Writing in a foreign language is not difficult. Writing well in a foreign language, on the other hand, is close to impossible. I started writing in English when I was a teenager still living in Russia. It’s wasn’t homework for my English class, but simply a way to make sure that nobody could understand what I wrote in my diary. I remember having a crush on a boy, a gymnast I met at a few training camps, so naturally, instead of telling my friends about him, I wrote it down in such bad English that nobody would ever be able to decipher it. I honestly don’t remember his name, but for a while he was the only boy who motivated me to write in English.

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When I came to go to college in the United States, I have studied English for seven years. You’d think by that time I’d be fluent, but that would be similar to watching cooking shows for seven years and then competing at the Iron Chef competition. You know what you’re supposed to do, you know what it’s supposed to look like, but you’ll find out very quickly that the only way to learn how to do something is to actually do it.

I never thought of myself as a social person, but I realized that I was wrong when during my first few months in the US I wasn’t able to carry on a simple conversation with my peers. Things that they talked about was not something we covered in my English class. Apparently Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms is not a popular topic at American college parties. So, very quickly, I’d been labeled as “quiet”. We don’t use the word “quiet” to describe a person in Russian. I understood what they meant, and it made me realize that I lost confidence and a part of my identity when I had to speak English.

Growing up, I loved to read and write in Russian. I read Tolstoy’s War and Peace in 9th grade (although I skipped book three because it was all about the war). The only books I read in English during my college years were textbooks. Then, slowly, I transitioned to reading in English for fun. Twenty years after I came to the United States, I wrote my first book. Very few people would describe me as “quiet” these days. New people that I meet “detect an accent”, but they can’t quite place it. I edit my husband’s writing (he is from Pennsyltucky, so I just translate it to English).

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My journey to becoming an English speaker hasn’t been easy, but it was worth it. The only way to truly appreciate the culture and become a part of the society is to speak the native language. Of course, speaking the language is helpful when trying to get a job or when explaining to your kids why you took away their phone, but there are also small things that just don’t have the same impact if you translate them.

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If English is your second language, don’t think that you can’t express yourself because you can’t find the right words. Start “doing”, and the words will come. And if you’re a native English speaker, don’t rush to make decisions about who we are. We’re not “quiet” we’re still learning.