I went to a 4-year university and kind of breezed through it. I had a few classes that I thought were pretty tough but for the most part I didn't find a bachelor's degree all that difficult to get.
I never studied foreign languages outside of the couple of required years in high school where nobody really took it seriously anyway. I studied Spanish and did just enough work to get decent grades on the test. There wasn't much pressure for us to become fluent and the tests were actually pretty easy as was the class. I have found learning languages to be much more difficult for me than any of the business classes I took in college, or really any other class that I took.
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I wish I could say that I put a genuine effort into learning Thai because I live in Thailand but I'm kind of ashamed to admit that this is not the case at all. I have been very lazy to learn it and aside from a few pleasantries and some of the numbers, I don't know jack squat. Children can easily confuse me and even though I work in a school part-time, I don't try to learn it. I know it is a cop out answer but we have google translate and honestly, that gets almost everything done for me that I need to get done.
Not long ago I was gifted a DuoLingo subscription and have toyed around with it a bit, I regret to stay that I haven't taken that very seriously either.
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Unfortunately, Thai is not one of the languages offered by DuoLingo. I have no idea why. Vietnamese is offered and I can't really see that being any more or less valuable than Thai is. Whatever! I don't get to make decisions for this company.
Out of the remaining options I decided to study Spanish because I had already learned some of it in high school - most of which I forgot - and I was looking forward to having a bit of a head start. I recognize nearly none of the things that Duo comes up with in the lessons.
The DuoLingo lessons are meant to be fun and amusing and for the most part they are... perhaps a little too fun and amusing because I don't really feel like I am making very much progress.
The other day a friend of mine sent me this pic and it just frustrated me even more.
If you do speak Spanish you would know better than I do if this is actually the case with a single verb but all I have to say is that if this actually is true, I don't have much hope in me ever learning this language.
Verb conjugation is something that doesn't exist in Thai, and I am very happy about that. It doesn't matter if you are speaking about yourself, someone else, "you", or a group of people, the verb is always the same. Also, past tenses and future tense doesn't change the verb, another word is added to indicate that it already happened, or if it going to happen in the future.
Seeing all these rules in Spanish makes me feel like I never actually will grasp the language because good grief that is a ton of stuff to remember.
Trying to learn these languages and for the most part failing, has resulted in me having a very high level of appreciation for the learning abilities of children. Sometimes when I am teaching them I get frustrated but then I also can see that they actually do retain the knowledge so much better than adults do.
I think a lot of this has to do with kids not being afraid to be wrong. They don't second guess themselves and they will keep saying something even if it is wrong until they are corrected. They also don't feel the adult sense of shame if they are corrected or are incorrect about something.
There is this one student in my class who has an English mother and a Thai father, and she, at just 11 years old, is completely fluent in both languages. She definitely has a huge advantage over all the other students. This was all accomplished with very little formal education also, it just came from speaking to Mom and Dad. To me, that is just amazing. No tests, no written practice, she just LIVED it! I think that she could go on to do great things in this country because she already speaks English better than anyone else that works in this school except for me - and the stuff that I know are just really complicated words that don't really need to be used anyway.
I don't know if I have it in me to learn another language. I'm just not the right kind of person for that I'm afraid. I think that is ok too. I'm not a lazy person per se, but there are just certain things that annoy me more than anything else and learning a language is one of them.
If you can speak more than one language just know that I appreciate you. I think that is amazing!
Oh, I can relate @jack.russelle I studied both Nihonggo and Spanish in College, yet nothing has stuck.
Your struggle is very real and you are not alone in feeling that language learning as an adult is way harder than school or professional classes. Although, before adapting to learn another language, my initial thoughts were, "easy peasy", but, I was wrong.
I also found learning another language really difficult. For me, it wasChinese. I tried to start learning it, but the tones, characters and grammar structure literally everything feel like doing an impossible task. Sometimes I wonder if I am just not built for it or I just had other options on my table.
Actually, I originally started with German, because I had applied for scholarships in both Germany and China. I had to decide between Germany or China, two very different paths. Then, eventually I got a job in my country (with the scholarship), so I did not go abroad. I chose to stay, partly because of my sense of national identity and the language hurdle. Proud nationalism (just an excuse 🤭).
So even though German was an option, I escaped. But learning Chinese has not been easy andd soometimes I feel guilty 🥲.
Plus reading how you admire the way kids learn, just speaking, making mistakes even laughing about it and not being ashamed. They are the gems, they do not fear society that is what make them kids. But as an adult, everything is just mixed-up.
In the end, I respect the honesty. And I deeply appreciate anyone who tries to learn a second (or third) language, because it is not just about words; it is about courage, consistency and sometimes humility.
The words in the photo were scary!
Peace 🕊
((Edit: I am sorry for yapping so much 🤞🏻)