When I first heard about the company “writeathon” I almost immediately dismissed it. Me? Writing a blog post in English? With all these super articulate and smart people around me? No way.
It took me right to the spot I feel most uncomfortable in—the language.
One of the major issues in moving to a whole new country, is that your day-to-day interactions are done in a language that’s not your mother tongue. Often I find myself stuck, looking for the right word to express what I want to say. So many times I then go back and simplify my well-thought sentence into one I can actually find the words for.
Embarrassing grammar mistakes are a part of my day. I don’t know which is worse—the ones that I immediately catch myself doing (and feel totally ashamed), or the ones I don’t even know about. I’m not even talking about my accent, which is fortunately not so strange in this area, with so many people from all over the world. What makes my struggle with a new language even worse, is that it used to be one of “my things.” I always loved to write and have received incredible reviews. My knowledge of vocabulary and grammar in my mother tongue is expansive and is one of the things I am proud of. Even my handwriting is better in my native language. And here, it’s like I lost this advantage. I’m like everyone else. Actually, I’m not even close to being as good as everyone else.
But as strange as it may sound, this frustrating issue is also an enormous growth opportunity for me. Language, unlike other skills, is something you need to use all the time. I cannot avoid it. This means that every day, every minute, I have to face the fact that I have so much to learn. It slaps me in the face a few times an hour, and forces me to get better again and again. But it is also very rewarding—I feel the improvement every day. A new word, new phrases, those little victories when I got the joke or when I found that perfect word I was looking for. It’s a weird combination of feeling very humble, but also very proud of myself.
When I think about our students from all over the world, I realize that many of them face similar challenges when coming to learn new things in a language they might not be best at. Listen to lectures, solve problems, communicate with our awesome student community, all in a new language—that’s scary. And I can’t help but think about all of those people who are not doing that because they’re afraid to face the language challenge. We all know it’s hard enough to learn new things, why add that complication to the list?
So I thought that sharing my story here might help all those who are afraid to start something because it’s in a different language. You know what? It’s not even just about language—it’s all those little (or big) things we feel insecure about, that hold us back.
If we can just embrace the growth opportunity in them, we might be surprised to see how many rewarding moments are actually hidden inside them.
