The Thrill of Victory, the Agony of Defeat
language learning as extreme sport
I still recall my greatest moment of agony when learning French. Invited to lunch by a French family, I thought I’d engage their four year old in une petite conversation. “As-tu faim, Claire? Es-tu prête pour le déjeuner?” Nothing complicated here. “Are you hungry, Claire? Ready for lunch?” (For those who read my last blog, French does cooperate with English here: the French is a word-for-word translation of what we’d say in English). Pas difficile.
This time it was not an idiom that got me in trouble. It was my pronunciation.
“Elle parle á nouveau anglais!”—“She’s speaking in English again!”—Clare exclaimed. Directing this to her maman, she clearly had concluded that speaking to me in French was pointless. Incredulous, I responded, “Non, Claire, je parle en français!”
Forty years later, that my French sounded to her like English is still the greatest moment of humiliation I’ve ever experienced with a four year old.
But, why is it so hard to learn a foreign language, anyway? Put simply, it’s hard because it challenges both your mind (your brain has to construct new cognitive frameworks) and time (it requires sustained, consistent practice).1
Learning a new language is not for sissies. It involves tremendous determination: hours and hours of repetition. As an Irish teacher said to me recently, “Cleachtadh, cleachtadh, cleachtadh!” (“Practice, practice, practice!”)
It also involves repeated risk and embarrassment. Faux amis (false friends) lurk everywhere. In French, “J’ai fini” means “I’m finished,” as in “I’m finished with my meal.” “Je suis fini” means “I’m dead.“ (Do you know how many times that I told people I was dead?) Another one: “Excité” in French does not mean “excited;” it means horny. When studying in France for a summer, I got a t-shirt that declared, “Á moi, c'est les petit souris” (literally: “For me, it’s the little mice”) and that featured a cartoon mouse. I wore it all around town and thought I was très cool. I was moritified when two strangers took me aside and explained to me that this phrase doesn’t only refer to “mice.” In French, it’s slang for “I like chicks!” (And this was years before I came out.)
Learning a language takes thick skin. You need to make mistakes (it’s part of the process) and face repeated corrections. Sometimes you’re just lost. Often left out. At times even panicked. Forget about judgements from others. Language learning invites in self-doubt and recrimination. You need to repeatedly navigate expectations, including your own.
When talking with Irish speakers, I’m still at the phase where it’s like a wave of language coming at me. I want to dive in and swim. I want to surf—or at least keep my head above water. I try to pick out the odd word, like grabbing for a life preserver. But it’s a tsunami of sound.
This is understandable because spoken language is always different from the written form. Words are contracted, linked together, and sometimes even dropped. There are differences in dialect. I know some words (according to a learning app I’m using, about 800 words now in Irish). But it’s estimated that you need 10,000 words to be fluent in a language.2 And it’s not just about knowing words of course; you need to understand the grammatical structures and the idioms. I’m just not able to connect the dots yet.
When I’m stuck, French often turns up. It’s as if there’s a compartment in my brain for all non-English words and when I can’t find the Irish one, my brain says, “Oh well, here, take this—it’ll do!” I’m not the only one with this quirk. A friend who’s also learning Irish experiences this cross-firing of synapses. In her case, it’s Spanish that intrudes.
Connecting with others is one of the intrinsic reasons for learning a language. Yet when learning, we repeatedly experience disconnection, of various forms.
Partly this is because language is not just about communicating information; it’s a way of communicating who we are. When learning a new language there is (at least for a while) a loss of identity and wholeness. We can’t tell the the same jokes or be as funny or expressive or poetic. It’s a liminal space between reality and desire: what we aspire to and what we are capable of now.
A person’s linguistic proficiency is often considered a reflection of their cognitive {and] … intellectual capabilities.3
It’s gone out of fashion in English, and the word “dumb” used to refer to someone unable to speak, even if temporarily. Now it just means stupid or lacking in intelligence.
As West Side Story so perfectly captures in “America,” race and class privilege— or the lack of it—quickly converge in how language ability is perceived:
12 in a room in America Lots of new housing with more space (Lots of doors slamming in our face) I'll get a terrace apartment Better you get rid of your accent
If you have a French accent or the Received Pronunciation of James Bond, it’s sexy and suave. If it’s The Festrunk Brothers, i.e. the “Two Wild and Crazy Guys” from Saturday Night Live, then you’re laughable.
“The relationship between intelligence and language has long been a subject of fascination and exploration…”4
All of this lurks somewhere in the back of my brain. I wonder too if language learning even brings up early trauma, from when you’re precognitive and too young to speak. Even as adults, when speaking to a boss or a police officer or other people in positions of power where we need to hold back or choose to remain silent, we experience dis-empowerment and sometimes even shame. How does all this turn up (unconsciously) when learning a language—when not able to speak or when making mistakes?
Then there are moments of pure magic:
Last summer when in the Gaeltacht (an Irish-speaking part of Ireland), I asked in a chipper about my order, not only as Gaeilige (in Irish) but in Gaelainn (the Munster dialect). “An bhfuil sé ullamh?” (“Is it ready?”) I asked. I could tell the guy at the counter was surprised, especially because I used “ullamh,” a Munster way of saying “ready” (reidh is used in other dialects). When he replied, I understood him too. Whoop-whoop!
This summer at Irish school in the Gaeltacht, the teacher’s five year old son stopped by. After he said “Hi” to me in English, I asked him, “An bhfuil Gaeilge agat?” (“Do you speak Irish?”) He—unlike the four year old Clare in France—responded directly to me in his native tongue. Yes!
Áine Gallagher taps into all this language learning angst as a stand-up comic. Her shows focus on the challenges of learning and speaking Irish. This is especially fraught in Ireland due to eight hundred years of British colonialism which systematically sought to destroy the Irish language (and largely succeeded). In an effort to restore the national language, Irish is a required subject in primary and secondary school. There can be a range of resentment, shame, resistance, and giving out (i.e., complaining) from Irish people about how horrible their Irish teacher was and about being forced to read Peig Sayers and that Irish should not be a required subject for the Leaving Cert (i.e., to graduate).
Some people, like Áine, love Irish and make a concerted effort to speak it.
Feeling discouraged one day, Áine lamented to a fluent Irish-speaking friend that her Irish basically sucked. Her friend disagreed. “Look, you’re able to fully express yourself to me in Irish, right?” “Yes,” Áine admitted. “And you’re able to understand me, right?” Áine also agreed. “Well, then, that means you’re fluent!” Her friend then took her own gold fáinne (a lapel pin indicating that the wearer is a Gaeilgeoir, a fluent Irish speaker) and pinned it on Áine. The thrill of victory!
Shortly after that: the agony of defeat.
Áine happened to be at an event with the President of Ireland, the Uachtarán na hÉireann, Michael D. Higgins. By the way, Michael D. has one of those gold fáinne lapel pins. He’s a very confident Irish speaker, often delivering lengthy speeches as Gaeilge (in Irish). And there was Áine, with Michael D., also wearing her gold fáinne. Michael D., of course, spoke to her as Gaeilge. But Áine couldn’t respond. Her Irish evaporated. She was a deer in headlights. She stood there—frozen, speechless, unable to say anything—except in English. (In her show, Áine manages to make this funny. To me, it sounds mortifying.)
And I thought speaking French with a four year old was rough!
Why am I going on about all this?
It’s an elaborate strategy for compassion. It’s my way of finding some understanding (both cognitively and empathically) for myself. It’s an attempt to offer companionship. If you’re learning a language and suffering, I want you to know you’re not alone. It’s not your imagination. It’s tough. It can be embarrassing, frustrating, humbling, and humiliating. It’s a long-term commitment. It’s time-consuming. It’s lonely.
It’s also beautiful.
(And I know how to say that in Irish, by the way: Tá sé go hálainn freisin.)
So I keep at it. I’m resilient. I’m committed. I see the long view—even if in moments I don’t. There are moments of pure insight and joy—where, as I described in my last blog, my brain cracks open. I don’t need to go bungee jumping (although I did do the longest zip-line in the world once). Language learning is my extreme sport.
I’m also in love. I’ll be writing about this in future blogs and I am completely enamored with the Irish language. When you’re in love, you’re willing to do a lot for your beloved. I look forward to telling you more about how unique, eye-opening and inspiring the Irish language is.
For now, slán go fóill,
Dian, in Dublin (i mBaile Atha Cliath)
Why Learning a Language is Hard and How to Make It Easier, https://www.ef.com/wwen/blog/language/why-learning-a-language-is-hard/#
Just How Many Words Does It Take To Truly Know A Foreign Language? https://akorbi.com/blog/learning-a-foreign-language-how-many-words/
The Intricate Dance: Exploring the Relationship Between Intelligence and Language, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/intricate-dance-exploring-relationship-between-language-jerin-jacob-yszwc/
The Intricate Dance: Exploring the Relationship Between Intelligence and Language, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/intricate-dance-exploring-relationship-between-language-jerin-jacob-yszwc/
Lovely post. I have found learning some languages frustrating (often because teachers sucked), I’ve made many silly and sometimes hilarious mistakes, but it has never been a lonely experience. And I have simply loved learning some of the languages. It is probably what I love most in the world. Well, that, and cheese.
As a French person who started and paused) learning Irish with the first iteration of Scoil Scairte, I feel every word of this piece! Just subscribed ☺️