Dear Reader,

A couple of years ago, people started telling me my French was unusually good.

So I started sharing what I did and it resonated.

But I've been avoiding a question ever since: was that the method — or was it just me?

There's only one way to find out - I'm learning Dutch.

If I get to conversational fluency in a language I have zero cultural pressure to speak, no survival instinct pushing me forward, no debt to payback and no job to hunt for — then the method gets the credit. Not me.

The not so easy part is that I've tried three times already. Failed all three.

I can't pass an A1 exam in a language I was first introduced to seven years ago. That's embarrassing. I know.

it's not easy to learn a new langauge. If this were easy, nobody would care. You don't google 'how to finally brush your teeth' for the ninth time.

So I'm putting the gloves on a fourth time.

Documenting what I actually do on the daily. What works. What doesn't. What this kind of deliberate struggle does to your thinking.

I've given a lot of advice about learning French over the years:

— Create, don't just consume

— Speak from day one

— Skip the grammar rabbit hole

— Spelling rules matter less than you think

— Adults can absolutely learn a language

Now I'm on the other side of that advice. A beginner again.

And I'm realising how much of this advice is tarnished by the curse of knowledge. It's easy to sound wise when you've forgotten what it felt like to not know.

That's what this newsletter is. Real documentation of the learning process. Every video I've made ends with 'Keep Learning' — it's not just a sign-off, it's the actual point.

If that's why you signed up, I'm glad you're here.

One more thing — I've been avoiding this newsletter for months. Partly because I didn't want to show up without something worth saying. But also because since leaving Instagram, I've quietly disappeared from the internet. No stories, no updates, nothing. I've been heads down, working on things. This is me coming back up for air.

I'm going to write here more often. Not to fill your inbox, but because I have a lot to share and this feels like the right place to do it.

Josh

P.S. If you're here for the France content — salaries, bureaucracy, expat life, all of it — that's not going anywhere. This newsletter will cover the full picture of what I'm working on, and learning is the thread that runs through all of it.