S4E6: What do real language learners do?
Full transcript:
Good morning, happy Monday, 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, if you feel like you don’t really belong in the language world, and it’s getting you down or making you doubt yourself, this is the episode for you.
So, in the language world, and the business world, and all the creative fields I can find, there are a lot of discussions about that nagging feeling that we’re isolated our sphere, that we don’t really belong there, and that at some point, we’re going to get found out or come unstuck. Some people call that impostor syndrome. Other people might just call it, feeling like a fraud, like a fish out of water, feeling incompetent or like we just don’t belong. But whatever it is, it can have really quite dramatic effect on the way we look at ourselves, the way we relate to this world we’re trying to immerse ourselves in, and the way we set expectations and acknowledge what we’ve done.
And a lot of the advice out there is about raising confidence. Fake it til you make it. Stop comparing, recognise your wins, maybe work through previous life experiences where you felt criticized, belittled, outcasted. And that all makes a lot of sense. But today, I want to start a conversation about whether that is only dealing with half of the story.
So today, I want to ask you a question. You could journal it if you like, but otherwise, just answer as fast as you can, with the first things that pop into your head.
What do real language learners do?
Where did your brain go just then? Was it to sitting in front of a desk? Was it to hours of spaced repetition? Was it to expensive tuition or yearlong courses abroad? Was it to having certain aesthetically pleasing study setup? Was it to being able to concentrate on demand?
The thing with impostor syndrome is, it can lead us into a cycle of just reassuring ourselves that if we’re mostly aligned with our ideal of a language learner, we’ll be okay, and we can compensate for all the things that don’t really make us as languagey as other people. It becomes about trying to convince ourselves that if we squint a bit, we do fit into the mould really.
But that’s not always the solution we’re looking for, and doing that can sometimes steer us even further way from what’s true and useful for us. Because sometimes, the problem isn’t what we think it is. It’s not the way we study, or the way we see the world, or the reason we got into language learning in the first place. It’s not our personality. It’s that the image we hold in our heads of what a language learner should be is far, far too narrow, so we feel like we’re suffocating.
What if real language learners do what you do? Try stuff, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Get frustrated. Go through peaks and troughs of motivation. Try more things. Look things up on google. Download loads of apps but only try a few.
There is absolutely space for you in the language learning community, language learners, and I would love to see us collectively widen the scope of what people perceive language learning to be and the paths that they can take to get there. Because the wider that space is, the more welcoming it feels, and the easier it is to convince ourselves that we don’t have to contort ourselves beyond recognition to just fit.
You have so many unique gifts that you can bring to your language learning, in everything that you’ve done before, your quirks, your habits, your interests, and following those, using them to guide you, is so much more important than trying to be the right kind of language learner. You’re doing it right already.
Have a wonderful day, and I will see you back here at 7am UK time tomorrow.