The other day, I was speaking in English with someone whose primary language was Mandarin. As we navigated the conversation, I had a fleeting thought: It’s too bad my Mandarin isn’t strong enough to express myself fully. But then I caught myself. That wasn’t entirely true. My Mandarin is good enough for a meaningful conversation. Yet, somewhere deep inside, the voice in my head expected my Mandarin to match my English fluency—an impossible standard. And then I wondered: was this person having the same thought about their English? Were we both holding ourselves to expectations that no one else had placed on us?
This feeling is all too familiar for multilinguals. No matter how much we know, we are often hyperaware of what we lack. We hesitate before speaking, apologize for mispronunciations, and downplay our abilities. Receptive bilinguals, included. Monolinguals, on the other hand, rarely seem to experience this in the same way. For example, a person who speaks only English rarely stops mid-sentence to lament that their English isn’t quite English enough. This discrepancy illuminates how multilinguals too often measure their own voices against impossible ideals—ideals shaped by a monolingual bias.
Take the United States as an example. Someone who grew up hearing Spanish at home but speaks it with an accent might tell themselves, I should be better at this. I sound so "American." A second-generation Korean speaker might hesitate before speaking, afraid of using the wrong honorifics. A Vietnamese speaker might avoid conversations with elders altogether, not wanting to face the embarrassment of forgetting a word mid-sentence. Meanwhile, those who speak English with non-standard accents, or what is dismissively called "broken English," are often judged unfairly and treated as less capable simply because their English doesn’t fit rigid norms. These are two sides of the same coin. Whether it’s feeling inadequate in our heritage languages or being judged for speaking English "imperfectly," the underlying message is that only certain ways of speaking are fully accepted. That fluency is the price of cultural authenticity and belonging. But language is not just about correctness—it’s about communication, culture, and connection.
So what if we stopped apologizing? What if, instead of measuring ourselves against unrealistic standards, we embraced the richness of how we already speak? And recognize the way we speak—accented, code-switched, imperfect—carries the history of where we’ve been, the people we’ve known, and the worlds we navigate. Rather than seeing our language abilities as something to fix or perfect, we can recognize them as evidence of adaptation, bridging, and connection. Perhaps the goal is not perfection. Perhaps the goal is to feel at home in our voice.