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Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Croeso and Welcome.
Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today, the subject is …
I Don’t Have the Talent to Learn a Language
Many people seem to think that learning a language requires some particular special talent. Is this true?
Well, I’ve heard many people say that this isn’t true, that anyone can learn a language, and whilst I agree with the statement that anyone can learn a language, I do think some people have more of an aptitude for it. So, I’m not going to deny that I have an aptitude for languages. They were my best subjects at school, the things I most enjoyed the classes for (but still found stressful because of the way languages were taught at school).
Staying with the subject of school, when you’re there you have to study a whole raft of diverse subjects. Some of them you’re better at than others, there’s no doubt about that, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do the ones that are more difficult for you. They might take you more time, it’s true, and you have to build up the skills for the subject (cookery classes, anyone!). There are skills involved with learning languages. It’s not like waving a magic wand and everything will be easy.
For example, if you’re a bit sketchy on all those grammatical terms, because your English language teacher was soooo boring, perhaps brushing up on what all these things mean in your own language first would be a good idea. Yes, the structures will be different in the other language, but the way the elements are referred to will be a lot clearer if you have that knowledge behind you.
Which brings me on to - Do you have to be more intelligent to learn a foreign language? This is kind of saying the same thing as above in a slightly different way. No, you don’t. And, more intelligent than what? In what way? Who is it, exactly, who sets the intelligence measure for languages?
I’d look at learning a new language this way. You’ve already learnt one language, so you are definitely intelligent enough to learn another one.
I could probably leave it there, but that might sound a bit flippant, because we all know that no two languages are the same. Some have similarities, but they have many differences, too.
So, you have the intelligence, but learning a second language will be more difficult, because you won’t have that nurturing environment that you had as a kid, however hard you might try to recreate it. You will have to motivate yourself to learn, whereas when you were a kid all the motivation was there already. If you didn’t learn the language, you weren’t going to be able to communicate very easily. It will be difficult and, sometimes, it might feel impossible, but you do have the intelligence to do it, if you just persevere.
The most important requirement, I think, is that you really need to want to learn the language. If you don’t have that, all the talent and intelligence in the world won’t get you there.
That’s all for today. Don’t forget to join me again next time, for more tips, tricks and tales and in the meantime, check out the A Language Learning Tale YouTube channel for additional, non-podcast content.
Ciao, salut, hwyl and bye for now.