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Is there anything so humbling as learning another language? Is anything so good at obliterating your dear ego? 

To speak another language, you have to release the fear of sounding like a fool because you will sound like a fool. 

You must make peace with the noise of the cave(wo)man stereotype jaggedly forcing its way out of your mouth, throwing elbows against your tongue and teeth, before you can sound melodious and cool. 

Just as any beginning guitarist hits all the wrong notes and makes everyone cringe, you have to trip on your words and make mistakes, babe. I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this but there is no way around it. The only way out is through. 

I taught English as a second language to adults for ten years in three countries, and my experiences confirmed that one of the biggest, if not the biggest obstacle to language proficiency is the fear of sounding unintelligent. Not your capabilities…your pride is what is standing in the way of that sexy Greek-lover summer, lending a translating hand to the Honduran woman at the bank, or watching anime in the tongue God intended.  

My adult students wanted to speak fluidly on topics such as modern architecture and the birth of democracy in their first lesson when they hadn’t even mastered the art of ordering a hot dog. It makes sense. We’re social creatures. Language is one of our survival superpowers. Without the ability to communicate we feel impaired and frustrated. It’s hard to revert back to the vocabulary of a three-year-old with worse comprehension. There is a brilliant line in the sitcom Modern Family where Sofia Vergara’s Colombian character, Gloria, angrily asks, 

“Do you even know how smart I am in Spanish?” 

Unable to be as articulate in their second language, some of my students chose silence, paralyzed in their fear of being judged by their peers whose English was ironically just as basic. 

But I’m no better. In 2010, I squandered the first four months of my study abroad semester in France. 

I had been a straight-A student, always on the Dean’s list, i.e. an unbearable douche. I was used to being praised for my ability to work with my noggin. My identity was wrapped up in my perceived smarts. 

“You mean you want me, the perfectionist “gifted child” and salutatorian to stumble over my words?! Tis’ better to go mute! Make mistakes in front of other people?! Are you mad?! If I can’t say something right, I just won’t say it at all!” 

So much wasted time.  

Shame is the monster keeping so many adults monolingual. It’s not your lack of vocabulary. It’s the voice that says, “That’s not the right way to say it. They’re going to laugh at you. Your accent sucks.” 

And sometimes, that voice is right: 

That’s probably not the best way to say it.

People will laugh at you.

And for a while, your accent is going to suck. 

And that’s ok. 

So what? 

You’ll survive and come out on the other side bilingual with some funny battle scars. Two of my favorite missteps *takes a drag of a cigarette and rolls up my flannel sleeves…are these: 

Everything Means Vagina Part 1

I was in southern France. It was near the end of my six-month study abroad, so my spoken French was finally somewhat functional. I was with a good friend, a native Frenchie named Melissa, and her mother. We had just spent the day exploring an island off the coast of Marseille, hiking and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. Before heading home, we decided to stop at a restaurant to eat before taking a water taxi back to the mainland. 

We sat on the patio in sunglasses with the warm, salty, summer breeze on our faces, sipping a glass of wine. The sea lapped at the pier. I was feeling good about myself and particularly alive in the way that only deep travel can make you feel. How could I not hold my head high? Although family tradition would have me on a farm or in a factory, here I was waxing poetic in my second language, dining on fresh seafood along the French Riviera. But the rural Missouri Gods and my blue-collar ancestors were watching. They had to throw in a humbling moment to make sure I wasn’t getting “too big for my britches”. 

We ordered the specialty, moules-frites: mussels and french fries.

After our meal, my friend Melissa and her mother smoked a cigarette. Melissa asked, “So what did you think of les moules-frites”? I had had mussels only once before. Her mother had prepared them for dinner on a separate occasion. 

According to the French in my brain, the response that came out was, “They were good, but I like your mother’s mussels better. Her mussels are much tastier.” 

But you see my friends, I was not aware of how dangerous the masculine/feminine/singular/plural pitfalls of the French language can be. The meaning of a word can vary widely depending on these details. 

“Les moules”, plural, means mussels, the ocean dwellers, and delicate yet distinctive dish. 

“La moule”, singular feminine is a slang term for…vulva. Yes friends, female genitalia. 

So, what I had actually said was something more along the lines of, “They were good, but I like your mom’s muff better. Her snatch is much tastier.” 

But I didn’t know that, so I sat there still feeling glamorous and trying to look the part.

It was like in a movie when you hear a record scratch. Silence. All eyes were on me. Someone, somewhere did a spit take and a waiter stumbled in shock and broke a glass. Someone walking by, so distracted by my risque comment walked right off the sidewalk and into the pier. 

Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but every stranger on the patio seemed to have heard what I said. Without trying to hide it, they all turned to look at the creepy American that was proudly and publicly sharing how she had munched her friend’s mom’s love box, and what a delight it had been.

The silence was broken by Melissa’s burst of laughter. And everyone went back to their meals and conversations, scooting their chairs a little further from me. 

Melissa explained my mistake. 

The horror. 

The hilarity. 

The horror. 

I never made that mistake again. 

—

Everything Means Vagina Part 2

It was a sunny, humid Sunday in the Limón Province of Costa Rica. My friend, Michael, invited me to his grandma’s birthday party. Exciting, wild stuff.

Crash a granny’s birthday party and practice my Spanish with a sweet, local family? I wouldn’t miss it.

We were all stuffed in the living room, wiping sweat from our faces and breathing a sigh of relief each time the oscillating fan turned our way. There we were, a big, extended Costa Rican family and the new gringa in town. The TV was on, kids were running around, and everyone was living it up, catching up, and cracking jokes. 

The TV only half had their attention but it had my full attention. They were televising the Zapote bull runs live. The Zapote bull runs are similar to Spain’s famous running of the bulls in Pamplona, except instead of the bulls chasing people through ancient city streets, the bulls chase people around a small, wooden arena. 

Similar to the bull run in Pamplona, any Joe Schmo off the street can participate. These are not trained professionals. These idiots—*ahem, excuse me, I mean…daring thrill-seekers—are called, “los improvisados”, the improvisers. 

The improvisers vie for cash in a variety of creative games and events in the arena while attempting not to be skewered by the angry bull or bulls running around freely. Some people dodge death beautifully and win insultingly low sums of money. Some people get seriously injured and carried away on a stretcher on live television. Terrified first-timers hang around the wooden barreras and duck for cover any time they so much as see the bull. It is chaotic madness. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. 

The family noticed that I was engrossed and began to explain the Zapote bull run, taking their time to make sure my intermediate-level comprehension was getting it all. 

“Do you see the bandana taped to the bull’s horn? It has cash in it. The person that pulls it off of his horn wins the cash,” said Michael’s sister.  

Just then a man was thrown into the air. We gasped. He came down on his neck and shoulder. The bull turned around for more, but other improvisers distracted him, giving the bruised man a chance to run for cover and nurse his wounds. But first, the hosts had to interview him about his near-death experience, for our viewing pleasure.  

“How often does this go on?” I asked.

Michael answered, “In Zapote, they do 2 bull runs per day, 3 hours each, for two weeks. So, 6 hours of bull runs every day for 2 weeks.”

“And I thought gringos were crazy,” I said. “But you Ticos are crazier.” 

They all laughed. 

Michael’s brother-in-law chimed in, “But sometimes tourists come here to get in the ring. Even people from the United States!” 

Now, I didn’t know how to respond with, “No shit!?” or “Are you shitting me?” in Spanish. Or maybe, “Get out of town” to clean it up for Grandma and the kids. I didn’t know the Spanish equivalent of that one, either. So I had to come up with the next best thing. It was still hard to believe the Zapote bull runs were a real thing. I wasn’t sure how much of the explanation was fabricated to pull a fast one on the gullible gringa and get a laugh. 

An expression came to mind that I had just learned! I had recently taught my English students, “You’re pulling my leg.” In return, they taught me that in Costa Rican Spanish, you can say, “Me esta agarrando de mono”, which directly translates to, “You’re taking me as a monkey,” or as we say in English, “You’re making a monkey out of me.” 

A smug smile crossed my face. Time to show off. I was sure that the whole house would be surprised to see that the newly arrived white girl from Missouri with intermediate Spanish had already mastered a local idiomatic expression! “Their minds will be blown!” I thought. 

But instead of saying, “Me esta agarrando de mono,” I said, 

“Me esta agarrando el mono,” which means, “You are grabbing my monkey.” 

And you may have already guessed that el mono, the monkey, is a slang term for vagina. 

I had done it again. 

I said loudly and proudly in this room full of an innocent family enjoying granny’s birthday bash, “You are grabbing my twat.”

Michael’s brother-in-law’s eyes got wide. Michael, a language learner himself, immediately understood my mistake. He began waving his hands and saying, “No no no no no no no! DE mono. Me esta agarrando DE mono.” The house erupted with laughter while I prayed for the earth to swallow me whole. 

Grandma was a great sport about it. 

——

You gotta make peace with the suck, grasshopper. It’s called practice.  

The French and Spanish languages cured me of my perfectionism affliction. They freed me. If I was going to speak either language well, I had to get over myself, learn to laugh at myself, open my mouth, and let those mistakes fly. 

I had to be vulnerable enough to let other people correct me, and then thank them for it. That’s what learning is. 

I’ve realized two things as a language learner: 

1. It’s a sad thing to be so scared of being judged or laughed at that you cannot learn something new. I’ll never let that stand in my way, again.
   
2. In every language, there are way too many ways to talk about genitalia.