FINDING JOY

Find joy in your language learning experience.

Particularly with language learning, you must enjoy the process of pronunciation skill development, the unlocking freedom of navigation tools that help you participate in a new community in the world, and the rippling impact it can have on your perception, your understanding of cultures.

Finding joy in this process helps to stoke the fire of passion.

And this fire of passion is the drive that will allow you to fully immerse yourself into the language.

In my opinion, necessity can only bring you so far. Learning a language because you need to will only take you partway through this journey. You will be able to communicate basic wants and needs, navigate your surroundings, and express yourself, but it can feel limited. Your understanding of the language can feel incomplete or that you cannot fully express the nuance of the language.

WHY IS JOY IMPORTANT?

Finding joy builds resilience and fortitude in a challenging situation

Now, immersion into a new language environment is a good way to similarly jump into a language.

For example, living in Japan and speaking Japanese while you navigate Japanese culture is one way to learn. Finding joy in the moments that you can successfully reveal and express your inner self despite the language barrier can be fulfilling and exciting.

The trouble is that many English language learners often find a community that speaks their native language. Although helpful in establishing a tribe or sense of belonging, it can often end up as a crutch for your language learning because the level of necessity diminishes. Similar to the feeling of not needing new friends because you already have a stable and dependable group of friends - this can impact your learning curve because you may not expose yourself to new and varied vocabulary or subject matter beyond what is needed for work.

It can also be extremely challenging for English language learners who do not live in an English speaking community without passion and joy because they need to actively insert themselves into situations that require English.

For example, if I lived in Korea and didn’t need to speak English but wanted to learn English, I cannot necessarily rely on my environment to give me those experiences. I would need to join online communities, have chat sessions in English and seek out English speakers in Korea to practice.

WHAT CAN GO WRONG IF YOU DON’T HAVE JOY?

Without joy, it can be challenging to continue on this language development journey.

It can put you at odds with your goals because if you become frustrated with your progress, or frustrated with an experience, if you don’t find joy in the pursuit, then you may solely focus on the negative.

Why would you pursue something that takes time and energy if it doesn’t make you happy or you aren’t fulfilled with your process?

We understand this concept in our relationships and our career choices for example, but we don’t fully appreciate this concept when it pertains to other areas of passion.

If you don’t have joy on the journey, then it can stifle your potential for growth.

💡 And I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing.

I think it just means you might have met your desired outcome - simply that your desired outcome was not aspiring for more proficiency.

For example, if you played a sport in high school but didn’t pursue it professionally, you met and/or accepted this level of your potential in that area of your life.

It’s not a bad thing, it’s simply a thing. And that’s totally okay.

What I mean by this is that everyone may start off as having grand goals in language development. They start off thinking they want to be just as proficient in their second language as their first. The trouble though is that learning a language later in life, particularly in adulthood, is less of an automatic or assumed success.

You need to seek out opportunities, put yourself into challenging or tough situations and practice. When you already have a safety net or a native language to fall back on, then it can be easier to settle because you have a back-up language.

This is why it is faster and sometimes more effective to learn via language immersion - because you are limiting your ability to use a back-up language.

HOW TO FIND JOY?

So let’s say you don’t find the experience that joyful. What if language learning is a burden and sucks.

Well, let’s try to turn that perception around.

You aren’t destined for failure or anything. You may already be pretty proficient.

But you can start by appreciating your growth and development over the years in your English proficiency. Identifying 3 moments in your day where you successfully communicated in English can be a good start.

Think about the nuance or appreciating the subtly of a pronunciation, of a gesture, or communicated idea in English.

Recognize and celebrate the small victories you have each day.

You have learned how to speak with people in a language you didn’t know.

You are able to communicate a request, a want, and idea from your mind to someone else’s mind through your voice.

By celebrating these wins regularly you develop a gratitude and appreciation for each moment. Similar to a gratitude journal to be more appreciative of your life, an acknowledgement of the joys and journey in your language development will help you feel energized, optimistic and eager to continue.

WHAT YOU WILL NOTICE ONCE YOU HAVE FOUND JOY?

When you have found joy, you will find it easier to bounce back from challenge and difficulty. You will still have moments of challenge and difficulty but they shouldn’t feel dreadfully catastrophic. You may notice your self-esteem and confidence won’t be as rattled as much. You are able to seek our more experiences more quickly and feel more confident in initiating these conversations again because you have a long list of successes and wins in English.

There is an important recognition that you are still progressing, that you will still have challenges and that you are happy with your progression.

This is much more important because it facilitates a shift towards process-driven rather than results-driven success.

In doing so, you will find you can enjoy your progress and every day learnings rather than being disappointed that you haven’t yet achieved English speaking.