I've Been a Beginner for Two Years
I’ve been learning Polish for two years and I would classify my level as advanced beginner. I can have basic conversations about myself and my daily life, though I make frequent grammatical mistakes, don’t always know the right word, and my pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired.
I will be the first to admit, when I started learning Polish two years ago, I would have expected to be further along by now. I truly believe there is no reason for any of us to be ashamed of our skills in something we are still learning, but to be honest- there are times when even I felt embarrassed about my level of Polish.
Especially considering that at this same point in Irish, I was at an early level of fluency!
At times I’ve felt like maybe my experience with Irish was just a fluke. Or I’ve been critical of myself for not being more dedicated or hard working. Or I’ve just felt a general sense of shame for not being better sooner. I’ve worried my teachers would become frustrated that we were still covering basic material. I felt guilty for forgetting words and grammatical rules.
And god forbid I meet someone in real life who spoke Polish or ask me how it was going!
I’ve mentioned before how I learned Irish relatively quickly not because I’m gifted, a genius, or that it’s any easier to learn than Polish. I learned Irish quickly because I was relentless in the pressure I put on myself to learn. I cannot stress enough how much energy each day I put into learning the language and how much energy I put into each day being critical of myself for not learning enough of the language.
I was driven by fear. At first, I was terrified that I would be faced with the reality that the prevailing myth that adults can’t learn languages was true. At some point, I had met adults who had learned languages to fluency, meaning if I failed, it wasn’t that adults couldn’t learn. It would mean that I couldn’t learn.
It brought up insecurities long forgotten surrounding my early experiences in the education system as someone labeled as having a learning disability. It reminded me of the shame and guilt I felt when I found out I had to repeat the second grade.
I needed to keep pushing forward and making progress. I needed to know that I was good enough.
By the time I added Polish to the mix, I knew I was good enough. I knew I could learn a language. And even in my moments of shame and doubt and ‘I should be better’ I still knew that I could have been better sooner had I applied any level of the same intensity I had with Irish. Moreover, I knew I would be better someday.
That said, it took time for me to let go of the shame - of the feeling of disappointment and doubt.
I accepted that I wasn’t the problem, but I simply didn’t have enough time in my life to dedicate myself to learning quickly. There were also times when my mental health and circumstances in my life made it so that I didn’t want to use the time and energy I had to learn Polish.
I still only know a beginner level of Polish because I’ve only spent enough time to learn beginner material.
I can’t stress enough how important it is that we are honest with ourselves about how much time we spend studying a language rather than only perceiving how many years have passed since we started. It might be hard to admit we’ve done less than we would have liked, but it’s important to remember what else we were doing with that time. Even if the answer is that we spent our time relaxing, chances are, that’s what we really needed to be doing with that time. When I was learning Irish for hours a day, I wasn’t doing so after coming home from a full time job and balancing a social life. I was working part time while stuck in my apartment during the COVID lockdown.
As I write this now, two years into my Polish learning journey, I’m starting to bridge the gap between beginner and intermediate. However, that timeline will still look different for everyone. While I haven’t been spending as much time learning Polish as I did Irish, I have been equally consistent. I have taken classes every week for the majority of those two years. I have studied, read, and listened to content when I had the energy and interest to do so.
There is no right way to learn a language. Everyone has different lifestyles, different energy levels and different limitations. I couldn’t learn Polish the way I learned Irish because I was living a different life at that point. In that same way, we shouldn’t compare ourselves to how much progress someone else made in the same amount of time because we’re not them.
No matter what our lives look like, no matter how much time and energy we have to spend on languages, one thing is certain, consistency adds up over time. Whether it takes you a year or ten years, if you just keep going you will reach your language learning goals.
If this resonated with you, know that you’re not the only one and how many words you know in a language does not define your worth. 🤍
More from Foghlaimeoir:
Irish translation of this article
There is No Wiseman Without Fault
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I definitely resonate with this and am glad I’m not the only one! In college I had friends who were triple language majors and they made it look so easy to not only simultaneously learn all three but to progress quickly as well. In college of course your main focus is usually all on your studies so their hard work showed quickly! But as an adult learner it’s nice to hear others having similar journeys and timelines. I clearly need to remind myself that I am not a full time college student with all my time dedicated to Irish and that is ok 😂
You should be proud of your progress with Polish; for most native Anglophones, it is an incredibly difficult language (or, at the very least, intimidating). Ukrainian has been quite difficult for me beyond the advanced beginner stage. Slavic languages in general, to one extent or another!