The reality of trying to learn a foreign language

The reality of language learning like a lot of things can be sugar-coated. You can depict it as an enjoyable endeavor that is relaxing and fun. To be fair that is one approach. If you spend 20 minutes a day it is in theory possible to achieve this. If that is what you are seeking by all means go for it. In my personal experience, this effort won't be enough. In fact, in my personal experience, you will have to do a lot more. 

Learning a foreign language can be super tedious and sometimes it feels like you are climbing a mountain. I'm not implying that it isn't worth it. Because I certainly think it is. However, repetition is maddening at times. Meaning there are certainly days when you want to quit. But there are other days when you are so excited you can't even imagine quitting. I'm saying this because my goal is to capture how difficult it can be to try to learn a foreign language. 

Capturing the process is more interesting than anything else in my opinion. I'm not saying this because many others have said it. I'm saying it because, in my opinion, it is the most interesting part of trying to learn a foreign language. The fact that human beings can go from knowing very little to eventually achieving fluency in another language is fascinating to me. It also inspires me to keep doing the same thing over and over again. 

For the second day in a row now I spent a minute-ish practicing speaking Spanish out loud. This video features some different words than my previous post. Other than that I feel like there isn't much of a difference. Not because I'm not trying to get better at Spanish. Because I'm evidently trying to get better. But because it can be a difficult grind at times. 

When things are difficult you won't always notice progress. This is arguably the biggest difference between things that are easy and difficult things. The famous phrase Rome wasn't built in a day comes to mind. Another example is the phrase nothing worth having comes easy. According to Good Reads, former president Theodore Roosevelt is credited with saying that quote. Both quotes are meaningful and relevant to this topic and I highly recommend keeping them in mind while trying to learn a foreign language.