The Ups and Downs of Language Learning
There is no easy path to fluency.
As a native speaker of English, in a world where English is the lingua franca, learning other languages seems almost like an unnecessary effort. These days you can find English practically everywhere you go, from Europe to Asia. If you count both native speakers and the people who speak English as a second language, it’s the most widely spoken language in the world.
So why learn another language?
So with those statistics, why would a native speaker of English bother to spend time learning another language? Well, notice in the paragraph above I said ‘almost’… It’s not completely unnecessary. There are a wealth of reasons why even English natives need to learn other languages, and not all of them have to do with padding out your CV.
1. It’s polite.
So the first item on my list has to do with politeness. Can you tell I’m British? (Well if I’m speaking another language, then probably not.)
As I was growing up, my mother and father drilled into me that it was unacceptably rude to go to another country and expect the people there to speak my language. (Never mind that so many other native English speakers do exactly that.) If I wanted to live in another country, I must at least make an effort to learn the language.
And so I did, spending first 4 years in Sweden where I learned Swedish, and now on my third year in Austria where I’m still struggling to get to grips with German.
2. Integration
There are many countries where an English speaker can get by without ever needing the local language. Scandinavia is an obvious example. But even elsewhere in Europe. Plenty of Brits go and live in France, Spain or Portugal without speaking the respective language.
However, it seems obvious that such an existence is exactly that — just existing. If you don’t speak the language of the country where you live, you surely cannot hope to build up a life, a rounded social circle or really take part in cultural activities in the country.
3. Appreciating a different culture and perspective
I feel — and many other language learners have said the same thing — that I’m almost a different person when I express myself in another language. The differences between English and Swedish/German aren’t as pronounced as those between, say, English and some Asian languages, but with any language, you have to get used to a new way of expressing yourself.
Languages simply work differently. You might have to construct your sentences backwards. Sometimes you have to be more specific than you’re used to. Sometimes you have to settle for a more indirect way of expressing yourself. Sometimes the word you need simply doesn’t exist in the language you’re using, and then you have to decide whether to settle for using a long phrase to explain what you mean, or changing what you wanted to say.
All of these things help you to experience a new way of thinking and give you a greater appreciation for the people of the country you’re inhabiting and how they think.
4. It’s fun.
From a personal perspective, I can honestly say that I’ve always been glad for the time I’ve devoted to language learning. Although it can at times be hard work drilling yourself in obscure grammar rules and spending hours learning vocabulary, there’s a genuine sense of satisfaction from interacting in the language that you’ve learned. It’s an unparallelled thrill to successfully complete a transaction (it could be something as simple as understanding a sign or ordering a coffee) and think to yourself “I just did that in another language!”
A brief introduction to culture shock
In my very first foreign experience, I left England to spend a year on exchange-study (Erasmus) in Austria. Before leaving, we had a seminar at our home university where a nice woman explained about the culture shock that we would probably experience while we were away. As explained here, culture shock is a well-known phenomenon that goes through several distinct phases. It’s slightly different for everyone but most people will experience various peaks and troughs in their level of contentment after moving to a foreign country.
For example, there might be an initial low when you first arrive and have problems with your baggage, accommodation, the climate, administrative stuff etc.
This is usually followed by a high as you start to get excited about this new environment where everything is exotic and interesting.
You then experience a low as you run into problems related to everyday living. How do I open a bank account? Where can I do laundry? Why doesn’t the supermarket sell ‘normal’ breakfast cereal?
As you adjust to these things, there follows a high when you feel proud of your progress and your ability to cope in a foreign environment.
And so it continues, with ever increasing periods of positive feelings, followed by dips of despondency when you get discouraged after meeting a challenge or hurdle that defeats you.
Having several time experienced it for myself, I can confirm that culture shock is a real thing. It really happens exactly as they say, and there’s pretty much no way to avoid it. You can try to prepare yourself for the new things you’ll experience, but no matter what, you still end up being surprised by something that you hadn’t expected.
What’s more, it happens every time — even when you’re returning to a country you’ve lived in before. Reverse culture shock is also a thing. You wouldn’t believe it could happen, but while you’re away in a new country, you forget things about how people do stuff back home. Coming home, you still have to go through a period of adjustment as you’re reminded of all the ways that living in THIS country is different to the one that you just left.
The ups and downs of language learning
The whole point of my explanation about culture shock is that I believe a person’s feelings when learning a language follow something of the same up-and-down pattern. Your progress climbs at a somewhat steady rate, until suddenly you hit a pitfall. Perhaps you forget a stupidly common word, or mix up two similar words. Maybe you forget to use the formal term of address when meeting your boyfriend’s parents…
Whatever it was, no matter how insignificant it might have seemed to everyone else, to you it was a failure. Your belief in your own language abilities takes a hit and you drop down to a lower level of confidence.
But despite this minor setback, you carry on. Perhaps you redouble your efforts to learn. Your progress grows and you gradually build up your confidence past the point where it was before. You’re feeling good. You don’t get thrown off by minor mistakes like you used to. You manage conversations with natives and start thinking of yourself as a “speaker” of that language.
Then disaster strikes! Maybe you spoke too quickly; maybe you used a weird phrasing. Whatever the cause, someone misunderstood you. And with bad consequences. Your confidence plummets.
In despair you ask yourself why you bother? They all speak English anyway!
And so on until the next peak and the next trough. Periods of positive feelings about your abilities are inevitably followed by low points where you feel that you’ll never master the language, your accent sucks and everyone is probably laughing at you behind you back.
The good news is that although the dips can be severe, you still see positive progression over time. After learning German for 3 years, I still don’t consider myself fluent, but it’s getting better each day. And each time I have a bad experience and it knocks my self-belief, I still feel that I can speak German. I.e.: my confidence never drops back to zero. And each peak leaves me feeling better than the previous one.
Perhaps the secret to successful language learning is to keep looking at the big picture and accept that you will have these ups and downs. No matter what, you have to keep on trying and remind yourself that you are expanding your mind and your perspective with each and every new word that you learn.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’re a Medium user, please leave a comment with your own experiences of language learning below. If not, feel free to interact on Facebook or Twitter.
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