12 THINGS THEY DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT LEARNING LANGUAGES [RRL]

Just read the interesting note published today by Daniel Ross, in the Classic FM webpage (http://www.classicfm.com/discover/music/learning-musical-instrument/#fGk70poPs2bUtQuB.97; and the idea of writing a paralel note popped out suddenly in my mind, since I'm positive about the primal conection between human tongues and music. There we go paraphrasing...

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Thinking of picking up a new language? Great! But be warned - it's not as easy as you might think...

1. Not only you will not be able to speak perfectly immediately, but also you will not be able to make any sense --either by listeing to or by uttering any sound.

2. Everyone will expect you to be able to speak/understand perfectly immediately --even language instructors.

3. No matter how young you start, there will be always someone more skillfull than you, since languages are kind of a two story bus featuring thus a cognitive level and a rhetorical one. The first one cannot be controlled by human will; the second depends on the individual’s plasticity.

4. There are lots of tiny little gestures and performing skills to be stored in your memory. As the song goes,"You can't hurry language."

5. Your practising will sound terrible for a long time if you do not practice solfeggio. If you do, it will just calm your nerves.

6. Your first language will play havoc with your practising. Be patient and allow for the tons of mistakes anyone is bound to make while concentrating on innocently tearing apart the untamed tongue.

7. Learning a language will change totally your persona and personality as well. Not even your family will recongnize you when speaking the new one. That's evidence of an outstanding proficency --if you are really proficient.

8. If you manage to be proficient in more than two languages, it is extremely possible that sometimes you will not be able to figure out who's actually speaking inside yourself.

9. Actually, you will suddenly find yourself with an extra meaningful world on top of your shoulders. If you feel that you can understand what the dwellers of the two world cannot see, that’s another proof that you are really proficient.

10. Eventually, you will join a group of people all talking at the same time, and that's when the fun really starts.

11. It is more than highly probable to give up.

12. If you think that reading something in the new tongue is possible without having mastered the actual acoustic ground of it, you are confusing the map with the territory.