It’s halfway through October.
As the air gets a bit chilly and the leaves start to fall, I wanted to give you a bit of comfort.
Comfort that wherever you are in your language-learning journey…..it’s all going to be OK.
Cheesy, of course.
But oh so liberating.
…..
My girlfriend and I took a trip to France a couple weeks ago. It was my first time, and I did my fair share of drinking. Nothing says Eric like a decent bottle of red wine for three Euros.
We hitchhiked there. A Belgian guy picked us up near Aachen on his way to Brussels, and off we went.
45 minutes later, I started seeing signs in a different language. The sloping green hills and cloudy sky looked the same, but all of a sudden the umlauts had been replaced by accents.
We had crossed into Belgium without me realizing it, and 45 minutes after getting into a stranger’s car, my girlfriend’s German was completely useless.
That got me thinking. About languages, how diverse they are, and how a lot of our frustration in learning them doesn’t really take the “larger picture” into account.
Most Germans don’t speak French. That’s funny to me, because France (and French-speaking Belgium) are right next door. Or, as I now know in real terms, a 45 minute drive. Put your average German in a room with your average Frenchman, and guess what language they will be speaking?
Yup. English.
Next door neighbors, but they don’t speak each other’s language.
And you’re pissed off that you can’t understand your Egyptian roommate talking on the phone?
…..
Learning a new language, in a lot of ways, sucks.
You can’t competently express yourself.
The simplest questions leave you dumbfounded.
You are no longer an intellectually sophisticated philosopher full of opinions, but an infant struggling with new sounds in your mouth.
With an endless list of problems, a foreign tongue is the ultimate ego check.
But it’s also a lifeline.
Because you know what?
This is everybody. It’s everyone that has ever been born, and everyone that ever will be.
There are just too many fucking languages, and not enough time. Learn only a few of the 6,000 or so that are out there, and you’re doing alright.
The linguistic variety of this planet is frustrating, for sure.
But it’s frustrating for everyone.
And you know what that means?
All these problems that you’re having have nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the work that language learning requires.
There is nothing wrong with speaking with an accent.
There is nothing wrong with not understanding grammar.
There is nothing wrong with forgetting words you spent hours memorizing.
You might be struggling with how difficult Arabic is….but there is nothing wrong with you.
And what a lovely thought that is.
…..
Trust the process.
That’s what we at Cleo Lingo are all about.
Just like there’s no such thing as “get rich quick,” there are no shortcuts to waking up fluent tomorrow. Sure, there are better, more efficient ways to learn, and we hope to become an invaluable resource for your Egyptian Arabic.
But expect difficulties.
Be patient, keep working at it, and stop getting so damn frustrated. The world is full of languages that you don’t know, that none of your friends know, that you’ve never even heard of.
Learning a new one (especially one as difficult as Arabic) is supposed to be hard.
It’s not you. Believe us when we say that.
So stop worrying about the things that you can’t change (a weird-looking alphabet, crazy new sounds, grammar that has you throwing cups of coffee at your boyfriend) and focus on the things that you can. Namely, your own dedication to the language, and how much time you are willing to put into learning this amazing dialect.
Expect the struggle.
Learn to love the process, and see it for what it is: a necessary test for your brain in a world where a 45 minute drive throws you into a completely different language family.
We believe in you.
