I started learning a new language a few years ago. Lithuanian was the language of choice and I might say, not the easiest one to pick for a monolingual English speaker! I did manage to learn enough Irish and French in school to pass the exams, but I’m not at all able to hold any kind of conversation in either language, so I didn’t hold out much hope for Lithuanian either!
I have struggled my way through app after app and nearly choked myself trying to string together sentences that would be comprehensible to the Lithuanian speakers I know, much to their amusement! Now here we are, 5 years later and I’m not by any means proficient, but I haven’t given up. I have visited Lithuania 3 times in those 5 years and have been totally overjoyed to be able to use even the smallest of sentences and be understood! Then I would stand there trying to decipher the long, fast answer that inevitably came, only to reply back with what has to be my most used Lithuania phrase, “Aš nesuprantu” – I don’t understand. But! I was understood!!!
A Lithuanian friend of mine sent me a link to a TED talk given by Angela Lee Duckworth (Phychologist) entitled “The Strongest Predictor For Success”
https://www.facebook.com/TED/videos/448294995743127/
in which she talks about what seems to be the greatest factor in someone being successful in whatever endeavour they undertake and her research points to one critical quality … grit! yes, sticking power. No matter what your ability, the thing that will bring you success is your determination to stick with the task over a long and/or hard period of time until you have reached your goal.
With that firmly in mind I am determined to keep going with my Lithuanian language learning and not only that! I’ve decided to add learning Spanish to the pot just to keep it interesting!!