Language Learning as an Adult …

After starting to learn Italian at the tender age of 52, I have a completely newfound deep respect for adults that embark on the journey that it is to learn a new language. Although I have taught adults both Danish and English for a number of years , I never fully appreciated the effort, the stamina, and the courage it takes to learn a new language as an adult.

My collection of Italian books

There are so many differnet aspects and factors that play a role in language learning as an adult versus language learning as a child. I will not be getting into the science of language learning in this post but focus on the emotional and mental aspects through lived experience.

I moved to Denmark from Nigeria in 1987 as a shy sixteen-year-old that could not speak a word of Danish. I came to Denmark without my family to study. Thankfully for the first couple of years, I lived with a family that had 2 sons my age. They were friends of my parents during their university years. Almost the minute I landed I was fully immersed in the Danish language (this is the most important factor for language learning). Back in the day Danes where not as keen to speak English to foreigners as they are today. Looking back, the full 24/7 immersion in the Danish language (no internet, no movies nothing at all English) , was definitely to my advantage, and enabled me to learn Danish a lot faster.

I started in year 10, without a word of Danish other than the few swearwords the boys had tried to teach me at home in the first few weeks of my stay. My English, French and German classes were converted to extra Danish lessons. I had an amazing Danish teacher that just fed me with an enormous amounts of homework. I was an energetic 16-year-old and just kept asking for more. So all of my days were filled with Danish in one form or another. I stayed quiet at the back of the class working through book after book on grammar, phonetics, conversation and more.

I was allowed to do just that - stay quiet and not forced to speak. I was just constantly absorbing the language. I kept quiet and to myself for almost 6 months. After the December holiday I opened my mouth for the first time to speak, I was ready, and I was more or less fluent from this day onwards. I remember this so clearly because one of the cheeky boys in class looked at me and said, “oh wow she speaks”. I wish I had been quick and witty and answered back, “of course I do you twat”, in Danish of course!

Thinking back I do not remember this process as hard - I just got on with it. I was more concerned with the cold weather than I was learning Danish, and I never once thought of myself as stupid for not being able to learn the language.

Now fast forward to me doing my very best to learn Italian as a 52-year-old. In my defence Italian does seem like an exceptionally complicated language, way more complicated than French, or English and slightly more complicated than Danish. The grammar alone makes my head explode. The biggest problem was that I was expecting to learn Italian just as easily as I had learnt Danish. That has not happened for many reasons, the first being - no full-on immersion. I can enter a room and speak my broken Italian and become extremely self-conscious and feel really stupid. Or sometimes more to the point I feel like other people will think I am stupid because I still have trouble conjugating Italian verbs in conversation after living here for 3 years.

I have really good days and I have really bad days. Days where I feel so amazingly confident and I tell myself, “this is a piece of cake, I can do this, I will be speaking Italian fluently in no time at all. And then I have days where I feel completley lost, exceedingly stupid and lose all hope. I hear myself saying, “You will never learn this language! this is absolutey ridiculous, why is this so hard , I f…ing give up already”.

I have a sneaky feeling I might be romanticizing my 16-year old langauge experience. Most likely many language learners both young and old experience the highs and low lows of learning a new language. The vulnerability and the insecurity. I am in awe of the courage it takes to keep showing up to learn a language when it feels like every time you take one step forward, some new level and aspect of the language smacks you in the mouth and shoves you 5 steps backwards. So trust me I do know the feelings of despair that arise every now and again and I do my very best as a teacher to smooth over these patches. and keep you inspired. In the meantime, you can take comfort in the knowledge that neither English nor Danish are nearly as complicated to learn as Italian! But I am sure the feelings are the same!

Until next time

big hugs

ilo

ps. thank you Emma (my Italian Tutor) for putting up with my Italian learning mood swings! Grazie Mille davero!