u/jumpyonemillion

I Just got back from my first trip to Somalia. I'm 24. My parents have been begging me to go for years and I finally did it, thinking it would be this huge homecoming moment. Instead I spent two weeks feeling like a tourist in the country I'm supposed to be from.

The taxi driver from the airport tried to make small talk with me and I just smiled and nodded the entire ride. My auntie who I hadn't seen since I was a baby hugged me crying and said something long and emotional to me and I just said "haa, haa" because that's all I had. My younger cousins, who are like 12, were laughing at jokes around the dinner table and I sat there with the same fake smile I use at family gatherings back home, just on a bigger scale.

The worst part was when my grandma sat me down on the second day and just started telling me stories. About my dad as a kid. About the war. About people I'm named after. And I caught maybe 20% of it. I nodded the whole time and made the right sad face at what seemed like the right moments and I genuinely have no idea what she actually told me. I might never see her again. Whatever she said to me is just gone.

I came home and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I always thought of myself as Somali first. I wear the flag, I defend the culture online, I tell people where I'm from with pride. But I went there and I couldn't even order food without my cousin stepping in. I felt like I was wearing an identity I hadn't earned

I'm done waiting. How did you guys actually start learning when you were starting from basically zero speaking ability but full understanding of bits and pieces?

I Just got back from my first trip to Somalia. I'm 24. My parents have been begging me to go for years and I finally did it, thinking it would be this huge homecoming moment. Instead I spent two weeks feeling like a tourist in the country I'm supposed to be from.

The taxi driver from the airport tried to make small talk with me and I just smiled and nodded the entire ride. My auntie who I hadn't seen since I was a baby hugged me crying and said something long and emotional to me and I just said "haa, haa" because that's all I had. My younger cousins, who are like 12, were laughing at jokes around the dinner table and I sat there with the same fake smile I use at family gatherings back home, just on a bigger scale.

The worst part was when my grandma sat me down on the second day and just started telling me stories. About my dad as a kid. About the war. About people I'm named after. And I caught maybe 20% of it. I nodded the whole time and made the right sad face at what seemed like the right moments and I genuinely have no idea what she actually told me. I might never see her again. Whatever she said to me is just gone.

I came home and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I always thought of myself as Somali first. I wear the flag, I defend the culture online, I tell people where I'm from with pride. But I went there and I couldn't even order food without my cousin stepping in. I felt like I was wearing an identity I hadn't earned

I'm done waiting. How did you guys actually start learning when you were starting from basically zero speaking ability but full understanding of bits and pieces?

I Just got back from my first trip to Somalia. I'm 24. My parents have been begging me to go for years and I finally did it, thinking it would be this huge homecoming moment. Instead I spent two weeks feeling like a tourist in the country I'm supposed to be from.

The taxi driver from the airport tried to make small talk with me and I just smiled and nodded the entire ride. My auntie who I hadn't seen since I was a baby hugged me crying and said something long and emotional to me and I just said "haa, haa" because that's all I had. My younger cousins, who are like 12, were laughing at jokes around the dinner table and I sat there with the same fake smile I use at family gatherings back home, just on a bigger scale.

The worst part was when my grandma sat me down on the second day and just started telling me stories. About my dad as a kid. About the war. About people I'm named after. And I caught maybe 20% of it. I nodded the whole time and made the right sad face at what seemed like the right moments and I genuinely have no idea what she actually told me. I might never see her again. Whatever she said to me is just gone.

I came home and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I always thought of myself as Somali first. I wear the flag, I defend the culture online, I tell people where I'm from with pride. But I went there and I couldn't even order food without my cousin stepping in. I felt like I was wearing an identity I hadn't earned

I'm done waiting. How did you guys actually start learning when you were starting from basically zero speaking ability but full understanding of bits and pieces?

I Just got back from my first trip to Somalia. I'm 24. My parents have been begging me to go for years and I finally did it, thinking it would be this huge homecoming moment. Instead I spent two weeks feeling like a tourist in the country I'm supposed to be from.

The taxi driver from the airport tried to make small talk with me and I just smiled and nodded the entire ride. My auntie who I hadn't seen since I was a baby hugged me crying and said something long and emotional to me and I just said "haa, haa" because that's all I had. My younger cousins, who are like 12, were laughing at jokes around the dinner table and I sat there with the same fake smile I use at family gatherings back home, just on a bigger scale.

The worst part was when my grandma sat me down on the second day and just started telling me stories. About my dad as a kid. About the war. About people I'm named after. And I caught maybe 20% of it. I nodded the whole time and made the right sad face at what seemed like the right moments and I genuinely have no idea what she actually told me. I might never see her again. Whatever she said to me is just gone.

I came home and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I always thought of myself as Somali first. I wear the flag, I defend the culture online, I tell people where I'm from with pride. But I went there and I couldn't even order food without my cousin stepping in. I felt like I was wearing an identity I hadn't earned

I'm done waiting. How did you guys actually start learning when you were starting from basically zero speaking ability but full understanding of bits and pieces?

I'm Somali. Born and raised by Somali parents. Heard it spoken around me my entire life. And I still can't speak it fluently.

It's not because I don't care. It's the opposite. I care so much that every time I try to speak it, I freeze. I'll be mid-sentence and my brain just locks up because I know I'm about to butcher a word, and whoever I'm talking to is going to either laugh, correct me like I'm five, or hit me with the "you don't speak your own language?" look. That one cuts deep.

And that's the thing nobody really talks about. The embarrassment isn't just "oh I feel a little shy." It's genuine shame. You grow up in a household where everyone speaks it, your family back home speaks it, it's literally your language and you can't string together a sentence without sounding like a tourist. It makes you feel disconnected from your own culture in a way that's hard to explain to people who didn't grow up like this.

I've tried learning. Multiple times. But every method out there basically requires you to practice speaking with someone. Tutors, language exchange apps, family members. It all comes back to having a real person on the other end listening to you mess up. And for a lot of us, that's exactly the barrier. I don't want someone hearing me struggle. I don't want the awkward pauses. I don't want to see the look on someone's face when I mispronounce something basic.

What I've always wanted is a way to learn privately. Something I can use on my own time, make mistakes with zero judgment, and actually build up my confidence before I ever have to speak to a real person. No pressure, no audience, just me and the language. That's how I'd actually learn. By getting comfortable enough on my own that speaking to people doesn't feel like a performance.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. There are so many of us who want to connect with our language but the tools just aren't built for how we actually need to learn. This is a real issue we need to address in our community.