During my time in high school, there was a heavy disincentive for learning foreign languages. I speculate that our programs were not funded well enough, with teachers being underpaid and a lack of resources such as tutoring and whatnot.
The underlying narrative amongst our peers was that since we all knew English already, there was no urgency to learn how other people speak. This could be one of the furthest things from the truth.
What really dissuaded me from the English centric mentality was when I had a chance to go and experience Spanish in an exchange program as well as visit China for the first time. In both trips I stumbled to form sentences and communicate effectively with people. I had previously taken mandarin Chinese and Spanish classes but being in such environments where I had to try to speak those languages to do anything really showed me the utility of taking foreign language study more seriously.
While learning Spanish felt like just taking another course, trying to improve my Chinese was a more daunting emotional journey. I have tried multiple times, starting and restarting, self- studying and tutoring, to learn the language but I was not making that much progress. The difficulty I encountered was my inner thoughts saying that I should already know how to speak the language due to my heritage background. This made learning seem redundant as well as led me to give up more easily if I felt that I wasn’t making enough progress.
In Spanish, I also felt self-conscious about my errors in pronunciation or sentence formation, but I could easily brush it off. Because I had no expectation of previously knowing how to speak the language at all.
While the challenges of Spanish could be addressed academically, Chinese needed a restructuring of how I thought of myself and my abilities. How could I reframe my thoughts to learn the language without shaming myself repeatedly?
The first step was accepting that I didn’t know enough Chinese. That sounds basic, but I had to really look at my knowledge and fully admit that I did not know how to speak well, that I struggled with prolonged conversations, and I did not have a grasp on pronunciation. It boiled down to a simple phrase I told myself, if I really don’t know the language, is there any shame in learning it? By being honest with myself, then I could tell myself the objective nature of my learning level and start again properly.
As I started learning Chinese again in college, I found it much easier to advance through the levels. I no longer was holding myself back with my preconceived notion of my abilities, I was facing the real nature of my comprehension every day and trying to actively work on it.
In addition to this change in mindset, my Chinese professors have all been nonjudgmental, which gave me the space to learn and be free of other people’s opinions. Even as I struggled to speak with my grandma, she encouraged me and became very receptive as I began to form more and more complex sentences.
I highly encourage anyone learning different languages. The journey can be daunting, especially if it is a heritage language, based on whatever background one may have. But it is really rewarding to be able to speak with others and to communicate more. People out there have so many stories to share.
