Stress Awareness Month: Managing Stress as a Language Learner

Hello everyone!

To kick off Stress Awareness Month, I don’t want to say learning a language is easy because it does require a lot of patience and consistency. It can also feel like a lot of work. This month, I want to share the top three ways I’ve been able to manage my stress levels with learning several languages over a long period of time.

Letting Go of Expectations

I remember three years ago, I attempted to learn two languages at the same time (Spanish and German). I can communicate fairly well in those languages, but I still have a lot to learn. I actually applied to be a Spanish interpreter at the beginning of the year, but I didn’t get the job because I froze up during the proficiency test (test-taking is a real phobia). I was frustrated after two years of learning Spanish independently, speaking to native-speaking friends, and having traveled to the southern part of Mexico to practice (AND IMPROVED!), I still was unable to speak confidently when I was being put to a LITERAL test! I also have a tendency to become less confident when I’m around native speakers because I’m always afraid I’m going to say something wrong or second-guessing all the information I learned. After some time, I had to learn (and still learning) that many native speakers of a language you’re trying to learn are also in the same boat as you when it comes to your native language. So it’s important to let go of the expectations that you have to speak perfectly and get everything right because mistakes are how we best learn. When we let go of our expectations of having to speak a language perfectly then we can really start to learn and really see the richness of that language and its culture.

Setting Realistic Goals and Always Adjusting Them

I often hear people say, “I want to be fluent in French”, and my response is always “what do you mean by that?” in which I get a response of “I want to know everything” and that’s an extremely broad goal to have because (in my case) that creates so much anxiety around feeling like you have to absorb everything and it can create an overload of information. You need to set goals that are more narrow and specific to focus on so they’re much easier to accomplish. If you’re married to someone who speaks another language and you want to blend into conversations with his or her family, find out what they usually talk about and work on that. Maybe you work for a company with international ties to France and you want to step up your business French to communicate outside a translator or interpreter; focus on the topics you normally discuss first. When you work on these goals you can often make more progress because you’re narrowing yourself down to accomplish more goals and when you accomplish more goals you feel good about yourself. After you’ve accomplished a goal you can adjust and find a new language challenge to conquer.

Be Active in Your Learning

Language learning is more fun outside of the classroom than anything else. As much as I love taking online courses, it’s way more fun to text friends or going on YouTube to find entertaining videos to watch in your target language. You should always be actively seeking out native speakers of your target language to develop international connections and plug into living sources of knowledge since people love sharing their language and culture with others in real time. When you’re actively using the language, it does alleviate stress because it’s solidifying in your brain. Seek out as many ways as you can to use your skills and learn from others to build more confidence in your abilities.

If this post helped you, make sure you check out our resources page to find content to help you actively incorporate language learning into your everyday life.