This
is where I went wrong. I was always expecting perfection. I gave
myself unrealistic, and high expectations. I would easily become frustrated,
and would tell my parents that 10, or more years of French had been useless. If
this situation sounds similar to yours, do not be worried. Luckily, I have
learned that we cannot expect perfection, not even those of us who are OCD, or
are perfectionists. If we expect to not make any mistakes when speaking, or
dealing with aspects of our target language, we will automatically fail. Even though
I am technically considered a native English speaker, English was my second
language, and I rarely ever speak it at home, putting me at a disadvantage from
most of my classmates. But even so, I have clarified grammar points, or how to
spell words to people who are native English speakers. This
shows that even native speakers can make mistakes. That is the beauty of being
human: learning from our mistakes, and pushing ourselves to our limits.
Instead, what I encourage
you to do is to try to speak every time that you get a chance to do so. If you have not already done so, and
have studied a language for years, it is never too late to start doing so. What
Benny Lewis (the famous polyglot that I have already mentioned) has said is
that language is used to communicate and to share ideas with others. If you can
write, and read in a language well, that is impressive, but if you cannot
understand its native speakers, or speak it, then you have failed to do what a
language is meant to do. Let’s compare languages to math (a subject that I was
never good at). If you memorize an equation and know for what it is used, but
you cannot apply it to real-world situations, then it is as if you did not know
the equation. Language-learning requires you to step out of your comfort zone,
and to learn from your mistakes.
Being a native Spanish
speaker, there have been many times in which my friends have wanted to practice
their Spanish with me. In my opinion, those who have done so successfully are
not the ones who had perfect grammar, or who used complicated vocabulary to try
to impress me. Instead, those who made grammar or vocabulary mistakes, or who
translated words literally from English to Spanish are the ones who were brave. Why? The reason is simple. They were willing to
say what they knew, and spoke to me in a natural way. Native speakers also
pause, and sometimes have to think about what they want to say the way that
they want to say it, but that is part of communication. What matters is that
you are trying, that you are willing to learn from your mistakes, and then
correct them. Being fearless is what
separates bad language-learners from exceptional ones.
Before ending this post, I
will share a small anecdote to hopefully inspire you to start speaking your
target language as often as possible, even with native speakers. I started
taking German I as a sophomore in high-school, and had hopes to someday reach
the AP level. At the time, I was trying to do this on a whim, and forgot about
this goal for a long time. When I went to a language immersion camp for a month-long
high-school credit program, I was attempting to learn enough German in order to
skip German II, and move on to Honors German III as a junior. At first, the
task was daunting. I was placed into the third level out of six after only
taking German for a school-year, and having little to no writing or speaking
practice.
There were several people
in my group who had taken German for 2 years, a girl who had taken it for 4
years, and a boy who had gone to the camp for 3 years. I was definitely the
underdog in the group, but pushed myself out of comfort zone every day. I asked
my teacher clarification questions, and used the little vocabulary, and grammar
that I knew. By the end of the session, I had only spoken in German from
breakfast through dinner time for 10 days (a language pledge that you could
choose to do), something that I would have never imagined of accomplishing. How
did I manage to learn so much in such a short amount of time? I was fearless. I
was brave, and made many mistakes. I conjugated verbs incorrectly, and blanked
on words, but could not freely express myself, and used what I knew.
I had girls in my cabin
who had had years of practice with the language, which only pushed me to keep
on learning more. The first day of camp, I could barely formulate a sentence. One
of my friends claims that she could not understand what I was trying to say
that day. However, by the end of the camp, I could easily communicate with
girls who had gone to the camp for 10 years. This shows that speaking is the
most important aspect of a language. Do not worry, and take a few deep breaths.
Speaking is not as scary as it seems. Native speakers are not trying to look
down upon you. Instead, we want to encourage you to keep on striving to reach
your language-learning goals.
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