I’ve always had a complicated relationship with languages.

Not because I don’t like them. Quite the opposite actually. I LOVE languages. I love hearing people speak in languages I don’t understand, I love learning random words, I love that the same thing can sound completely different in another language. I grew up in India, moved to Italy, and now live in Germany and ended up collecting languages along the way.

But for the longest time, I never really considered myself someone who “spoke” many languages.

And looking back, I think that had very little to do with how many languages I actually knew and a lot to do with how many times people told me that I didn’t.

When my brother was little, he used to spend a lot of time at my grandparents’ house. Sometimes during the holidays, sometimes while my parents were at work. That’s where he picked up Tamil. He was surrounded by my grandparents, relatives and everyone speaking Tamil all day, every day, so naturally, he learned it.

By the time I was born, things had changed a little. My grandparents had started getting sick and my grandfather had some serious health issues, so I wasn’t sent there like my brother was. Instead, I went to a babysitter.

An Anglo-Indian babysitter where everyone spoke English. And apparently, I took to English like a fish to water. My dad still talks about how beautifully I spoke English when I was four. Then I started school at four, went to a convent school and English became my first language.

Tamil, however, was still around me. I could understand it. I could understand my relatives when they spoke to each other. I could watch Tamil movies without subtitles because subtitles weren’t really a thing for us back then. I understood everything that was happening. I just couldn’t speak it very well.

And every time I tried, someone would laugh.

I’d say something in Tamil and someone would ask me to repeat it. Then they’d laugh. My brother would make fun of me. Relatives would hear me speak and immediately ask, “You speak Tamil?”

And slowly, slowly, I stopped trying. I went back into my shell and Tamil took a backseat.

Kannada became the Indian language I was more comfortable speaking. It was one of my school languages, and I grew up in Bangalore, where Kannada was everywhere. I’d speak Kannada with auto drivers, shopkeepers, random people I met while going about my day and I actually loved it.

I liked speaking to people in their regional language rather than just speaking English everywhere. There was something really satisfying about knowing enough of a language to connect with someone in their own language.

But even there, I had this weird hesitation. Not because Kannadigas made fun of my Kannada. In fact, I can’t remember a single Kannadiga doing that.

But I had a Tamilian friend who thought she spoke better Kannada than me (she did) would make jokes about mine. There were times when I’d tell someone, “Oh yeah, I speak Tamil and Kannada” and she’d immediately go, “No she doesn’t!” and laugh.

And because she was my best friend, I laughed too.

But I think somewhere along the way, everyone had started deciding what I could and couldn’t claim for myself.

You speak English.

You don’t speak Tamil.

You don’t speak Kannada.

Your Hindi has an accent.

So English became the one language nobody could take away from me.

When I moved to North India for a while, even Hindi became another source of insecurity. Hindi was my second language in school but apparently I spoke it with a South Indian accent. Which is funny because… I am South Indian? What other accent was I supposed to have? Haha.

They also told me I spoke English with a South Indian accent, which I always found particularly funny because, in my head, they spoke English with a North Indian accent too. I just never told them.

But all of these little comments added up. And eventually I started wondering what it actually meant to “speak” a language.

Does it mean you can introduce yourself?

Can you have a conversation?

Can you express your feelings?

Can you understand a movie without subtitles?

Can you argue with someone?

Can you tell a joke?

Or does it only count if you can read a book in that language? Or write it perfectly? Or read some ancient text that nobody has touched since 1847?

I mean, I could watch a Tamil movie and understand the entire thing. I could understand conversations between my relatives. I could communicate my feelings. I knew words and phrases and expressions that didn’t exist in English. But because I couldn’t speak Tamil perfectly, I never really allowed myself to say, “I speak Tamil.”

Then I moved to Italy.

And suddenly, I met people who had absolutely no idea about all of these rules I had created in my head. They would ask me, “So what language do you speak in India?”

And I’d say, “Well, my mother tongue is Tamil but I mostly spoke English growing up. English is my primary language. I speak Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and now I’m learning Italian.”

And they would be IMPRESSED.

They would ask me what certain words meant. They’d ask me how to say things in Tamil. They’d ask me about Hindi or Kannada. And if I knew the answer, that was enough. And something so ridiculously small started doing wonders for my self-esteem.

For the first time, nobody was standing there waiting for me to make a mistake before deciding whether I was allowed to call myself a speaker of that language.

And then there was my Italian husband. I could tell him, “Yeah, I speak Tamil.” And he just believed me.

I’d teach him random Tamil words and sentences. We’d watch Tamil movies together and I’d explain what was happening. I’d teach him Kannada words. I’d make him listen to Kannada songs. We’d watch Hindi movies and he’d stop and ask me what something meant.

And he genuinely thought I was this person who knew all these languages. Which made me feel really good because I GENUINELY felt like I did.

It sounds so silly when I say it out loud. But imagine spending years thinking you’re not good enough at something and then meeting someone who simply assumes that you are. It changes something in you.

And then, of course, I started learning Italian.

Now I speak Italian at a B1/2 level, which is still something I’m incredibly proud of because learning a language as an adult is HARD. There are still words I forget, grammar mistakes I make and sentences that come out sounding like they were assembled by Google Translate.

But I speak it. I can explain myself in it. I can have conversations. I can understand people. I can translate when necessary.

And when I went to India for my wedding, I found myself speaking Italian with Marcello’s family while also translating between his family and mine.

And my family was impressed. They were impressed that I could speak Italian. And I remember thinking how funny that was. Because here I was, finally being seen as someone who could speak a language.

Except…

Little did they know that my Italian was just as good as my Tamil.

I didn’t suddenly become multilingual when I moved to Italy. I had always been surrounded by languages. I had always understood more than I gave myself credit for. I had always been able to communicate in more languages than English. I just needed people around me who didn’t make me feel stupid for trying.

And perhaps that’s why I’ve slowly started falling in love with my mother tongue again. Because I finally stopped asking everyone else for permission to call it mine.

Maybe you don’t have to read a book in a language to speak it. Maybe you don’t have to sound like a native speaker. Maybe you don’t have to pass some imaginary language exam created by people around you. Maybe understanding your grandmother, laughing at a joke in a movie, arguing with your relatives, translating a word for your husband or simply being able to say what you feel is enough.

And if it is… Then I guess I’ve been speaking Tamil all along.