Everything – and Nothing

When I began learning French in high school, I remember one of my teachers telling the class that it takes about ten years of study to become truly fluent in another language. I also remember thinking to myself, “Ha! I’ll do it in five.”

Spoiler alert: I did not do it in five. I haven’t done it in nine either.

At that time, fluency was all that really mattered to me. It felt like every day I was chiseling away at what would eventually become my masterpiece: French fluency. I didn’t really think there was more to learning a language. Just finish it.

When I graduated high school, I felt so confident in my abilities in the French language. I had been studying for four years, and I felt there couldn’t possibly be much more to learn. I even treated my college courses like a formality. I was happy to participate, but I didn’t truly think I could get better.

Then I studied in France for two months in 2019.

Reality hit me in the gut and knocked the wind out of me, then kicked dirt in my face and spit on me as I lay on the ground dazed and confused.

Every day was an uphill battle. Nothing was simple. Going to the store, eating a meal, even opening a bottle of beer. I knew the basics, but in class, you don’t have a lesson going over what to do if you find yourself without a bottle opener, or what to do when someone approaches you on the street rambling on about God-knows-what and you’re trying to decipher whether they’re mad at you or asking the time of day.

But all of this is natural. Studies show that when you learn a language you go through a period of arrogance. Thinking you know everything there is to know. Then just when you think you’ve finished, you realize there are miles (or kilometres) more to go.

Sound familiar?

Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers recently released a song with the line “How can a person know everything at 18 and nothing at 22?”

It’s baffling, right?

When I was 18, I thought I knew everything… even the entire French language. I thought I knew who I was and what I wanted to be, where I wanted to live, and how I wanted my life to turn out. Then, things changed.

It’s almost funny to look back and think of the way I wanted to control everything by thinking I knew exactly how the future would pan out. Given that the average lifespan for a woman in the United States is 81 years, I was just over 20% of my way through thinking I had a grasp on 100%.

It’s comfortable to think you know everything. Every facet of a language, every turn of phrase, a five-year plan, and an understanding of the meaning of life. It’s comfortable, but it’s exhausting.

I wanted so badly to reach my goal of fluency at 18, and now I’m 23 and I’ve gotten exponentially better at speaking French. What’s changed most is the way I treat learning. Instead of looking for a specific end goal and grande finale, I’ve resigned to the fact that I’ll never be done – and that’s a good thing. I’ve spent the last nine years studying this language, and I love it. I never want the process of learning to end.

The same goes for my outlook on life. Sure, it can seem sad to go from the confidence of knowing everything to the hopeless realization that you know nothing, but in some ways, that means the pressure’s off. At 18, I never would’ve dreamed that I would pick up my life and move to a new country, but I’m glad I did.

I don’t need to look for an end goal and have everything figured out at 18, 22, or 80. If I know everything about everything at this age then there’s not much else to do. Nothing else to discover. And I quite like discovery.