one thing that differentiates humans from other mammals is our ability to communicate through
words. another side of that is also our lack of ability to communicate because of the words
we use. it allows us to make friends, express our thoughts, and discuss complex topics... but again,
it also frustrates us when we can't find the right words and fully express how we feel. Being able to
speak multiple languages gives you the opportunity to make friends from all over the world,
but it doesn't come without its tribulations. Here are five of my main struggles as a languages
student at University, and a learner of the French Spanish and Italian language.
Never feeling fluent. Now I have been learning French and Spanish specifically for around five
years now, I'm on my fifth year of my degree and it pains me to say that I am not fully fluent and
that I am not at a native level of the language. One thing that really frustrates me though is
with Emilio- my boyfriend- his family don't speak English and so they only know this lesser
intelligent version of who I really am. and I think that's one of the most frustrating things
about learning a language, is that you can't prove how smart you are when you're not using your
native language. When you're trying to discuss how you feel, or discuss topics like history, in
something that isn't real in your target language, it's really difficult and you make a lot of
mistakes and you get stressed out and it takes a lot more brain power than it would in your native
language .I saw this TikTok, I wonder if I can put it up here "when he thinks when he talks for
[ __ ] sakes I'm having trouble talking to you but I am smart". I think he captures it so well, it's
like "I am I am so smart in my main language you guys do not know" I'm not as stupid as what I'm
trying to explain stuff in French per se. Another part of this not feeling fluent is the infinite
mistakes you make and how you feel stupid every time you make them. I'm pretty confident in my
French grammar now, I've learned every tense and I know how to use them, but just out of the stress
of the moment I have to make mistakes and I'll use the wrong tense or I'll stumble over whether it's
feminine or masculine the word and I always get so frustrated because someone will always point
it out like "oh sorry it's 'un probleme' it's not 'une probleme'" and I'm like "I know I knew
that I just I" you make mistakes you make them and you know you made them but you just hope mo
one's gonna comment on them. Also, one thing that happens and has happened to me a lot especially
in my French Learning Experience is when I say a sentence, and I can see the person across me is
just during blankly like I what was that?? I had no idea what you said?? it's just so demeaning.
Like you don't know the term humble until you're trying to discuss something complex in your target
language and you make a bunch of mistakes, and the person is looking at you like ????
All of these things kind of put together gives you a lack of confidence when you're learning and it's
something you just have to kind of force yourself to overcome. You know I've in my opinion conquered
this in Spanish where I know I make a bunch of mistakes I know that I probably sound very rough
around the edges when I'm trying to talk about something. But you know what we're still here,
I'm like, what's the worst that's gonna happen? They're gonna ask me to repeat and I'm gonna
have a little fumble trying to come up with another way to word that thing was already
hard enough to word one way? Like it's fine, but it is a huge obstacle that's for sure.
The second biggest struggle is losing momentum when you kind of reach a certain level and when
you don't have the time to practice. I found that after my year in Spain I was really confident with
Spanish I was used to speaking it all day again, I was used to making mistakes and it being not
the end of the world ... and then I came home to Scotland and now I haven't had really a proper
full conversation in Spanish since. And I I kind of I'm finding myself to be a little frustrated
that I'm losing that momentum that I had you know I was like really reaching a good language level
and then when you don't have the time to practice, you're like :/ and yeah it's really tough but you
know what life gets busy and you don't always have the time to keep up with it and it's just
something again, we have to accept. Your target languages are never always going to be perfect.
You're going to go through phases where you feel like you could dream in that language it's
that easy to you and you think in that language, there's gonna be other times where you're spending
five seconds trying to process how to use the subjunctive tense in Spanish. Now is my semester
of university is coming to an end, I'm getting that panic of taking a month off of learning
these languages to go and enjoy myself and I've decided to really try and keep this momentum that
I've had throughout the semester. One way I'm gonna keep that momentum up is by using
lingopie the sponsor of today's video. Lingopie is the world's first language learning platform
that uses TV shows and movies to learn foreign languages .I mean, what a beautiful concept,
it's like you don't have to do anything. You just have to sit on your laptop and watch it,
it's brilliant, I love it! and I think it's one of my favorite ways to learn a language,
by watching and consuming content, especially because not only do you learn the language
and the grammar and the vocab but you learn a lot of culture through watching TV shows. I've
recently been watching "learn with a chef" which is a French program I found on the
platform and it's really just because I don't have much specific vocabulary in the kitchen,
and so I'm using this guy telling me how to cut cabbage to learn different types of knives and
different verbs to do with cutting stuff and it's been really useful. But the best part
about Lingopie is the interactive subtitles, because when you watch on other platforms sure,
you have subtitles, but you can't click on the word and directly get an answer of what that word
is in your language or in your target language. And another great thing about them, is when you
click on them you can add them to flashcards which means at the end of that episode or that season,
you can review all the words that you had to click to learn. I've also enjoyed using the speed change
setting because I'm not so great in my Italian and I can't listen to people at full speed now
so I've been putting it down to 0.75 to really hear the pronunciation so if you're learning
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Number three is the fatigue in learning a language and everything that comes with it. my goodness me,
if you've ever had to speak in a target language that you're not super comfortable in for multiple
hours, I feel you I can feel your migraine from here. It is so heavy on the brain, I can't even
put it into words. And it's like if you don't know a foreign language you've not been an experienced
you can really convey how hard it is to have a long conversatio.n I go to weekly French Pub night
and I'm only now just starting to kind of be able to go for multiple you know more than three hours
without coming home and being just absolutely exhausted. I think my funniest story about the
exhaustion is, we all know how the French love a long dinner party but one time Emilo's Family took
it to the Limit and we started the meal or the day with friends at 12pm and we finished at 10pm that
was 10 full hours of me having to hear the French language, when I was probably only be one maybe
reaching B2, and I remember when it came to 10pm, I'm sitting across the table in front of everyone
who were talking about, it was World War II very intense subject, and I'm just like..... I'm gone,
I am gone. I cannot contribute another thing and even those dad had to like "get her home
she's not okay" so funny. But then when I compare that to how I am now, where I can
have many hour conversations and feel still high energy, it's so satisfying! you just have to not
give up. You have to just keep powering for the conversation it's such good brain exercise as
well, like honestly learning language... you're doing good things to your brain, let's be real.
Four, is the lack of opportunities, specifically as an English speaker because, as it is great that
your native language is English, the downside of that is that everyone wants to practice English
with you and I'd found that every time I meet someone that's a French or Spanish speaker the
same an English speaker they're immediately "oh great I gotta practice my English" and it's really
hard to not fall into that trap of "yeah good I can speak English with them thank God I wasn't
really wanting to practice Spanish anyway" and you have to really hold strong and say "no please can
we speak your language" like I'm sure you would love to speak your own language here too, and
found that in Spain I had to really kind of put the foot down say "no I'm in your country please
let me speak your language when I come to the UK and practice English great but let's speak Spanish
whilst we're here" so it's really a blessing and a curse being a native English speaker.
Now my last main struggle from learning a language is the cultural challenge and cultural change that
you have to go through when you're learning that language, because you're not only learning the
words they speak but their culture because so much of it is intertwined. That was something
that really shocked me when I was trying to get to a higher level of these languages that you
really need to understand their culture too. First thing that I found to do with the culture is the
formality of other languages. Now I'm from the west coast of Scotland and we are very informal,
very informa,l and so I speak to my lecturers in what would be the informal register. I address
them with their first name, I'm very casual with them but I remember when I went to Tours in
France, it's a university on the west coast um for an Erasmus exchange, I emailed a lecturer and the
this was to be it was to be an email in English because he was teaching the subject in English so
I thought would just speak English and I addressed him by saying "hello mr.." and then his name and
I got a HUGE email back about how disrespectful that was to address him with hello. And here I
was thinking I was being polite by saying "hi how's how are you doing". He was very unhappy
and so that was kind of a lesson for me like whoa, they find it disrespectful when you're being too
friendly whereas in the UK is more disrespectful to not ask someone how they're doing.
Yeah that was very embarrassing. I dropped his class immediately I was like we're off in a
bad start I'm not going to get a good grade here also when you learn the language, to do with the
culture there's so many cultural expressions do not translate and so you just need to learn where
they got that from why they got it that way. It's actually a really fun part of learning a language,
but it is hard to kind of keep track of all of these expressions we have. I mean I'm constantly
teaching Emilio ones every day, even though his English is amazing, in Scotland we have our own
billion other expressions that I will use and he'll be like "what?" An example of that is um
the phrase "to tell porkies" I taught him "to tell porkies" the other day, which is really funny.
There are so many taboos in different cultures that you have to learn and you have to get used
to, and it is embarrassing going through those because you learn them by experience rather than
someone telling you, Now as much as there are a lot of frustrations when learning a language,
I definitely think the good outweighs the bad. I found that it all becomes worth it
when you get over those hurdles, whether it be your lack of confidence in speaking,
or your inability to express how you truly feel in that language. It becomes worth it
when you've had a full conversation in your target language for the first time,
and you realize that you started to think even in that language and it's a rewarding skill being
able to talk to people from all over the world in their native language and not forcing them
to speak English with you. As much as this was a negative video on learning languages,
I just have to end it on a good note and say: I love it and if you aren't already
learning a language, why don't you check out Lingopie and start learning. Come on let's go!
Okay thank you very much for watching today's video and have a lovely week bye!