On Learning a Language

I have always believed that people either have the knack for language, or they don’t. I put myself in that latter or second camp. I took Spanish for three years in high school and could never do much more than ask where the bathroom was located. Don’t get me wrong, that was useful language to know when you found yourself suffering from Montezuma’s revenge; however, it’s not any level of fluency. My inability to speak didn’t stop me from traveling to Mexico, twice, with our Spanish club. That was all about travel and less about language. In class I did well on written and reading tasks, the speaking and listening was difficult. 

When I moved to Mongolia in 2015 I intended to be fluent in a year. Yeah, right! That’s laughable in retrospect. But I was naive about what it takes to acquire a second language AND I was in love AND I was adapting to significant amounts of “new”–new workplace, new home, new friends, new family, new cultural mores, and so forth. 

Trying to gain a second language over the age of 40 is no joke. I wish I had done more in my youth. It’s true what Mark Twain said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” Most everyone I have met that has a second language gained it in their youth. Additionally, most of them went on to acquire multiple languages–a third, and sometimes a fourth. My ex-husband spoke four. His son spoke three, and he was a teenager when we met!

My three and a half years abroad have made me keenly aware of the fact that I am language poor. And by no one’s doing but my own. I think those of us with English as our native language can sometimes presume that others will acquire our language. I can see how “entitled” that may seem. All my life I have felt I was not good at languages and therefore I gave up before I began. I conceded. Forfeited. Interesting to note as that’s not my general character at all.

I’m choosing a different road this time around. Because if not NOW, then WHEN will I ever do this? “Someday” is never today.

I will struggle, I am struggling, but I’m also finding that my commitment and intention has shifted. I learned–from my failure to learn Mongolian–that it takes a lot of work and attention and most importantly time to learn something new. Only I can choose to do this. I’ve put my money and my time behind that intention. While my employer is kind to provide a once-a-week language class for all new teachers in their first year, 1.5 hours once-a-week is NOT enough. I have opted to add an additional three hours of lessons each week. On the days between lessons I am busy doing homework to be ready for the next session. This means I am doing something with Turkish language most every day. There is the occasional day that slips past with other commitments commandeering my time. So it goes with healthy eating, or working out, or making time with friends. Each sunrise brings a new 24 hour cycle with which to keep our priorities straight. 

It hard to learn a new language. And confusing (did you know there is alternate logic?). But it is a puzzle that I want to solve. The construction of words and sentences is different from English–the verb comes at the end. This means for my brain and my way of thinking–in English logic–that I am trying to keep track of all the information–the whos, whats, and wheres–before I know what action is connecting or motivating them. It is an exercise in mental gymnastics. And I can nearly (literally) feel it lighting up synapses in my brain that have not being activated before now. It’s exhilarating in some ways. After a lesson I experience a strange sort of being wound-up; it can be difficult to settle down the gray matter to be able to sleep. New connections are being forged. It would be interesting to see what it looks like on a fMRI–the learning of a language. I confess to waking in the middle of the night wrestling with the conjugation of a verb based on pronoun, or switching a statement into a question. 

I am in my fifth week of serious study. I can tell you that what little I did learn of Mongolian is, I think, helping me learn Turkish. Though the languages have different alphabets and sounds, the structure of words with many suffixes AND the sentence construction, with verbs at the end, is the same. It is important to find a teacher that is a good fit for your personality, as well as your schedule and location. I interviewed/considered three before determining whom would work best. Thankfully, in Izmir, public transportation keeps things simple and affordable; traffic is not so much the battle that it was in Ulaanbaatar (that was a huge deterrent to serious study, commute time was insane).

As with Spanish in my teens, the reading and writing is coming more easily than the listening (they talk SO fast!) and the speaking (let’s be honest, it’s intimidating, and some sounds are hard for me to hear and make). I am committed just the same. If we only did or chose that which was easy, we would do ourselves a terrible disservice in this world of endless learning opportunities. I am finding it’s good to be a student once again! I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

For now let me ask you, what is that thing you’ve always wanted to try or do or learn? Now is the time to make a PLAN. Someday never comes….so do it now!