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Learning Languages Nobody Expects You to Learn

There's a moment that happens when you speak a language nobody expects you to know. It's not the same as ordering coffee in French or asking for directions in Spanish. Those are useful but unremarkable. People expect foreigners to try those.

I'm talking about the moment when you open your mouth in Luxembourgish and a room full of people goes completely silent.

The Luxembourgish story

I started learning Luxembourgish with almost no resources. There's no Pimsleur course. No Assimil. No decent app. The entire language has maybe 600,000 speakers, most of whom also speak French, German, and English fluently. There is almost zero practical reason to learn it.

I did it anyway.

My first real conversation was with a five-year-old. We were chatting in what I'm sure was painful Luxembourgish on my end. At some point I apologized for not being able to speak well yet.

He looked at me and said: "Nee, Dir schwätzt wonnerschéin Lëtzebuergesch."

"No, you speak wonderful Luxembourgish."

I almost cried. A five-year-old. More patient and encouraging than most language exchange partners I've ever had.

Why small language communities hit different

When you learn Spanish, people appreciate it. When you learn Luxembourgish, people lose their minds.

Small language communities are not used to foreigners learning their language. Most of the time, foreigners in Luxembourg speak French or English and never bother with Lëtzebuergesch. So when someone actually tries, the reaction is genuine, unfiltered warmth.

This pattern is consistent across every small language I've encountered. The smaller the community, the warmer the welcome. People are thrilled that you cared enough to try. They'll correct you gently, repeat things patiently, and celebrate your terrible pronunciation like you just won an award.

Compare this to walking into a Paris cafe and attempting French. You might get a response in English before you finish your sentence. Not because Parisians are rude (well, sometimes), but because they hear bad French all day. Your attempt doesn't register as special.

In Luxembourg? Your attempt is the only one they've heard this year.

The motivation paradox

Here's what's interesting. The languages with the fewest resources are often the most motivating to learn. Because every real interaction you have feels earned. There's no app holding your hand. No structured course. You're piecing it together from grammar PDFs, YouTube videos with 200 views, and actual conversations.

And because the community is small, every conversation matters more. You're not one of millions of foreigners learning the language. You might be the only one in the room who tried. That creates a feedback loop: the effort is harder, but the reward is deeper.

This is the opposite of the Duolingo model, where the reward is artificial (streaks, XP) and the effort is low (tap the right picture). With underdog languages, the reward is a real human being genuinely moved that you learned their words. Nothing artificial about it.

Languages as connection

I've said this before and I'll keep saying it: languages do more than boost careers and expand minds. They enlargen your world. They help you find common ground with people you'd never otherwise connect with.

The more languages you learn, the more people you can engage. And the better you learn a language, the deeper you can connect.

That five-year-old in Luxembourg and I had a real exchange. Not a transactional one. Not a tourist one. A human one. And that only happened because I put in the work on a language that nobody expected me to learn.

The question isn't "how many languages do you speak?" It's "how are you enriching your life through language?"

The practical takeaway

I'm not saying everyone should go learn Luxembourgish. But I am saying: don't only learn the big, obvious languages. If you have a connection to a smaller community, if there's a less common language that pulls at you, lean into it. The resources will be harder to find. The path will be lonelier. But the human payoff is unmatched.

And if you're looking for strong reasons to start a language, "there's a community that will genuinely light up when I speak their language" is one of the strongest reasons there is.

We talk more about why culture and human connection are central to language learning in Why Culture Is the Missing Piece.

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