Has this ever happened to you?

You're speaking your mother tongue and mid-sentence, a word just vanishes. You know it in English. You can picture it, almost hear it. But in French (or whatever it is)? Gone. A gap where something familiar should be.

This newsletter started with Japanese. It will eventually talk about Dutch. But the real subject has always been this: what it feels like to carry languages inside you, to build them, lose them a little, find them again. Whatever language you're chasing, or holding onto, that experience belongs to you too.

It happened to me recently. Talking to someone French, I reached for a word and found nothing. I kept going, found a workaround, moved on. The word came back later. Of course it did.

I've spent so long in environments where English is the default that it quietly became my operating language. That wasn't an accident—I always wanted English. But wanting something new means the old things quietly shift.

That's a strange thing to sit with when French is where I came from. It's also why this newsletter is in English. I simply think in English now; the reasoning feels sharper and the sentences land easier.

I've been thinking about that forgotten word ever since, because it changed how I view language maintenance.

We talk constantly about learning language; the apps, the methods, the immersion. We rarely talk about what happens after.

What happens when you stop learning and just live with a language? Or when you pick up a new one and the old ones start fading? Languages decay. You don't need to stop speaking entirely; you just need to let the muscle go unused.

Honestly, I don't have a system for maintaining my languages.

What I do is read. Short, manageable graded readers. Not to acquire vocabulary, but because it keeps the language warm. I also watch or listen to things—no notebooks, no pressure. Just being in the presence of the language for a while.

None of this is consistent. It wouldn't survive being called a method. But the goal isn't peak performance. The goal is just to keep the feeling of the language accessible, even when specific words go on holiday.

Maintenance isn't practice. It's presence.

The word that disappeared that evening? I won't tell you. Mostly because you probably have your own version of that silence, and yours is more interesting than mine.

Forgetting a word in your native language doesn't mean you're losing it. It just means you've been living inside a different one for a while.

That's not failure. It's just what it feels like to carry multiple languages at once.

Heavy sometimes, but also remarkable.

À bientôt, tot ziens, またね