From: Translation Bureau
This year’s recipient of the Golden Quill is Vidya ShankarNarayan, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, People and Culture, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. In this video, Ms. ShankarNarayan shares her own multilingual journey and underscores the importance of persevering and maintaining an open, positive attitude when learning a new language.
Video transcript
Start of video
[Music plays]
(Text on screen: Public Services and Procurement Canada)
[Shot of Vidya ShankarNarayan speaking in front of a blue and green background.]
(Text on screen: Recipient of the 2025 Golden Quill, Vidya ShankarNarayan, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, People and Culture, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat)
Learning a new language? It’s not just about flashcards and grammar drills; it’s about attitude!
[Shot of an Indian woman driving a moped on a very busy street in India.]
[Shot of a small boat on a river in India with lush plants and a forest in the background.]
[Shot of a building in India.]
I grew up in India—land of many languages. I spoke six or seven growing up.
[Shot of Vidya ShankarNarayan speaking. In the background is a classroom.]
[Shot of Vidya ShankarNarayan speaking. In the background is close-up of schoolyard swings.]
[Shot of Vidya ShankarNarayan speaking. In the background are four old television sets showing Hindi programming.]
English in class, Tamil and Malayalam at home, local languages in the schoolyard and listening to Hindi on TV. It was a linguistic buffet!
[Shot of a French-English/English-French dictionary and a French verb book.]
[Shot of a whiteboard on which the French verb jouer is conjugated.]
Then came French in Canada. Evening classes, practice, practice, practice, and, yes, lots of mistakes.
[Shot of Vidya ShankarNarayan speaking in front of a blue and green background.]
(Text on screen: Attitude Beats Perfection)
But I kept going. Why? Because attitude beats perfection. Every. Single. Time.
[Shot of an animation on a green background with lines appearing on the screen. Lines and small circles come together in the middle of the screen to form an image resembling a brain.]
(Text on screen: AI)
And now with AI, learning and practising a language is getting a whole lot easier and much less intimidating.
[Shot of Vidya ShankarNarayan speaking in front of a blue and green background.]
[Shot of an animated map of Canada. The provinces appear one by one, starting from the west. A bridge appears over the map.]
(Text on screen: Bilingualism is a bridge)
So, as we celebrate Canada’s official languages, remember to have the right attitude: Bilingualism is a bridge between people and cultures. And it’s a bridge the Translation Bureau is helping to build every day.
[Shot of Vidya ShankarNarayan speaking in front of a blue and green background.]
I’m honoured to be this year’s recipient of the Golden Quill and to share my language journey with you!
[Shot of Vidya ShankarNarayan sitting at a desk and typing on a laptop.]
(Text on screen: Technology and language training; Early language learning; The future of bilingualism in Canada)
[Shot of Vidya ShankarNarayan’s post on the Our Languages blog. The page scrolls down through the post.]
(Text on screen: The Golden Quill: An initiative of the Our Languages blog)
Get inspired by my story and the many other stories on the Language Portal of Canada’s blog, a Translation Bureau initiative, and learn how bilingualism shapes us as Canadians!
[Shot of a blue background with 3 orange rectangles containing the Portal’s contact information on different platforms.]
(Text on screen: Language Portal of Canada, x.com/Our_languages, Facebook.com/Ourlanguages.ca, noslangues-ourlanguages.gc.ca, Translation Bureau)
(Text on screen: ISBN: 978-0-660-78542-4, Catalogue: P4-174/2025E-MP4)
[Music stops]
(Public Services and Procurement Canada signature)
(Canada wordmark)
End of video