What growing up bilingual taught me about language success

Let me write from the heart today. I want to write directly to you, who has (at least) one foot in the door of another language – whether it’s through your work, friends, or a partner – and tell you what I wish I’d known years ago.

But first, to give you an idea of how I got here, here’s my early life in a nutshell…

From one capital to another

The first 11 years of my life were as Norwegian as they come: Winters were for skiing, summers for climbing trees and throwing jellyfish (yes, really!) at Mormor’s (grandma’s) cabin by the sea, and autumn and spring weekends were spent hiking in the hills around Oslo.

When my parents moved with their 3 children to the outskirts of London, this Norwegian family was out for a big adventure, and a big challenge, navigating this English-speaking world we now found ourselves in. Though we kids had had English in school, let’s just say being able to pronounce “hedgehog” and “strawberry” didn’t compare to the fully immersive experience of living in the UK.

It was still a relatively gentle transition for me because it would be another 4 years at the safe and tiny Norwegian School in London before entering a fully English-speaking school for the first time at the age of 15. To give you an idea of the transition: The Norwegian School had, at the time, a total of around 100 students between the ages of 2 and 16; now I was entering a school with 120 students in my year alone. And every class (except for foreign languages), every social interaction was in English.

Maybe you can relate to this…?

At the time, it didn’t occur to me that I was at all insecure about my English language abilities. By that point, I had aced all my English tests at the Norwegian School, and even taken several formal Cambridge exams – the Preliminary (PET), First Certificate (FCE), and Advanced English (CAE) – meaning that officially, my English level was a C1 in the European framework (CEFR).

Despite – or maybe because of! I’ll get back to that later – all this experience and these qualifications, my 15-year-old self was hyper-aware of any mistakes I made. Can you picture it? I’d taken all these formal qualifications, where I’d see red ink for every little error in my writing, get marked down for stuttering or using a tense wrong in my spoken exams, so of course, no wonder I was overthinking every spoken interaction. You might say I was treating every English conversation like an English test.

I wonder if you can see yourself in this situation, too…?

Can you imagine how much energy I was spending thinking about grammar and pronunciation, which I could have otherwise spent on having fun, making friends, and maybe even studying some more?

Don’t get me wrong: I did make friends and I got decent grades. I know many people had a much worse high school experience than I did, and I was lucky that my classmates were generally patient and kind people. But I can’t help but wonder how I might have learnt to really thrive, how I might have enjoyed the experience more, if I hadn’t been so caught up trying to avoid mistakes at all cost.

I know there’s still some of that teenage insecurity in all of us, the desire to belong in a group, the fear of rejection and exclusion, the desire to be seen for who we are and what we are capable of. But what we learnt about languages in school is actually hindering us from fulfilling those desires. In other words, if we treat conversations in our foreign languages like a test or exam, we are likely to be blocked by our (very natural) fears. Part of the language learning process as adults, then, is to un-learn those perfectionist and fear-based tendencies we picked up in school.

Being a good student ≠ Language success!

This is what I want you to know: We’ve been taught to believe that academic achievements translate easily into real-life success. But we know that’s not true. As adults, we’re better off when we recognise which “lessons” from school – the ones that helped us succeed academically – are now holding us back because they’re telling us to focus on the wrong things: For example, recognising that grammar mistakes happen to native and non-native speakers alike. Recognising what’s causing anxiety or worry, what’s using up an unnecessary amount of mental energy, and how we can shift our focus towards what’s going to give us the kinds of results we‘ve dreamt about for years.

What are those “dream” results? It could mean being able to present your work and answer questions without letting a grammar mistake de-rail you, losing your train of thought and your audience’s attention at the same time. It could mean being able to send an email without re-writing it 8 times. It could mean being able to stop relying on your phone as your secret translator under the table during social gatherings. It could mean having a relationship with your nieces and nephews who don’t speak your first language.

These goals are not only tangible but also personally fulfilling, providing a sense of accomplishment that goes far beyond academic achievements and reflects something that’s relevant and meaningful to your life.

So I urge you to consider your inner teenager when you think about your language goals: What is the deeper desire here – for connection, acceptance, or belonging? What “lessons” from school – beliefs you might hold about “what success looks like” – might be more distracting than helpful?

If you found this helpful and you’re ready to step into the best version of yourself – in English or Norwegian – access my free on-demand training.