S4E30: Find words of encouragement

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Friday, and welcome to the LCP, 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’s episode is a really quick challenge for you but one that I hope will be a really lovely end to your week.

And that challenge is, what extra words of praise or encouragement could you learn in your new language today? What could you add to your repertoire? 

Because so often, we stop at the “amazing, fantastic” or “I love that” or “you’re doing so well”. But the best praise, the praise that makes the most and the deepest connections, is the praise that’s specific. The praise that shows, hey, I really see and understand what you’re doing and what it takes. I’ve really seen the effort you’ve put in, or the determination you’ve shown, or the technical skill that you showcase every single time you show up. And that’s what I want for the Language Confidence Project Community, in our native languages, and in the ones we’re learning.

It might be some words of encouragement for other language learners that you work with. It might be some words of gratitude that you can leave as comments on YouTube or social media platforms for language teachers who turn up every day to offer tips, tricks and phrases to help you to speak their language. It might be recognising the courage it took to post a progress update video online.

But your challenge today doesn’t even need to be about language learning. if you’re living abroad, watching a lot of content in that language about that thing, or regularly socialising with native speakers, your words of encouragement might pertain to a hobby, a social circle.  If you’re active in an open mic or spoken word community, it might be that you want to look up how to say that someone’s song or poem really resonated with you or expressed something you’ve found difficult to put into words. It might be something really technical regarding their composition or the way they play their instruments that’s really impressed you. And this could apply to anything that you’re involved with. Book club. Sports. Personal development. Business. 

It also might be social. Maybe you want to tell your friend that you admire their confidence or that you love their sense of humour. Maybe you want to say that you’re astounded at how much progress they’ve made on a particular thing they’ve been working towards, and that they inspire you. Maybe you just want to recognise that they always do what they say they’re going to do, that they always keep their promises, and you know you can count on them.

But whatever it is, figure out how to say it in your new language today, and say it. Write it. Post it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bit wrong. It doesn’t matter if the spelling is a bit dodgy or the accent’s not quite there. We always have the need to hear that we’re doing okay, that our creative work is reaching other people, or that other people recognise our efforts.

Have a wonderful weekend, and I will see you on Monday.