By Teresa Simone

When you change language, you're not just translating words. You're rewriting yourself.

Those who live between languages know it well: speaking is never just about communication. It's about inhabiting a world, a body, a way of thinking.

Take two examples: Italian and Danish.
 

Italian has high orthographic and phonological transparency: it's written as pronounced, rhythmic, articulated and phonetically open. It allows for rich morphosyntactic constructions that embrace digression, subordination and semantic ambiguity.

Danish, on the other hand, has low phonological transparency: pronunciation is often unpredictable compared to the written form, and phonemes are elided, swallowed. Syntax tends toward linearity, parataxis and communicative restraint. It’s a “compressed” language, which favours brevity and emotional neutrality.

The result? Your mental posture shifts.
 

In Italian, it's easier to argue, to create nuance, to leave interpretations open.

In Danish, you're led to simplify, synthesize, and adopt a more pragmatic, detached tone.
 

Speaking in another language is not just saying the same things with different words. It's thinking differently. It's feeling different. The shift from a mother tongue to another language is never just communicative: it’s a partial loss of one’s access to the world.

It’s not just about finding the right words — it’s about finding yourself as you speak.
 

Sometimes what’s missing is nuance, sometimes spontaneity, sometimes the sense of being truly recognisable. Your voice changes. Even your character seems to shift.

Being a foreigner in a foreign language often means feeling reduced. Less precise, less deep, less yourself. It's like living in a state of constant deferral — as if the real answer, the authentic one, always lingers one step behind, in the language you cannot use.

Teresa Simone is an international sales and export coordination professional with over 15 years of experience helping companies expand across European markets. Originally from Italy and now based in Denmark, she offers a unique perspective that blends strategic execution with cultural psychology, understanding not just how business works across borders, but why people behave the way they do in global contexts. Her LinkedIn profile is http://linkedin.com/in/teresasimoneinternational

Views expressed on CIOL Voices are those of the writer and may not represent those of the wider membership or CIOL.