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I showed up with a handful of borrowed words and the optimism of someone who has never read the warranty. I assumed tone would carry me. It did not. Turns out meaning requires torque. I said what I meant. The language heard something else. We were both technically correct, which did not help. So I slowed down. Measured. Stopped treating grammar like a suggestion and more like load-bearing code. Every ending mattered. Every choice came with paperwork. You couldn’t just eyeball it and hope nobody noticed. I practiced alone, out loud, sounding like a man negotiating with an appliance. The words were heavy. Lift wrong, you own the problem. Correction turned out not to be criticism. Just maintenance. Like being told the noise you’re ignoring will get louder. I’m still not fluent. Still pausing. Still translating in my head like a manual that assumes you already know what you’re doing. But things hold now. Conversations don’t wobble. Meaning stays where it’s put. Which seems like a decent definition of love: less confidence, more attention, and the willingness to keep working with the right tools after admitting you didn’t have them. I hold the ropes. They do not care how I feel. They work.
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Jan 28
Jan 28, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC
Language versus IKEA
I showed up with a handful of borrowed words and the optimism of someone who has never read the warranty. I assumed tone would carry me. It did not. Turns out meaning requires torque. I said what I meant. The language heard something else. We were both technically correct, which did not help. So I slowed down. Measured. Stopped treating grammar like a suggestion and more like load-bearing code. Every ending mattered. Every choice came with paperwork. You couldn’t just eyeball it and hope nobody noticed. I practiced alone, out loud, sounding like a man negotiating with an appliance. The words were heavy. Lift wrong, you own the problem. Correction turned out not to be criticism. Just maintenance. Like being told the noise you’re ignoring will get louder. I’m still not fluent. Still pausing. Still translating in my head like a manual that assumes you already know what you’re doing. But things hold now. Conversations don’t wobble. Meaning stays where it’s put. Which seems like a decent definition of love: less confidence, more attention, and the willingness to keep working with the right tools after admitting you didn’t have them. I hold the ropes. They do not care how I feel. They work.
My experience learning a second language as an adult.
#dadpoem#fun#levity#humour
badwords
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badwords
Jan 28
Jan 28, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC
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