English – abstract and connecting words, the ones that carry an argument
Nadia had been in the country for eleven weeks, and she still could not remember which of the two bus stops was hers. She would arrive at the wrong one, recognize nothing, and have to walk back. It was a small mistake, and she made it often enough to stop being embarrassed by it.
The language was the harder part. She could speak well enough to buy bread and explain where she lived, but a conversation moved faster than she could listen, and by the time she had chosen a word the moment for it was gone. Her teacher, a patient woman named Iva, told her this was normal. "You understand more than you can say," she said. "That is always true first. Give it time, although I know nobody wants to hear that."
Nadia had come for one reason: an opportunity at a small firm that needed someone who could write in two languages. It was serious work and the pay was enough. Her plan for the future did not go much further than that, and she had decided not to require more of herself for now.
The city was crowded in a way her own had never been. The buses were full, the streets were full, and the climate was wet in a manner that seemed to require a particular kind of coat, which everyone but her appeared to own. She would borrow an umbrella from her flatmate and forget to return it, and her flatmate, who was reliable in a way Nadia admired, would lend her another one without saying anything about the first.
She began to practice differently. Instead of trying to use every new word at once, she would choose three a day and carry them around like coins. She would change a sentence she already knew and provide the new word instead of the old one. It felt slow. It was slow; however, it was the first thing that had worked. But by the fourth month she could manage a conversation about her health at the doctor's, which had been impossible in January, and she could follow the news, which had been impossible in February.
Iva suggested she stop apologising for her accent. "It is not polite to apologise for who you are," she said, and Nadia thought this was probably advice about more than grammar.
There was a holiday in May, and Nadia took a journey north with two people from work. The culture there was different again – quieter, older, and it needed no explanation to be enjoyable. On the train back, one of them asked whether she wanted to stay in the country for good. She said she did not know. It was an honest answer, and it was the first time she had given a difficult one without rehearsing it in her head.
She had wanted, for a long time, to feel comfortable. What she got instead was something smaller and more useful: she stopped needing to feel comfortable before she spoke. Her environment had not become easier. She had improved, quietly, in the only way anyone does – by getting things wrong in public and returning the next day.
That is popular advice, and like most popular advice it is easier to give than to follow. But the decision to develop slowly, out loud, in front of a society that was not paying much attention, turned out to be the one that worked. For example: eleven weeks in, she could not find her bus stop. A year in, she was the person a newer arrival asked.
to keep something in your mind
to fail to remember
to pick one from several
to know the meaning of something
to say words; to talk
to hold and move something
to pay attention to sound
to put words on paper
to reach a place
to make or become different
to make an effort to do something
to do something with a tool or thing
to come or go back
to require something
to wish for something
to make an idea clear
a trip from one place to another
a time of rest away from work
a nation with its own government
repeated action to improve a skill
the words a people use
the state of the body
something done wrong
the usual weather of an area
to make or become better
a choice you make after thinking
why something happens
an opinion about what someone should do
in spite of the fact that
a thing shown to explain
but; in spite of that
to put forward an idea
the time that will come
able to be trusted
full of people
a chance to do something
giving a pleasant feeling
to know someone you have seen before
to succeed in doing something difficult
liked by many people
to take something and give it back later
to give something for a short time
the natural world around us
not joking; important
people living together in a community
the ideas and customs of a people
showing good manners
to grow or make grow
to give what is needed
to need something
able to wait calmly
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