S4E13: How much do you need to learn before you feel proud?

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Wednesday 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 today, I just want to ask you a really quick question.

How much will you need to learn before you’re proud?

How many words? How much grammar?

How much will you need to know?

What will you need to be able to do?

How much will you need to be able to understand?

Whenever we imagine being proud, it’s always somewhere far off in the future. We think so clearly about how great it’s going to feel when we’ve reach a certain level of competence. And yet we never seem to actually get there, no matter how much our skill level increases.

Partly, it’s because we’re imagining the jump. We’re imagining the giant leap from step 3 where we are now to step 10, and it’s a huge chasm we’ve jumped, so obviously it looks really, really impressive. Whereas at the moment where we actually reach that point, we’re looking back at endless stream of days where we improved a tiny bit or progressed just a little bit more, and we see the hard work, the doubt, the disappointments along the way, and we’re less impressed.

But, and this is important, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t impressive. It just means we need to be intentional about pointing it out to ourselves again.

Remember when you first started, what did you really want to be able to do? What would really have impressed you as you started on day one of this language?  And can you do those things now?

And I know that there’s always a temptation to respond with “yes, but”. Yes, but I make too many mistakes. Yes, but my accent. Yes, but it took too long. But the thing is, you’ve got to remember that Past You probably didn’t truly believe you’d get to where you are right now, at all. Past You would be thrilled at the conversation you’ve just had or the text you’ve just written, or the difficulty level of the lecture you’ve just attended.

So don’t play it down, language learners. You’re doing so well and you’re allowed to tell yourself so.

And if you like what I do, please support me! The Language Confidence project is growing and all sorts of exciting things are happening in the next few months, and I need your help to make all of this happen. There are so many ways that you could lend a hand right now. If you know someone who would benefit from listening to this podcast, send them a quick message with the episode attached. If you work in or know someone in a language school or a university language department, please suggest this podcast for both them and their students. If you can and you want to, support me on Patreon, because I have a Patreon now, and the link is in my bio! And finally, if you’re new around here or I haven’t met you yet, or come and talk to me! Leave a comment on today’s episode on a positit on Instagram, send me a DM, or even better, book a call as part of the 100 Conversations Project with me! The link to that is also in my Instagram bio at @teawithemily. I would love to hear from you.

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