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I started learning English right before I turned 10, at school, a natural feature of a publicly funded education in France. On top of this, and around the same time, a wave of language learning swept through my household.

My dad, who would have been in his forties by then, had also recently started taking English lessons. Two things struck him: how hard it was to learn a foreign language as an adult, and, despite these difficulties, how much bigger his world suddenly grew. He was able to pursue opportunities, learn skills, and consume art in ways he had never imagined before. He wanted the same thing for his children. And so, dear reader, my father became a—how you say?—hardass about learning English.

There were books on tape. There were English versions of classic children’s books I’d previously consumed in French. There were immersion stays in the UK, wherein a group of kids from all corners of the world would descend upon an empty boarding school in the summer and… converse. You want to make friends? Speak to your crush? Have any fun at all over the next two weeks? Well, then, I hate to break it to you, Kid, but you’re going to have to speak English.

Eventually, it became a truth universally acknowledged in my household that the best way to learn a language was to do things with that language that were fun—and preferably not openly educational. This might seem like an obvious statement now, but back then, at a time when you still had to visit specialized stores to access any media in a foreign language, it felt novel.

What was my version of fun? Makeup tutorials on YouTube, of course. There was a time in my life when I spent hours watching them. I don’t remember what that first video was. What I do remember was that I became hooked. If you were online back then, you’ll remember those videos. Those were the days when Michelle Phan transformed herself into a version of Lady Gaga in the Bad Romance music video—a clip that, 15 years later, has been watched 56 million times. It was the era of “get ready with me”s and “what’s in my bag”s. The era of Urban Decay Primer Potion, of the Naked Eyeshadow palette, of MAC foundation, and China Glaze nail polish.

Watching those videos, I didn’t actually retain much about building a beauty routine—though I did learn how to curl my hair with a straightening iron, a skill I utilize to this day. But the creators of the 2010s gave me something else. Something certainly more profound, and maybe more useful—but I had no way to know it at the time. They taught me how to speak English.

When I speak English, I don’t sound like a stereotypical French person. I know the difference between “beach” and “b****h.” I know how to pronounce my “r”s with the back of my throat. Sometimes, I “pass” as a native American speaker. Other times, people think I’m… Canadian, maybe? Sometimes, my French accent makes a small comeback, especially if I’m tired, sick, really nervous, or tipsy (I don’t think I’ve ever been all four at once, but there’s still time). If people know I’m French, the way I speak often prompts questions about where, when, and how I learned English.

At the time, I didn’t realize that watching these young women with their Christmas hauls, sparkly eyeshadow, and clattering collections of nail polish would help me become confident enough to moderate a conversation on stage with multiple native English speakers. All I knew was that they captivated me—Ingrid Nilsen (then known as Missglamorazzi) and her beauty hauls, Blair Fowler (juicystar07) and her room tours, her sister Elle (AllThatGlitters21)’s everyday makeup tutorials.

I didn’t even buy that many products—though I’m not sure I would have tried (and loved) Clinique’s three-step system if not for Blair’s video on the topic. I did splurge on the Naked eyeshadow palette and still use it to this day—yes, the same one I bought back in the 2010s, and which has endured long enough for that specific model to be discontinued, then relaunched. The eyeshadow in it has technically expired, but I’m French, and we don’t believe in expiration dates. If you’ve seen me at a book event, just know I was wearing eyeshadow dating back to Barack Obama’s presidency—the first one.

Beware the things—and the people—you don’t take seriously. Back in the 2010s, if you were not living in an English-speaking country, and if you weren’t friends with or related to a native speaker, then YouTube videos were pretty much your only source of spontaneous, contemporary, “normal” English speech, not written or edited for a given purpose.

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I love movies, and god knows I love television, but—much to my chagrin—no one actually speaks like that. People aren’t that funny, or that fast, or that quippy, or that emotional, and they don’t wield metaphors that adroitly, either. The same goes for books. As an author, I’ve found that the key to making dialogue sound natural is to omit all the tiny garnishes of everyday language—the hellos and how are yous and the likes and the ums.

A language isn’t just vocabulary and grammar. It’s turns of phrases. It’s common malapropisms. It’s facial expressions and gestures and it’s what people do with their hands while they speak. It’s exclamations of joy, surprise, and pain. All those things lived on YouTube. I gobbled them up at the same time as I gobbled up those videos.

Unbeknownst to me, the YouTube videos also served as a training ground for a part of my life I had no idea was coming: just a few years later, I moved to New York City for what was supposed to be a year but has turned into more than ten. I went through a couple of green cards and became a US citizen three years ago. I’ve worked as a journalist in English for a decade, and I’ve become a bestselling author of novels written in my second language.

And to think it all began—in earnest—with tutorials on how to achieve the perfect smokey eye and bold red lip. I would say it again: beware of the things you don’t take seriously, but who am I kidding? This was always pretty serious business to me.

Cleménce Michallon is the author of The Quiet Tenant, an international bestseller. Her second thriller, Our Last Resort, is out now.

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