IndoLish

One of my most frivolous regrets, of which there have been many, is the gut wrenching disappointment and brutal realization that learning a different language has not come easily or quickly. To portray a very direct perspective when speaking of what constitutes a serious regret I use the term frivolous purposely so as to indicate what type of hook to really hang your regrets on.  

So when it came to learning an unfamiliar language I really had a very clear thought, which in turn led to a very confident belief, that the process would not only be quite straight forward but also a whole heap of  fun.  I fantasized about engaging in long conversations with those whose native tongue would now be emulated by my newly acquired non-native tongue. I visualized that within no time at all I would reach a proficiency level that would render a blind bystander totally unable to distinguish local from foreigner.

Clues to my failure in considering and grasping the enormity of what it takes to speak like someone your naturally not were actually always there. Of course in retrospect such awareness should have alerted me to the objective fact that my brain wiring just doesn’t navigate easily through the ups, downs and arounds when it comes to the maze of mumble required to hook on and ride the language highway.  Unfortunately my arrogance blocked my deficiency in accepting my inability to fast track a skill that was going to need more time, more practice and much more hard work than I had ever considered.

The very salient sobering lesson that can be drawn when attempting to learn anything new is the realization of how uniquely different we are in respect to abilities and learning styles.  Approaching and entering anything with expectations is what has allowed us as a species to evolve but it’s also what continues to set us against each other and drive us apart.

There are endless forms of communication.  Squeaks squawks grunts and groans are but only a narrow verbal slice of the overall spectrum.  As language continues to create more coded symbols hashtags and text the danger is that face to face communication will become a blended mathematical emotional and bland reactive reality.

Messing up when learning a new language is not only natural, it’s inevitable, important and very necessary.  There are of course those very gifted and deeply annoying individuals whose brains are wired in such a way that their recall pronunciation and sentence structuring in perfect context can drive you insane to the point of fantasizing about inflicting unspeakable tortures.

I apologize to those teachers who actually resorted to physically bashing their heads against the classroom whiteboard and to all those individuals who looked horrified, confused and at times slightly frightened as I totally eviscerated and massacred their language.  But as I attempted to converse on a level of ludicrosity that defied any known language, communication between individuals actually happened and even though the outcome may not have been what was desired the occasion certainly left the participants with a very changed outlook on the multi-colored tapestry of what life can throw up.      

​For my part it has and will continue to be a life time commitment and an ongoing lesson in learning to ease up on expectation and perfection when it comes to frivolous new, fleeting old and the ever present here and now.