Hi Valeria, it's super nice to meet you in person
could you introduce yourself to some people who don't know of your channel or know who you are, perhaps
sure, I
currently live in Seattle, Washington
I'm a software engineer and on the side. I really like to study languages and make
Sometimes language related content on YouTube and it's usually kind of in the more
communication psychology realm of language learning not more not tips really but more like analysis and research so
Awesome. Can you give an example like what would be more communication?
Psychology, like what? Whoa, what is so that's like my
Penultimate video at the moment the one that's about
Like relationships
Social relationships on YouTube that one is kind of more of the psychology and like communication of how you're communicating
With the youtuber but not really and how that whole kind of relationship is going. Yeah. I was watching the one you made about like
youtubers in general and it actually made me feel a lot better cuz I feel a lot of pressure to
befriend
My viewers in that sense and I feel like I owe it to them, you know
They're consuming my content and I owe it to them to be
nice friendly responsive
But it's absolutely like really mentally taxing because you don't know these people in person
yeah, but it's just sometimes easier almost if you're like an
Introvert like I am sometimes I don't want to necessarily like talk or take efforts
Yeah talk people or you know, go somewhere or anything and it's nice to still get some kind of
feeling like you're still interacting with people or like just
Inputs of information and how would you say your relationship is with a general language learning community? Like when did you discover?
They're such a big community online and how are you experiencing it in general?
so this is actually a very interesting thing to answer because
You're the first person I discovered like a couple years ago. Okay. Thank you
I don't know how you'll react to this. But initially I was actually really I didn't like you
But it wasn't because of like you or anything it was because I was kind of I
I always throughout my whole life felt special and that like, oh, I know the most language is out of everybody who I know
So I was like, oh, I'm the best at this out of my whole sphere of people
but then suddenly I discovered you and I was like I
Feel threatened by this girl
but that was just because that was the first time that I had ever like encountered such a
Person that was similar to me. I always felt very different from
everybody so I didn't really I was too young to know how to like properly and
Healthily, I guess react to that kind of thing. So initially I was like
frustrated then you exist but then out of
But then because your content was genuinely great and you were like such a lovely person I kept watching you
So and then I was like, okay, okay
It's fine. She's really great
I should do this in a really positive light and maybe take her like I don't know like
Advices and just her experience and like maybe just implement some of those things and I don't know whatever
and
Only recently actually did I start to get into the more broader language learning community?
Which is on Twitter. I never really interacted much with anybody in particular though. It was just kind of like I
Would like something comment something and you know, it would just kind of stop there and it wasn't any true personal reactions or anything
but then after Mary polyglots
Challenge in January. Do you remember that? Yes
That's when I started more closely like interacting with very specific people more consistently and it was everyday. Yeah
so I remember I got
much more
Like with Rebecca acuppalang and... I forget what his name is on Twitter. But his name is Joe
He speaks like a bunch of languages. I think he lives in Japan. Yes. Yes
Yes, she calls him Joe sensei. I think at least in one tweet she did
But yeah, I just became more involved in the community
In the good one
I guess and I just remember walking down the street with my boyfriend at one point and I was telling him like I
Feel so great to be in a community where like I share this interest. It's so many people
yeah, those are some good points you make. I guess first of all, I'm sorry that you
didn't like me at first
but on that point I can completely understand and relate and
I think it's totally
intrinsic and natural for us as humans to compare ourselves to people and it takes a lot of
Humility and courage to try and put those feelings aside and realize that comparison is really not getting you anywhere
And it's just fostering like negative emotions inside of you. And I remember there were some like,
specifically female polyglots, I think girls have this with other girls
I've never felt myself getting envious or jealous of male polyglots
and I don't know any other women who feel that way maybe among males perhaps
But I've seen this with female polyglots a lot that it's it's I don't know if girls are just like naturally catty or you know
so I remember hearing somewhere I mean is such a cliche phrase if you can't beat them join them and
Diamond changed my mindset and I was like wow
you know, why am I out here trying to be better than these people are trying to
show off or whatever when actually I should just be
Learning from them joining them getting to know them as friends and that's one of the reasons I started doing this series
Um Polly got princesses on my youtube channel where I featured specifically female language learners
More for the point of raising awareness that there are actually female poly gods are out here who have amazing things to share
but also for the
Purpose of me to get to know these people on a friendship level what you see online is really not what the person is
I've made such amazing friendships with these people
So it's been really good to just get to know them first before you pass any judgments about them
But it's so easy to just judge when you haven't even spoken to them and just from like what they present
Exactly seek. Why do you think we as women or
people in the polygon community
tend to have these feelings of feeling threatened or
Why do we compare ourselves so much. Would that would you say it's like that in other communities as well?
I think so because this is not the only
Like venue, I guess of me feeling this kind of way
because when I was in college, I was part of a ballroom dancing team and
I
Initially was very good at specifically Latin ballroom dancing and I was really good friends with this other girl
Isabel who also was doing it too and she was also very good at specifically that kind - yeah
But then she started to slowly get better at it than I was so she was thinking going up and doing really well in
competitions and I wasn't and I started to kind of
envy her and then dislike her as well because I was like
Why that's not like I'm just as good but she's doing all this and yeah
I don't know like I didn't envy guys
Who were I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, it's weird
I can't explain it either but I wish it could change but I see it with with girls in the language community girls
are they tend to be really envious of each other and it's actually terrible and women should be here supporting each other and
You know making each other strong together. So if we get
Instances where women are purposely trying to break each other down. That's that's super harmful
Like now more than ever women should be supporting each other so they were actually here too
Talk about this idea of comparison and also perfectionism in language learning and how to kind of get over that
I deuce I wouldn't say I struggle per se with comparing myself to people
because I
Come to the point where I realize it's such a waste of time and I could be using that mental energy and time to be
Actually studying languages. Mm-hmm, right?
I do sometimes, you know watch clips or videos of people and they're super amazingly talented in languages and their accent is perfect
and then I don't necessarily feel like
Envious towards them but I'm like, oh my goodness. I feel like an insane amount of admiration
Like wow, they've worked so hard and also, I wish I could be like that
But like I said it took me a while to get to that point
what would you say your current experiences are I would say mine definitely started out like as I
Described what I felt towards you initially, but then I started like becoming more self-aware and just like growing up generally
And learning that I should instead. I don't know what everybody else's situation is
I don't know like what they're doing with their life or their time or what their values are or why they're doing whatever they're doing
Like, you know, so I can't compare myself
accurately, or
Liked productively to anybody else other than to myself
So it like if I want to specifically get better at Chinese, for example
And I want to get better specifically and like speaking and I don't really care about writing then I shouldn't be
Annoyed at myself for not being as good at writing as other people because that's not trying to do exactly
That's something that I have more recently learned to become more comfortable with like appreciate other people's
successes and achievements but also not
Projecting that back negatively onto myself. Do you think that
comparing
Can actually help you in your language learning journey, or is it completely a negative thing? I
Think it can be positive if you're taking it as like a motivation or an inspiration
Yeah
but if I guess it like depends if you are a pessimist or an optimist in that regard
like if you are optimistic, you can see oh
They've achieved it. So it's possible. I can - absolutely but if you're pessimistically looking at it, then you're gonna be like
Oh, they already did it. What's the point like? Why should I even try?
That's so true. And then I also want to talk to you about
perfectionism in language learning which I think can stem from
comparison because what people put out online
You you don't see the hard work and the process and the struggles and the tears, generally
I mean personally I try to make videos where I'm actually showing myself struggling
You know just to be honest
but in general you don't actually see the hard work that people put in and that leads to perfectionism because you think
You know person a is the ideal for language learning they don't make mistakes so me making mistakes
is wrong isn't normal and
Your solution to fixing that is perfectionism. I'm not gonna speak until I'm perfect
I'm not gonna post a picture of my notes until it's error-free. Yeah, I
really relate to
Every single problem in the book that has to do with perfectionism. I feel like
Well, so in the beginning of the year actually just I don't know out of curiosity. I started going to a therapist and she essentially
diagnosed me with having like a perfectionism thing not like exactly what but
How and I started to see how that's?
affected every single part of my life, including the language learning, right so in
in language learning, I feel like
part of the reason why I've struggled to improve my speaking is because I don't I
Don't have the time to perfectly arrange the sentence and like do everything
Before I have to speak and like respond within a reasonable amount of time to somebody
Now that I'm not in a classroom setting where I know all the vocab that all my
Classmates know and we all have the same exact knowledge base. If I were to converse with somebody else who speaks like a language
I'm learning. I have no idea what they expected me or
What things they might throw at me? So I almost feel like I don't even want to
Entertain that like attempt of trying to talk to them. We're like it's challenge because I
Don't know. I'm not gonna be perfect at it because it's completely unknown that's like such a detriment to
My whole like process of learning and improving I feel I anticipate a judgement. That won't come
yeah, and I just freaked myself out because I think a lot of language learners struggle with and
They tend to focus a lot on other skills like vocabulary acquisition grammar reading and writing
As a way to feel like they're progressing in the language
which they aren't in but with that they they never get the opportunity to speak and
The more you do that the more you get better
For other knowledge of the language becomes wider and then it's actually harder to start speaking. I find that beginners
Have this innate fearlessness when you learn a language like you're so excited about it and you're like, I don't care if I make mistakes
I'm just happy to talk to somebody
But intermediate or advanced learners you are aware of those mistakes and you're like I should know better
I'm not gonna talk and I think it's extremely detrimental to try and wait until
You're perfect there
people do say wait until you're ready to speak and I used to be of the school of thought to be like that's ridiculous you
Should start speaking from from the start but I realized that I have to have some sensitivity to the issue that ready
Doesn't mean fluent you don't have to wait until you're feeling you have to wait until you're ready in your heart to speak
but you shouldn't let that drag out and
Wait until you're feeling like you're perfect to be able to start. I
think this is just a guess but I think that part of the reason that you might be more comfortable as a beginner is because
No one is acting much of you. If you proceed the whole thing is oh, I don't know that much. I'm just a beginner
But then so you can just make mistakes and no one cares. They're not, you know think you're gonna be great
but then once your say your intermediate when you say intermediate, it's like Oh
Does that mean you can speak pretty comfortably like about this topic or any topic or whatever?
And then stop you suddenly feel like oh, maybe I'm not intermediate. Maybe I'm still beekeeper
Yeah
so that's why at least for me I tend to
Under represent what I feel like I am in ihling so that I would rather impress somebody
Rather than like make them expect more. That's a good point for sure
Super nice to talk to you. I learned a lot for me when I'm so glad we could relate. Thank you
I will see you around somewhere in the language sphere online
Sounds good. OK, see you!