The student has become the master…
Learning English as a second language is part of a mandatory program in Bulgaria, but Maria Petrova, 20, says traditional teaching never really taught them much.
“I’ve been learning English my whole life, but it was very basic in school.
“I could introduce myself and point to an object and tell you what it is, but I couldn’t really string together whole sentences.
“With fanfiction, you can pick and choose what you want to read, what you want to see, but at school, you can’t.”
Like so many of us, Maria, who uses they/them pronouns, was introduced to fanfiction in 2017 through a love of K-pop bands like Monsta X and BTS. What started on Twitter led to Wattpad fics in their native language before they found a new niche: English fanfiction on YouTube, of all places.
“At some point, the Bulgarian fics just weren’t doing it for me.
“It takes much less effort to find good ones in English than it does to find them in your mother language.”
They describe how they painstakingly wrote down every new word on a piece of paper, translated it, and memorised it. Sentences started to make sense, and from there, Maria says fanfiction led to new friendships as they used English in their daily life.
“I had a lot of online friends, and we would bond over fandoms and reading fanfictions.
“I noticed through the years that I was more comfortable speaking in English than I was in Bulgarian.
“There were group chats. I had friends on Kakao Talk and WhatsApp. It was great. I miss those days.”
But the best thing that fanfiction gifted Maria was a qualification in Cambridge English. Because of their years spent reading online, they developed C2 proficiency – the highest awardable level, equal to native fluency. It led to a job teaching English to others.
“Fanfiction taught me more than just the language but also about different cultures and human emotion,” they say.
“I was employed because I was studying English Philosophy in university, but I dropped out. I’m still employed because of the certificate.
“It was the knowledge I got from fanfiction that really helped me out.”
It takes a village to write a fanfiction
Jules, 27, began with a stack of comic books on one side of his bed and an English-to-French dictionary on the other.
“At first I was struggling a lot,” he says, recalling the times he used to read in English as a kid in Switzerland.
“After a few years, I was good enough that I could read whole comic books, but that doesn’t mean I understood every nuance or word, just the most important parts.”
In 2016, Jules entered a new world: online fandom spaces, where he could connect with fellow fans and explore works about his favourite movies and characters. It all led to fanfiction.
“There was this feeling that there is a big universe we don’t see in a movie.
“That’s what pushed me towards reading fan comics and then looking for some fanfiction.
“I was so curious about what fans make of it.”
Reading more in English gave Jules the confidence to think about his own fics during COVID. He describes the “comfort” of having pre-established characters to play around with, but adds that writing took much more effort.
“When it comes to writing, I make a lot of mistakes. There’s a lot of typos that I miss.”
“Sometimes, there are fake friends, and by that I mean there’s an English word that sounds very close to a French word, but the meanings are not the same.
“So, I always try to find somebody to proofread my work.”
Finding a proofreader meant diving into fanfic communities – Discord servers and comment sections – where many people are willing to beta.
“I’m very quick to make friends in online spaces.
“I just say them, hey, I need a bit of help for that chapter. Can you help me out? And someone replies.”
For Jules, that sense of community is a big part of his relationship with fanfiction. Now, his second language is “easy” and no longer an obstacle but a joy.
“I like that authentic writing style of somebody who’s not a professional, but they’re really passionate about something, and they had the courage to put it on paper.
“I’ve read stories that moved me to tears and made me gasp aloud in a crowded train, so I’d say maybe try fanfiction. It’s really fun.”
“I was bullied for speaking English…”
When Merry was little, she accidentally learned English from the films her mother put on the TV. Her native language was Indonesian, but she comfortably grew up with a second language in her home.
By the time she started reading fanfiction at around 12, she was “pretty confident and comfortable.”
“I could speak and read English quite well at that point,” she says, describing how her journey into fanfiction was also accidental.
“I was searching for a particular manga, but instead of showing that, it showed me other sites like Tumblr and AO3.”
“From there, I started reading, and at first, it really helped my vocabulary.”
Although English was a mandatory subject in school, Merry found it easier to learn online, where she could google an unfamiliar word and adapt her learning. Now aged 18, this practice is helping her get a place at university.
“I’m studying to take an English Literature test, and I think fanfiction helped a lot because of the pacing.
“It just doesn’t overwhelm me with trying to find all the hidden details of the story, unlike actual studying with whole paragraphs of sentences.”
She shyly admits preferring to speak and read in English rather than Indonesian, which she has always struggled to connect with. This, she says, caused her to experience bullying in her younger years.
“Speaking English is a bit of a taboo thing to do, especially if you speak it on a daily basis.
“People assume you’re either wealthy or you’re trying to show off, so when they saw me speaking very fluently and confidently, they assumed that I don’t love my country enough.”
However, not only did fanfiction polish her language skills, but Merry says that it left her in a better place, with new friends around whom she can be herself.
“14-year-old me was very shy, especially since I was freshly out of the bullying situation.
“Now, I embrace speaking English again because it helped me find friends that I’m happy to be with.
“I connected with them at school because we can speak it together, and in fact, we realised we also connect through fandoms.”
Since finding her confidence, Merry has gone on to participate in English competitions and hopes to major in Japanese Studies at university, where she will proudly show off the skills that fanfiction helped to flourish.
“Fanfiction isn’t just a silly thing to do in your free time,” she says.
“I’m a shy person and mostly an introvert, but it gave me a very safe space to learn English.
“If you want to complain about it, you should perhaps find something more productive to do or try it yourself.”
Fanfiction is a wonder
In 2022, Marusia’s home country of Russia started its war on Ukraine. She had recently fled to Germany because her political views did not align with those of President Putin, but socialising as a Russian during those times felt impossible.
Fanfiction has since changed her life.
“By around the age of 12, my English level was intermediate, and that was when I started reading fanfiction in 2003,” she says, having studied a very standard public school curriculum.
“Many Russian writers gathered in small, closed fandom forums, and access was limited.
“You usually needed an invitation from an existing member to even read anything there.”
Unsurprisingly for a child of the nineties, her first fandom was Harry Potter, and Marusia fell in love with English fanfiction on AO3.
“It gave me this little addiction factor. I was reading a lot without even noticing that I was practising a foreign language.”
After leaving school and university, Marusia describes how her English declined until her late twenties. Then, after moving to Germany to escape persecution, she rediscovered her love for fanfiction.
“I took part in protests in Moscow and got put in jail for one night. I realised then that it would only get worse.
“Then, at the beginning of 2022, my world became so much smaller because of the war my country started.
“Ideas are much bigger than mistakes, so I started writing short headcannons, and this helped ease me into this idea of sounding not as rich and interesting as in my native language.
“I got more and more comments, more and more friends, and we were all using English to communicate.”
Some of those friendships bled into real life. Marusia, now 35, used to believe she would be shunned for being Russian, but she happily talks about meeting two online friends this summer. They’re going on vacation to Italy, and fanfiction helped get them there.
“It was hard to socialise here because it’s a completely new country, and it was the first time I had moved anywhere.
“Fanfiction in English is what made my world and social bubble grow again. It helped me accept the part of me that comes from Russia.
“It really is a wonder to me.”