S3E2: Communication starts now!

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Tuesday 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. And if you are just starting out in your language this year, this episode was made just for you. This is the second episode in the weeklong series about how we can make language goals or plans for 2023 that we can actually keep for the whole year.

And today’s episode, is a huge permission slip that now is almost always the right time to start using your language in the real world. If there is one takeaway from this episode, it’s that you already have what it takes to speak and write in your new language. 

Even if you just started it this week.

And I know that it probably doesn’t feel like it, because so many of us, when we think about the “right” language level to have a conversation, we think about all the things we can do in our native language and it seems impossible that we can replicate that in a language we only started recently. It seems impossible that we can replicate that in a language we’ve been studying for a year.

But your language level isn’t the problem. Looking to your native language as a benchmark for when you’re ready, is the problem.

When you look to natural, native-language conversations, you ignore everything you can do right now at your own level. You miss the opportunity to meet yourself where you’re at.

When I decided I wanted to learn Portuguese, in full pandemic, I knew that my main priority was to speak and t make meaningful connections with real people. That’s what I always want language for. So, I started writing short messages to people within the first week of learning Portuguese. At that time, all I had was the greetings, numbers, days and months, and what I consider the most important vocabulary of all, praise words. 

Once you’ve got praise words, you can start making those meaningful connections. You can leave comments on people’s reels and tiktoks praising them for their artwork or singing. You can thank language teachers for their content on their blogs. It doesn’t have to be full sentences. It doesn’t have to be spelt perfectly. It just has to get that message across. You see them, you appreciate them. 

And guess what else. Right from day one, you can start speaking.

I always recommend where possible to match your levels. So if you’re a native Emglish speaker just starting out in Spanish, as counter-intuitive as it sounds, I always recommend finding Spanish speakers who are just starting out in English to practise with. And the reason for that is, if you speak to people who are already stronger in your native language than you are in theirs, the inner critic will pop up and tell you you’re wasting their time, you’re frustrating them, and it’s better to just revert to English. There will be such a gap between what you can both do in your language time and their language time, if you split it, that you’ll always feel behind. So find complete beginners. Create a space for both of you where full sentences are not going to be the primary mode of communication for quite some time. Create a space for showing and telling, using praise words, and trying. 

Arrange your conversations however you need to. Do it in writing to minimise confusion. Use translation software if you have to. That’s not important. The most important thing is that you get yourself the opportunities to say some words.

And then take people on a tour of your world. The wonderful thing about video calls is that it allows you to bring people with you without words. You can show people objects or places or images on your screen and teach them the keywords in your native language. They repeat them. You use your praise words. Then they do the same thing for you, in their native language.

Test each other on vocabulary. Agree your topics in advance, again in writing, using whatever methods you can. Emojis. What matters is that you can both come to the conversations having learned 10 or 15 items of the same vocabulary. Then use those praise words.

And look, you’re speaking. And you’re making a difference already, in this language that you are a complete beginner in. That’s amazing.

And slowly, you’ll add more things into that conversation. Questions like “what’s this?” and “is it masculine or feminine” if that’s relevant to your language. More praise words. More detailed feedback.

That’s how communication happens. That’s how fluency grows. And that’s how you can avoid ever going onto a forum and saying “when will I be ready to talk to native speakers?”

You’re not aiming to speak like a native. You’re not aiming for full sentences. You’re aiming to make someone feel seen and supported in their language learning.

And that’s how you start.

You can do this, language learners. Don’t wait. Spend one morning preparing if you want, get those praise words together, and go for it.

Have a wonderful Tuesday, and I will see you tomorrow.