A Small Dictionary for How English Feels

Language learning has plenty of academic terms.

It has far less language for how English feels after years of use.

Words for the walls learners hit— and words to describe the methods used to unlock those feelings.

 I made up these terms to describe the patterns I see again and again in capable, professional English users — where the language works, but doesn’t always feel safe, settled, or available.

You don’t need to read this in order.
If a term feels familiar, screenshot it. It is normal – not just you!

For clarity, I’ve deliberately described many of these experiences as symptoms. Not because they’re minor or easily dismissed, but because they’re treatable.

They’re not personality flaws or permanent states.

They’re signals that English has been used under strain for too long, without the conditions it needs to stay healthy.

At Blue Noun, the treatment looks different depending on personal circumstances.

We are best known for our language holidays in Scotland, where English is given time, space, and lived experience away from performance pressure.

We also offer relaxed, online conversation coaching on a flexible schedule – with our signature methods that offer lighter, repeatable moments that restore trust and ease.

Different intensities, same principle: changing the conditions so English can settle, strengthen, and feel like something you live in again.

The Blue Noun Dictionary of English Learning

Phrase:
Not trusting the thickness of your ice (Symptom)

Explanation:
English that seems to work and hold your weight, but never fully feels safe. You can perform on it, move on it, even succeed on it, but part of your attention is always watching whether it will hold. That vigilance creates emotional cost.

Nothing is wrong with your English itself. If you have the skills, you can, in theory, dance, glide, or jump on it, and sometimes it even feels like you do. But you’re doing it without trusting that you’re safe.

The cause is English only being used in high-stakes, outcome-driven situations, where it never gets to feel owned or inhabited.

The cure: witnessing how thick and safe the ice actually is. Imagine seeing an elephant walk across it first. You’d feel OK.

Phrase:
Emergency English (Problem)

Explanation:
English that only gets fed when something urgent is at stake, usually a presentation or interview, at a point when you’re already maxed out on adrenaline and uncertainty about what your future looks like.

It’s English that gets hastily patched and wheeled out to perform under scrutiny, then put away again because the process was so horrific. Each time this happens, resentment and dislike for the language build, when English could instead feel like an enchanting ability. A superpower.

The cause:
Lack of time.
Lack of foreplanning.
Only taking action under urgency.

The cost:
This loop is exhausting. Left unchecked, it can cost confidence, health, and sometimes opportunities.

The cure:
Kindness. Being kind to yourself, and kind to your English.
Creating resilient, year-round moments of English, rather than crisis-driven ones.
Planting seeds, not just harvesting.

Phrase:
Safe time (Cure)

Explanation:
Time where English exists without outcome pressure. Not directly practising for a task, and not worrying about perfection. Safe time allows English to be used without being watched, judged, or extracted from.

This is where trust builds, and where English stops feeling like something you assume and starts feeling like something you live in.

Phrase:
Patch-and-perform loop (Problem / Pattern)

Explanation:
A repeating pattern where Emergency English becomes the sole way of dealing with irregular, work-related performance. Each time, English is patched just enough to get through a presentation or interview, then set aside again once the temporary pressure passes.

English remains something you brace for rather than live in. Over time, confidence doesn’t stabilise. It becomes increasingly dependent on fixing, reassurance, and last-minute intervention.

The space for trust never appears.

The cure:
Emergency coaching to help refine a presentation can be very useful. But spreading the work over time, and working with a coach who helps the process feel lighter and less charged, is far more effective than living in rehearsal boot camp mode.

Supplement the patch-and-perform loop with unrelated English conversation during quieter periods, so English isn’t only associated with pressure.

Phrase:
Not feeling at home in English (Symptom)

Explanation:

Even when English works, it doesn’t feel real. It’s something you step into when required, rather than something you inhabit. This creates a sense of distance from the language, where English feels functional but unfamiliar, capable but not trustworthy.

This kind of English carries an almost invisible psychological cost. You feel continually vulnerable at a level you rarely admit, even to yourself.

The cure:
A joyful, playful experience where you cannot fail. Where it’s OK not to know, OK to discover, test, and try. Time spent simply being yourself in English.

Phrase:
High-stakes-only English (Cause)

Explanation:
English that is used almost exclusively in situations where something is at stake. Presentations, meetings, interviews, decisions. English appears only when it matters, when it’s judged, when outcomes are attached.

Because English never exists outside evaluation, it never gets the chance to feel familiar or safe. Over time, this produces not feeling at home in English. The language may work, but it doesn’t settle. Confidence becomes conditional, dependent on preparation and control.

High-stakes-only English doesn’t create incompetence; it creates instability.

Phrase:
Safe time between performances (Cure / Preventative)

Explanation:

Deliberate time where English is used between high-stakes moments, not actively in preparation for them, though it ultimately feeds them.

In safe time, a range of known strategies are used to help the participant feel good and at ease. This goes far beyond a coffee in a classroom with strangers. Working with the hands, practising crafts, being around real fires and plants, and feeling physically cared for all reduce anxiety and create safety.

English is present without consequence and without judgement. There is no march forward into progress, but sideways exploration.

Over time, this changes the emotional relationship with the language, so performance no longer carries the full psychological load.

You can create this environment yourself, or travel to somewhere it has been designed for you, so all you need to do is step inside and let the method work.

Phrase:
Sideways work (Mechanism)

Explanation:

Using English in ways that don’t target language progress goals. Not the next tense, not the correct subjunctive, not rules about when and when not. Instead, sideways work expands the English you have already learned.

It is review-based, but it grows language skills through revision and confidence rather than correction. Sideways work changes learning conditions by being based on what you do know, not what you don’t.

Even a short dose of this can be a powerful remedy for people who have always felt the need to keep up, rather than simply be.

Phrase:
English as a role vs English as a place (Cure)

Explanation:

There are people you only want to meet after a trip to the hairdresser. And there are people you’ll open the door to in your pyjamas, because it’s the only way to get to spend time with this lovely person in a busy day.

When English feels like a role, it requires preparation, vigilance, and recovery. You enter it, perform, and leave again.

When English becomes a place, you can be yourself. You don’t need to warm up or brace yourself. You can arrive as you are.

Removing the need to “have a face on” is liberating. English stops being something you manage and starts being something that holds you.

It’s not about level.
It’s about comfort.

The cure:
Make comfort the goal, not more language.

Phrase:
Feeding the source, not mining the output (Cure)

Explanation:

Most English work focuses on output. What you say, how accurately you say it, how well it performs. This works for a long time.

But after years of use, constantly mining English for output starts to cost your joy. Confidence becomes effortful, and every performance draws from the same limited reserves.

Feeding the source means using English in ways that replenish it. Not to produce better sentences immediately, but to strengthen the conditions that make language available, flexible, and resilient.

This is why there comes a point where a cooking course can do more for your English than another presentation course. That doesn’t mean you’ll never need another course again. It means that when you do, it will land on fertile soil.

The cure:
Stop asking English to perform all the time. Give it conditions where it can grow.

Phrase:
Over-inspected English (Problem)

Explanation:

When English has mostly been used in situations where it’s evaluated, corrected, or judged, it grows fearful. You need to use it in powerful situations, but your inner critic stays active, self-monitoring to keep you safe.

On the surface, your language still works, but it tightens protectively. Using English becomes emotionally expensive. It’s effort without ever quite feeling a win or a moment of satisfaction.

Without uninspected use, English never relaxes into its full range.

The cure:
Create regular moments where English is used without correction, assessment, or outcome, so it can stretch, wander, and settle.

Develop a habit of collecting and acknowledging powerful moments. Look for them, hold them, honour them. This is transformational.

Phrase:
Time-out English (Cure)

Explanation:

Making a space for English to be used with no one evaluating it, and no outcomes to justify.

Without witnesses, English can be messy, incomplete, and exploratory. It can pause, circle, and wander. Meaning comes before accuracy, and connection before performance.

This is where English regains elasticity and grows healthy green shoots with deep, wide roots. You will harvest from it later, but in fact there is so much pleasure in the process that harvesting doesn’t even feel like the point.

Phrase:
Confidence (side effect)

Explanation:

Confidence appears as a side effect of familiarity, comfort, and repeated safe use. When English is lived in regularly, without constant evaluation or pressure, confidence stops needing to be summoned. It’s already there.