my mum is a language teacher and said something that stuck with me, 'it's really hard to share your emotions in a language that isn't yours.' Has anyone else felt this?"

I moved to the UK earlier this year for my masters. In the first few months, something felt off that I couldn't quite name. I could hold conversations, navigate daily life, do my coursework, technically fine. But something about expressing myself felt flat. Like I was always slightly translating, never just saying.

I mentioned this to my mum recently. She's an English teacher, so I expected some technical explanation. Instead she said something simple: "It's really difficult to share your emotions when you're speaking a different language." Not because of vocabulary. But because the emotional weight behind words is cultural. The way locals here use humour to deflect, or understatement to show something serious, none of that was in any lesson I took.

About halfway through the year something shifted. I started picking up on things. Not grammar. More like, the texture of how people here actually communicate. The rhythm of it. And with that came something I didn't expect: I started feeling more like myself in conversation, not less.

It made me think that language learning and language experiencing might actually be two different things. One you can study. The other only happens by being inside it, the awkward silences, the jokes that don't land, the moment something finally does.

really curious if others have felt this gap, between being competent in a language and feeling emotionally present in it. And if so, what actually closed that gap for you? Was it time, specific experiences, certain people?