Why do I keep thinking I can learn a foreign language? I have absolutely no ear at all for it. I’ve tried three times, and each time, to the extent of my learned vocabulary I could make myself understood, although always in the present tense. Yet I have never gotten to that magical place were I could even remotely understand what was being said.
My first venture into a foreign language was the two years of Spanish I had in high school. Back then, the method of acquiring the Spanish language was to learn to conjugate every verb in the book; then with each lesson, we would memorize a few nouns and adjectives. This enabled us to translate Spanish novels, on which we received our grade for the class. To this day I can conjugate Spanish verbs. But can I speak? No. Can I understand? Definitely not. Not then, not now.
The second venture was when in mid-life my sweet husband and I took a holiday in Israel and thought we might eventually want to live there for a couple of years. I figured I’d get a head start on learning the language by signing up for a “conversational Hebrew” class at a local city college. I studied really hard. I learned how to write it and speak it – at very basic level, of course, but I was like Beetle-Bomb when it came to understanding what was being said. The much younger students all passed me by and left me in standing in the dust. Mrs. Rosenthal would ask me a question and I would freeze up tighter than my computer when there are too many bytes in the buffers. I could feel my head going “FZZZZZZZTTT” and I knew that there was no hope for me. Disappointed in myself, I dropped out after two semesters.
Finally, in 1991 my husband and I moved to Istanbul, Turkey for two years. Jerry would be working in an engineering environment where English was spoken, but I had to interact with the locals all day every day and I needed to learn to communicate. I hired a teacher and started my studies. I am pleased to report that within the limits of my steadily increasing vocabulary, I was able to make myself understood. Turkish is a difficult language to speak, since it uses German and French sounds that westerners are almost incapable of making. It is a very precise language and 100% phonetic, a language with hard and fast rules. I studied hard, learned the rules and finally impressed my husband enough that he let me became the guide on our weekend trips, as well as being the boss in our dealings with hotels, restaurants, shops and taxis. But did I ever understand a word that was said back to me? Yes, two: “Evet” and “Hayir” – “Yes” and “No”. Nothing else. It was a third failure for me!
Now that I am retired, I have contemplated giving Spanish another try. I certainly have the time. However, my problem never was that I didn’t have enough time to study. It was simply that apparently I am not wired to ever understand a foreign language. I am smart enough to know that desire isn’t a guarantee of success. If my best young brain cells couldn’t be successful, certainly my aging ones are doomed to failure.
I have tried to live my life so that I have as few regrets as possible. But not having an ear for language is one of them.
My first venture into a foreign language was the two years of Spanish I had in high school. Back then, the method of acquiring the Spanish language was to learn to conjugate every verb in the book; then with each lesson, we would memorize a few nouns and adjectives. This enabled us to translate Spanish novels, on which we received our grade for the class. To this day I can conjugate Spanish verbs. But can I speak? No. Can I understand? Definitely not. Not then, not now.
The second venture was when in mid-life my sweet husband and I took a holiday in Israel and thought we might eventually want to live there for a couple of years. I figured I’d get a head start on learning the language by signing up for a “conversational Hebrew” class at a local city college. I studied really hard. I learned how to write it and speak it – at very basic level, of course, but I was like Beetle-Bomb when it came to understanding what was being said. The much younger students all passed me by and left me in standing in the dust. Mrs. Rosenthal would ask me a question and I would freeze up tighter than my computer when there are too many bytes in the buffers. I could feel my head going “FZZZZZZZTTT” and I knew that there was no hope for me. Disappointed in myself, I dropped out after two semesters.
Finally, in 1991 my husband and I moved to Istanbul, Turkey for two years. Jerry would be working in an engineering environment where English was spoken, but I had to interact with the locals all day every day and I needed to learn to communicate. I hired a teacher and started my studies. I am pleased to report that within the limits of my steadily increasing vocabulary, I was able to make myself understood. Turkish is a difficult language to speak, since it uses German and French sounds that westerners are almost incapable of making. It is a very precise language and 100% phonetic, a language with hard and fast rules. I studied hard, learned the rules and finally impressed my husband enough that he let me became the guide on our weekend trips, as well as being the boss in our dealings with hotels, restaurants, shops and taxis. But did I ever understand a word that was said back to me? Yes, two: “Evet” and “Hayir” – “Yes” and “No”. Nothing else. It was a third failure for me!
Now that I am retired, I have contemplated giving Spanish another try. I certainly have the time. However, my problem never was that I didn’t have enough time to study. It was simply that apparently I am not wired to ever understand a foreign language. I am smart enough to know that desire isn’t a guarantee of success. If my best young brain cells couldn’t be successful, certainly my aging ones are doomed to failure.
I have tried to live my life so that I have as few regrets as possible. But not having an ear for language is one of them.
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