Finding confidence when learning a language

When it comes to learning a language, one thing I always recommend to my students is to write a diary about their lives in the language they’re learning. This is incredibly useful, but also means we will have to look up quite a few words - very specific words - that we won’t have learned from our textbook or from our teacher in the early stages of language learning.

When we learn another language, we tend to learn basic vocabulary to describe everyday life. This is good and very necessary, however, it also means that we may be spending a lot of time memorising words that might not be useful when it comes to talking about our own lives. For example, although it is a good word to know, I remember memorising the word “ski lift” in French. I also remember that I only used this word for the first time about 4 years later in a French course at university. I memorised it, but, for someone who lives in Australia and never goes skiing, it wasn’t useful to talk about my own life experience.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t learn this basic vocabulary to describe everyday life. Of course, you will most probably encounter these words when listening to a conversation or reading something in your target language.

What I am saying is that you should spend a little more energy learning words that help you to talk about you.

Why? Well, it’s all about confidence! Imagine you are learning Cantonese (like me), and talking to someone in Cantonese for the first time. You can greet them and have a little conversation about how you are, the weather, what languages you speak, etc. But then, they ask you what you did on the weekend. That weekend, you walked your dog on the beach and did some gardening. You know what you did, but how do you say it in Cantonese?

What happens next? You stall. You lose confidence. You turn into a 2 year old and start using gestures. This sets the tone for the rest of your conversation and causes you to doubt yourself and your language ability.

If you knew the word “walk dog” or “gardening”, you would have kept the conversation going and, although you may inevitably lose some confidence at a later stage of the conversation, you won’t lose your confidence so soon.

When we have a conversation in any language, we will inevitably speak about our lives. By learning those words that apply to you and your life experience, you will have more confidence to speak, and little by little, your confidence will grow.

So, write a diary about your daily life. Find those words that you need to talk about yourself. Note them down in a vocabulary book and memorise them. Practice with someone, and make sure you can say them without thinking too much about them.

Sometimes categories are useful. If the category is “weather”, what vocabulary do you tend to use when speaking about the weather. For me, “I hate hot weather” is something I need to be able to say. If the category is “maths”, I need to be able to say “I can’t count”, “I hate maths”, I dropped maths when I was in high school”.

You don’t need to know every word to describe “weather” or “maths”, but the words that you often say in your own language are the ones you are most probably going to want to say in the language you are learning.

I hope that helps if you are learning Cantonese or any other language!

: )