he wants to experience all there is to know about Christmas.
That’s a lot like me when I began learning Brazilian Portuguese. I wanted to learn about the culture and music and literature, but in order to have access to those things, I needed to understand the rudiments of the language.
When Jack Skellington returns to Halloween Town, he is excited to share all that he’s learned with the townspeople. For those who have seen the film, this leads to the Town Meeting song where Jack tries (and fails) to explain the wonderments of Christmas. The townspeople of Halloween Town don’t understand the value or wonder of presents or decorations that invoke feelings besides fear. They all look at Christmas through the lens of Halloween. Meaning, because they’ve spent all of their lives in an environment that prioritizes one particular emotion (fear, terror, dread etc.) they can’t wrap their minds around another form of living.
Think of it like this, each language has its own grammar, syntax and word choice, right? When we learn a new language with a different grammatical structure, we are still thinking in our native language. So, in English if we say “I’m going to the store,” it sounds simple and natural, but trying to say that exact sentence, while still holding onto the grammar rule of English, will sound unnatural in another language. Why? Because different languages have different rules and different modes of expressions that may not exist within other languages.
So, an English speaker could say: “I’ve got other fish to fry” but that same expression might not exist in another language you’re learning, so trying to do an exact translation might not work.
Recently I learned a Portuguese expression “Voce pisou na bola comigo” which translates to “You stepped on the ball with me.” In English this can be compared to “You dropped the ball with me,” or “You messed up with me.”
Even Jack’s understanding of Santa Claus’s name is still based in his understanding of horror. Jack calls Santa Claus “Sandy Claws” and in the Portuguese version, where the patriarch of Christmas is called “Papai Cruel,” a pun on how the Portuguese-speakers call Santa Claus “Papai Noel.”
In The Nightmare Before Christmas, when Jack Skellington takes over Christmas, we can see that Jack and the other townspeople still do not understand the meaning of Christmas, and which emotions that holiday is supposed to invoke. When Jack and his crew create toys, they are crafted with Halloween in mind. Much like when language learners craft a sentence, it is crafted with their base language in mind. The result, in both instances, is something misshapen and strange.
The problem that both Jack and new language learners face is the problem of exposure. While Jack was excited about Christmas and all of its trappings, he did not expose himself enough to Christmas in order to get a deep understanding for how the holiday is constructed. Subsequently a lot of language learners all fall into this issue.
And Jack does take time to study the subject of Christmas. During the song “Jack’s Obsession,” Jack is show studying Christmas, learning about its traditions and stories and rhymes.
“Simple objects nothing more, but something’s hidden through a door. Though I do not have the key. Something’s here I cannot see, what does it mean what does it mean?”
-Jack Skellington
The problem Jack is facing is that he is looking at the various aspects of Christmas in isolation, rather than looking at these components in a holistic way. Language, like holidays, are alive. It is not enough just to learn about them through dry memorization and vocabulary lists. Christmas is something that is meant to be experienced. And language, whatever language it is your are studying, is meant to be experienced as well. And the only to achieve that is through experience. Jack must spend time celebrating and living Christmas, just as language learners have to spend time using their new language in a variety of contexts.
So far this year, I have felt like I’m on a journey. There is so much about the world that I have yet to discover and learning a language has really opened my eyes to all the different literature, film, and poetry that exists in this world. I’ve learned that the mere act of speaking can yield a kind of living poetry. Learning a new language is like acquiring a fresh perspective of the world around you. Jack Skellington was inspired to see the world differently after he discovered Christmas.
Perhaps that same kind of magic can happen to you too.