S3E15: Mistakes are permission

Full transcript:

Good morning and welcome to the Language Confidence Project, the daily dose of language courage for people who love languages, and those who really don’t, but have to learn one anyway. You have made it to the end of the week, and if you are looking back at all the things you’ve done this week and all you can see is the mistakes, this is the episode for you.

Now, I know a lot of us around here are perfectionists and more than that, we are really sensitive to shame. And when we’re speaking in our new language, quite often, we can hear ourselves saying things that we know aren’t right… we use the wrong tense, we use the wrong gender, we start a sentence and then realise that we don’t know how to finish it and it can be so, so frustrating when you know you know this stuff. And then a lot of the time we go away afterwards, and we question everything… have we really not learnt this stuff well enough? Do we need to revise it again? What did the other person think of us? And we come away from these conversations trying to gauge how embarrassed we should feel, how annoyed or disappointed with ourselves we should be and we are so, so hard on ourselves. And so today, if you find yourself and cringing every time you make a mistake when you speak your new language, I have a question for you.

What if, when you make those mistakes, you are giving other people permission to speak freely too? 

What if, instead of that first mistake being the start of an epidemic of incompetence those mistakes are saying, I’m prepared to take risks. I’m prepared to be vulnerable. And I’m prepared to create an environment where you can do that too. 

What if those mistakes are saying, I don’t need to wait for perfection to speak and to write about the things that are on my mind?

What if those mistakes are a sign of bravery, and bravery spreads more bravery?  

So have those conversation. Write those messages. Take those risks. Use the constructions you’re not sure of or the words where you know the gist but you’re not sure exactly what it means. Take a guess on the verb tense that you’ve heard a lot in passing but never properly studied. Get the message across however you can. Throw some miming in there.

Make those mistakes, because it’s okay. Make those mistakes because when you speak your language freely, knowing it’s not perfect but doing it anyway, you give other people permission to do the same.

Be brave today, language learners. You can do this.

And before I go, just a reminder that I’ve just started my 100 Conversations project, where I would love to speak to 100 listeners of the Language Confidence Project, to meet you, to hear about how your language journey is going, and to find out what carving your own path means to you. It’s a really informal 30 minute Skype chat over tea or coffee or whatever beverage you should like to bring, it’s completely free, nobody’s going to try and sell you anything, it really is just a chat, where we can just hang out and chat about languages. If you would like to book a call, I have a Calendly link in the shownotes, and it’s also in my Instagram bio at @teawithemily. 

Have a wonderful day, have a wonderful weekend, and I will see you back here on Monday.