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Vital words
Swaddle: A cloth wrapped snugly around a baby to restrict movement and provide comfort.
Mummy brain: The mental fog and forgetfulness often experienced by mothers due to sleep loss and hormonal changes.
Fog: A state of mental confusion or lack of clarity that makes thinking difficult.
Nuances: Small, subtle differences in meaning, expression, or sound.
Preoccupied: When the mind is completely absorbed by a specific thought or task.
Survival: The state of continuing to exist or function, especially under stress or pressure.
Pacifier: A rubber or silicone nipple given to a baby to suck on for comfort (dudlík).
Overwhelmed: Feeling as though the amount of stress or information is too much to handle.
Internal bandwidth: The total amount of mental energy available to process information.
Executive function: High-level mental processes used for planning, focus, and managing complex tasks.
Processor lag: A delay in mental response caused by the brain being overloaded.
Lag: To move or respond more slowly than usual or desired.
For the past five weeks, my world has shrunk to the size of a baby’s swaddle. My days are very different now that I have given birth to my son.
As a language teacher, I’ve spent years explaining to my clients why their English feels slow or stiff. Now, having had my son, I can offer a different perspective, as it wasn’t until I held him in my arms that I truly understood the biological barrier that prevents us from being fluent.
Some would call it mummy brain. I recognise this feeling from when I tried to speak French. The brain fog.
In this newborn context, my brain is dominated by the amygdala, the emotional and instinctive ‚survival‘ centre. It is constantly scanning for cries, breathing patterns, needs and the slightest facial nuances.
The same thing happens when you are stressed or nervous in a business meeting: your amygdala takes over, and since fluency lives in your prefrontal cortex, your language brain gets no power thanks to the amygdala being so active. It’s not that you’re bad at English; you’re just biologically preoccupied with survival.
My working memory is currently full. I remember when the last feeding was, where the pacifier is (even though he hates it) and whether I’ve had water today (that one is easy). There is no room left for complex grammar.
When you try to speak English by translating from Czech, you are essentially doing the same thing. You are asking your brain to:
- hold a Czech thought;
- find English equivalents;
- apply grammar rules; and
- monitor your pronunciation.
Sounds easy? No. It’s too much information for a stressed brain, which is exactly why I say it’s better to focus on chunks of language rather than just individual words. In a newborn context, your brain is constantly processing information. You are constantly monitoring sounds, temperatures and survival cues. This uses up all your working memory.
When your brain is overwhelmed, whether by a newborn baby or high stress levels, your ‚internal bandwidth‚ is almost entirely used up by background survival tasks. This leaves very little processing power for the executive functions required to learn a foreign language. It’s essentially processor lag: your brain is so busy running ‚essential software‘ that it simply doesn’t have the energy to access your English fluency.
The reason your English feels slow is not a lack of knowledge, but a priority conflict. Your brain is like a supercomputer, but even a supercomputer lags when too many heavy programs are running at once. Whether it’s a newborn at home or a high-pressure project at work, the ‚slow‘ feeling is your brain’s way of telling you that it’s at full capacity.