How to manage perfectionism when you speak Greek? [article + video]
Penny had learned Greek at a young age. Almost every year, she used to go to Greece with her family and spend some time at their χωριό (village) in the summer.
She remembered herself speaking Greek with her παππού και γιαγιά (grandparents) and her friends. She remembered the desire to connect and to bring the two parts of her together.
“My summers were definitely beautiful and fun, but they were also a bit of a struggle to understand and feel understood” she once told me.
Decades later, Penny hadn’t forgotten her Greek. She was eager to speak only in Greek while in Greece. She celebrated this part of hers.
And at the same time she had promised herself: To not struggle ever again with Greek. To never feel again like the little girl who tried to get all the sounds right, all the words perfectly in order.
What happens when you put all of your effort to learn something you truly want to learn, only to realize it’s taking a very long time, a lot of back and forth?
What happens when you feel you’re not good enough or that you’re being judged for not speaking the way you “should” (whatever that means)?
Being among native speakers is not a fun immersion only, or your “best chance” to learn or speak Greek.
It’s also painful, at times, to realize that you can’t learn everything. To realize how you’ll always be on this journey.
But you know what? It’s OK, really. Because being on this journey also means you get to enjoy the best view at every step of the way, at every peak you conquer, however big or small.
And when you find that there are more people who somehow feel the same as you, you also realize that you're not alone.
A while ago, Dimitris from the Easy Greek YouTube channel asked me to talk about something I think it’s as important for Greek learners as it is to me.
So, here we are, chatting over tea & coffee, in a cool and sunny morning in Athens. We talked about the hows and whys of perfectionism when speaking languages - Greek in particular - and a few realistic ways to manage it.
Care to join us?
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