Language Learning Plateau Who?

Meet Me.

I’m not a polyglot. I’m nowhere close.

I’m fluent in English and Hindi, both of which are practically my first languages.

And I struggle with the Punjabi that I hear around the house when I visit my family in India, and the French that I learned in high school, despite having studied it for 6 consecutive years.

Nevertheless, I consider myself quite the enthusiast when it comes to learning new languages, even if I have a horrible track record of sticking the journey out.

For example, my parents, my uncle and I accompanied my brother to Japan when he was starting university in 2017.

We planned a 2 week trip, and I was pumped. I memorised the Hiragana script and learned a few dozen words in Japanese before going, and I read as much (edit: as little) Japanese as I could on every sign board I saw in the country.

But not once did I speak to a local in the language.

In my defence, it was a family trip and they were pretty much the only people I talked to the whole time.

Then when in 2020 I was about to move to the Netherlands for 3 years for my undergrad, I made a decent effort to learn Dutch.

I printed out a list of 1000 most common Dutch words and meticulously went through it every day. I took the online courses my uni recommended for grammar, and even started forming basic sentences in Dutch inside my head.

But then I actually moved, and the COVID lockdown meant I was confined to the student house where I lived for the most part. Almost all the people staying there were international students, and I was barely meeting people at all, let alone locals. I had no reason to apply my Dutch.

By the time things went back to normal, I’d become comfortable staying in the country and speaking English.

And you don’t really need to know Dutch to live in the Netherlands — those people grow up watching English TV.

And just last year, I went on my first solo trip — backpacking in Portugal.

Once again — you guessed it — I spent my sweet time on YouTube, learning everything I could about the country and the language and totally imagining myself having cheery conversations with people I’d meet in my hostels.

And all that happened.

Even with locals.

But in English.

I could make up excuses for that too. They might even sound plausible.

But that’s all they really are — excuses.

The real reason isn’t that I’m not interested or committed enough to learn a new language.

And while I admit to my lack of discipline, that’s not all there is to blame.

I’ve deduced from my experiences of language learning over the past few years that the real reason I always fail is that…

I get scared.

Call it anxiety, call it lack of confidence, whatever you want.

I had the chance to interact with a country full of Japanese speakers, and I didn’t.

I was in the perfect place to talk to the majority of Dutch speakers in the world, and I passed it by (for 3 solid years).

I talked to plenty Portuguese locals… but in English.

And none of these people knew who I was. Even if I’d spoke to them, they’d likely never think of me again.

Still, I was embarrassed. I was scared of making mistakes.

I was insecure about what my accent would sound like, or whether I’d be able to understand what they’re saying.

I just didn’t feel ready.

I still don’t.

And if I don’t make a change, I know that my next language learning venture will look as bleak as the last three.

This is clearly a problem.

And it has deeper roots.

Confidence is a personality change that’s going to take time to build, and it applies to areas outside of just language learning.

But recently, I’ve realized 2 things.

First, that there are millions of other people like me, facing the same insecurities and the same mental blocks.

And second, that at least in the language learning case, I can fix it.

The idea struck me many months ago, when ChatGPT was all shiny and new.

And after the mandatory stalling period that the procrastination gods determined for me, I’m now finally working on the project…

A virtual language buddy.

I’m using AI to build a bot that acts like a native speaker of whichever language you want to learn.

You’ll be able to speak or text with it, and not only have conversations with it but also get real-time feedback — arguably even better practice than talking to a real human!

This way you’ll be able to not only become more fluent in the language, but also more confident — enough to comfortably talk to locals on that next trip you’ve got planned.

I’ll post updates soon, so for anyone else whose social awkwardness gets in the way of learning new languages…

Stay tuned.

I got you.