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Hi. My name is Nikki and I am an addict

| 33 comments | Category: guest post

At the start of the summer, I invited you all to attempt your own 3 month missions. So far, I’ve been seeing people sending me videos of their progress and blog posts of their successes. I look forward to showcasing several of them on the site over the next months! Keep sending your stories, or share your missions or success stories with the Fi3M community, (and let me know which ones you’d love me to feature on the blog) if you’d like to be included to help inspire other language learners!

But today, I want to share much more subtle, but still very important success: taking control of the very first step in changing your mentality and approach. Nikki Lavoie, from Perpetualpassenger wrote this after seeing my TEDx talk, and I think she has a real chance of getting somewhere after seeing her critically look at herself like this! Over to you Nikki;

Addiction is a very serious thing.

The Collins English Dictionary defines addiction as follows: the condition of being abnormally dependent on some habit.

I am publishing, for the first time ever, that I am an addict. I am taking the first step, with all of you as my witnesses, to end my addiction. I’m asking for the help of my friends, my family, and any other readers out there to join me in my well-overdue, virtual intervention.

I am addicted to excuses.

For the past 15 months, I have been living in France, and I don’t speak (much) French. And until now, I have been dependent on the habit of excuses, which have enabled me to continue my life in this way. Here are the tools I have been using to sell myself short:

  • I work in English
  • I don’t know enough grammar yet
  • I don’t know enough vocabulary
  • I don’t want to sound stupid
  • I’m afraid of making mistakes
  • I don’t want people to laugh at me when I speak
  • I can’t express myself fully

And on, and on.

This is the moment where I am airing my dirty laundry, admitting my fault, and holding myself accountable to all of you.

Benny’s TEDx talk has highlighted for me that my excuses, not my lack of knowledge, are the reasons I do not speak French yet, and has given me the sense to understand my next steps. Thanks in advance to everyone for helping to end my addiction to excuses. It’s time to come clean and speak French!

Make sure to wish Nikki luck (or my preference of “Merde !” in French, which is sort of like their version of “break a leg” in wishing bad luck so good luck will happen), and let us know your thoughts. If you are starting off too, do you think you could admit that you might be addicted to excuses?

 

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If you enjoyed this post, you will love my TEDx talk! You can get much better details of how I recommend learning a language if you watch it here.

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  • MidlifeSinglemum

    I have a message for Nikki. I have been living in Israel for almost 25 years and my Hebrew is rubbish. Obviously a certain amount gets through over the years and I can shop, speak to my child’s teacher, arrange stuff, etc… But I hardly ever socialize in Hebrew because whilst my utilitarian use of the language gets me by from day to day – it is about the level of a 5 year old and I can’t follow fast conversations, I can’t follow a film without subtitles, I never go to the theatre in Hebrew. My excuses have been the same as yours. My life is limited because of this (including career opportunities). I want you to know that 25 years can go by and you can still be making excuses. Be warned!

    • Nikki Lavoie

      Thanks for the warning! I’m hoping that recognizing the excuses at an early stage will help me to eliminate them sooner rather than later, though. Your experience motivates me even further to keep climbing this mountain now, before I realize that the climb is still ahea of me after years of trying! :)

      • joker159

        Do You plan to stay in France for the next 25 years ? :D

        • Nikki Lavoie

          I have no idea, actually, but I don’t plan to NOT be in France, so better to be safe than sorry, right?! ;)

          • joker159

            :) )))))

          • Brian

            Great answer! You’d be amazed at the number of people who plan to be in a country for ‘only’ a short time but end up there for 10 years without speaking. This is the answer I give too. :)

  • joker159

    salut Nikki, “Mieux vaut tard que jamais” !! surtout n’abandonne pas, ça serait dommage, pourquoi ne pas faire du théatre ? je pense que ça peux te débrider sérieusement, tu fait part dans ton article d’un manque de confiance en toi, et je pense que c’est la meilleur solution, ou pourquoi pas par exemple commencer par imiter une actrice Française que tu aimes bien, tu peux pratiquer cet exercice dans ta chambre; bon ça vaut ce que ça vaut hein :) …!
    Dans tout les cas je te souhaite beaucoup de courage et de tenacité pour la suite
    joker 159
    France

    • Nikki Lavoie

      Merci beaucoup pour tes conseils!! Je n’avais pas pensé sur le théâtre… très intéressant! Mon voisin est un acteur, afin qu’il puisse savoir par où commencer. Et j’aime la méthode “canei” ! Je vais me souviens tous les jours! Merci, merci, merci!!

      • joker159

        Tu a bien de la chance d’avoir un voisin comme acteur ! Je suis sûr qu’il pourra te donner un coup de main :) , je te souhaite beacoup de courage et surtout fait nous part de ton expérience :O

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000704616791 Edmund Yong

    I’m also an addict. I just start learning Finnish. I’ve a very good Finnish friend online but we chat in English nearly everyday. My excuses for not trying to chat in Finnish are:
    -I only know how to say hello, goodbye, thank you in Finnish
    -keep on opening online dictionary, google translator…is time wasting
    -I’ll lose a friend if I use my super-basic-lousy Finnish with him
    -My Finnish grammar knowledge is zero.
    -my vocabulary is not enough. I couldn’t even say ‘I don’t understand.’

    That night, my friend brought a Finnish exchange student my house. I’m so REGRET for not serious learning Finnish. I can only greet her in Finnish. A real Finn stood in front of me and I couldn’t use Finnish with her.

    After she left my house, I went to chat with my online Finnish friend (in English of course).
    I decided to forget about those excuses that’re holding me back and I wrote
    ‘…can we chat in Finnish?I want to improve my Finnish…’
    The next thing I knew, I was chatting with him in Finnish for 2/3 hours. I couldn’t believe how much I learned. I also made him laugh by making stupid mistake. For example
    I wrote
    -’The man kill the newspaper’ when I mean ‘The man kill the fly with a newspaper’
    -’I am a mistake’ when it should be ‘I am wrong’

    So EVERYBODY, JUST DO IT! FORGET ABOUT YOUR STUPID EXCUSES! THEY’RE WHY YOU’RE FAILING!!!

  • http://howlearnspanish.com/ Andrew

    Haha, their way of saying “good luck” is simply to say “shit!”?! That’s hilarious.

    And good on you, Nikki, for manning up and deciding to go for it, most people never do ;) (which is an excellent reason not to feel bad about having waited and procrastinated as long as you have: most people don’t ever take action after any amount of time!).

    Don’t be afraid to talk to people, and I recommend you maybe try starting out with a language exchange partner on skype and then use that to build up your speaking skills and, most importantly, your confidence before you try using your French with natives face-to-face, if doing that scares you too much (if not then sure, just go for it, I’m just offering a solution for those people who can’t bring themselves to talk to a native in person at first).

    Cheers,
    Andrew

    • http://www.facebook.com/hurleysusan Susan Hurley

      It dates back to when people would ride horse-drawn carriages to plays and other performances. So tons of horse shit in the streets meant tons of people had come to see the performance. Wishing someone tons of (horse) shit meant wishing them a great turnout.

      • http://howlearnspanish.com/ Andrew

        Thanks, Susan!

        • Nikki Lavoie

          Awesome for giving us the backstory, Susan!!

    • Nikki Lavoie

      Thanks for this!! Definitely needed to man up, and glad others have done the same. I do think I’m going to try and do some language exchange. I’ve heard great things about it. I’m not as scared as I sound from my list of excuses, but what ends up happening is that when I’m on the spot and needing to speak French to someone I don’t know, sometimes I freeze up trying to rack my brain for an error-free sentence! Need to stop being stupid and just spit it out, mistakes and all. Cheers to you, too!! :)

      • http://howlearnspanish.com/ Andrew

        Try writing down some things ahead of time to say, write them in a text file and have it right in front of you when you start your session with them, things like:

        “Hi, how are you?”
        “I’m fine.”
        “How’s the weather there?”
        “It’s [however the weather is where you are at the time] here.”
        “What do you do?”
        “[Explanation of what it is that you do]”
        “I have 2 dogs [or whatever], their names are [their names], they’re [breed] and I got them [X] years ago and…[whatever else you want to tell them about your pets]”

        Write all this stuff out ahead of time, that way you can look up words and grammar and expressions to your heart’s desire, you can pick and prune and edit and make everything just perfect if you like. That way no matter how nervous you are at the get-go you won’t have anything to worry about.

        This is the A-1 tip I give beginners looking to go into their first conversations/language-exchanges with native speakers via Skype where they’ll actually be talking in real time out loud, not just using chat software or playing penpal via e-mail or something, but this is their first, actual, real-deal, out-loud spoken conversation with a native.

        You’ll only need to do this the first few times, trust me, it’ll get 100x easier once you realize it’s not that big a deal, you don’t really need that, and you can do it all on your own.

        I hope this helps.

        Cheers,
        Andrew

  • George D

    I know this well enough. I’ve been in Timor-Leste 4 months, and Tetun is much worse than it was two months ago (when I felt like I was on track for Fluent in 5-6 Months) – because I’ve been doing all the same things as you.

    • Nikki Lavoie

      Well now we both know it and can do something about it. That’s the greatest part! Plus I LOVE that you had a goal/timeline for when you expected to be fluent… I should do the same. It’s a great idea, and don’t worry… maybe you’re not as off track as you think. Just take the plunge and start speaking! You will improve in leaps and bounds :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000704616791 Edmund Yong

    yep. I’m worry/think too much.

    • Nikki Lavoie

      We all do, Edmund. Great idea chatting in Finnish! What I find really helpful is noticing the progress I have made. After I speak even a little French, even if I make a bunch of mistakes, I’m like “wow… I just had a conversation… in French.” And it gives me the motivation to keep trying to improve. KEEP IT UP!!!

  • Karine_S

    I was in your case a few years ago as a french living in Ireland. Luckily it all changed when: j’ai été forcée par la situation à parler anglais (pour le travail et discuter avec les amis). So my advice would be to: te mettre dans la situation ou tu es obligée de parler francais. By the way, I’m french so: je t’invite à pratiquer le français avec moi dès maintenant. Si tu a compris ce message c’est que ton français est assez bon pour commencer!

    • Nikki Lavoie

      Hi Karine! Merci pour tes mots de courage! Je peux lire ton message, et je pense que c’est une bonne idée si nous pratiquons (enfin, je vais pratiquer… il n’est pas pratique pour toi, haha!). Je vais te contacter quand j’ai retournée de mes vacances! Merci!!

  • joker159

    Nikkie , where are YOu Girl ?? :(

    • Nikki Lavoie

      I’m right here!! :)

      • joker159

        Oh thx , I can hear You now :D

  • Nikki Lavoie

    Really like this!! Actually I have done this once or twice with some lunch venues near my office. I have gone in to order my lunch, speaking in French, and they hear my accent and automatically switch to English. I just kept responding back in French, until they finally understood that the conversation WAS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN in English! It is definitely a helpful trick, and perhaps I will try it more often. Thank you!

  • Nikki Lavoie

    I am trying to make time for some classes… I have taken a few classes at a school for foreigners here and there, but I don’t find them as helpful as one-on-one lessons, which is what I’ve started doing recently.

    I do think in France people are impressed when you try to speak their language…. except in Paris. Which is where I’m living presently. I’ve had more than one negative experience of me trying to speak French and people reacting very badly to it, and my friends were blown away by the reactions. Oh well, though… can’t let that amount to another excuse!!

    I dream of the day where I will reach level C1, haha! I’d say I’m just a bit further along than A2, but we all start somewhere. ;)

    • joker159

      …”except in Paris. Which is where I’m living presently. I’ve had more than
      one negative experience of me trying to speak French and people
      reacting very badly to it”…

      I’m very sad for this Nikki :( , don’t let them destroy Your motivation, You know there’s jerk everywhere :) .
      Think that 99 % of the people will really love That You try to speak French, and don’t even try to hyde your accent because an Eng Girl who speak French is so Sexy ! Really :D !

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brad-Arner/100001483446174 Brad Arner

      Nikki, don’t give up on speaking French with les parisiens. Je sais que c’est pas très rigolo que tu dises qqul chose en français aux parisiens et ils te répondent en anglais. A vrai dire c’est plutôt chiant ! Portant, le français est vraiment une belle langue. Je te conseille d’aller chercher chez Gibert Jeune l’audio livre d’un coeur simple par Flaubert lu par Fabrice Luchini afin de reconnaitre la beauté de la langue française. Le truc, c’est que les français sont exigeants avec eux même. Pendant que j’habitais Paris, la famille de ma femme s’est mise tous les 3 jours à discuter une subtilité du français ! Alors, allez ! Lance-toi dans le français ! Dès que t’auras pû vraiment parler avec les parisiens, ça te ferais tellement plaisir. Bon courage !!

      • Nikki Lavoie

        Merci beaucoup!! C’est vrai que le français est une trés belle langue… ce qui est exactement pourquoi je ne vais pas abandonner! I might make mistakes, but one day I won’t. I already feel myself improving. Yesterday someone actually said “you speak French, you’re just not fluent.” Did you hear that? I SPEAK FRENCH! Haha… :)

  • Lizzy

    I came across this website after reading about Benny in the book “The $100 Startup”. After watching the Tedx clip, I realized how much of an addict I am to excuses! I’ve been in France for 5…yes, 5 years! I do speak it, I get by, but I’m NOT fluent. Yes, it is embarrassing. I’ve taken classes, but have always been thinking that I’m too old to learn (I’m 42), I sound stupid when I speak, and when I try to converse with a French person they’ll just be frustrated with me, etc, etc… So from this day forward I will make the commitment to give up the excuses and just SPEAK it! Here’s to breaking the excuses addiction!

    • Nikki Lavoie

      AWESOME, LIZZY! Here’s to breaking the addiction together… good luck to you and all the other excuse addicts out there. We can do this! :)

      • Lizzy

        Yes we can!! ;-) . Well, I’m doing it. It’s a challenge, but I’m trying to keep a light, positive attitude. Je m’en fiche de mes fautes ! ;-) . Bonne continuation à vous aussi, Nikki !