Autodidact Redux

About a month ago, I embarked on yet another attempt at learning Japanese. My first attempt was many years ago when I attended a Community College class at night with a friend of mine.

My friend is already fluent in Chinese, and even lived in Japan for more than five years. He never learned to speak Japanese though, even while shacking up with a Japanese girlfriend. Too busy I guess.

I didn’t make much progress either: We both became friends with the Japanese Professor, and subsequently, dropped out of the class. Too bad, because I thought it was really going to pop that time.

Over the years, once in a while, I screw up my resolve, get out all the books and CDs and flash cards, set it all up, sit down at the desk, and…. I get discouraged, distracted, and lose interest.

This time there is a different factor in play. That is, my daughter is teaching herself Japanese. Suddenly, I am feeling the urgency to pick it up as she does, not wanting to see yet another person pass me by with bi-lingual-ability-ness. She has a clear advantage over me though, in that she is a kid with a language cortex like a thirsty sponge. And, oh yeah, she is way smarter than me.

Our home life is interesting in terms of linguistics. My wife speaks fluent Mongolian, Russian, and English. My daughter can comprehend Mongolian, but refuses to speak any of it, preferring the much more comfortable English target language. My son only speaks English. I can speak a smattering of Chinese and Spanish. (I get the Mexican guys at work to teach me Spanish; although I sometimes wonder if they are teaching me the right words).

When my in-laws visit, my mother-in-law just talks to all of us in Mongolian. I haven’t a clue what the hell she is talking about, but my son seems to understand. Probably for the same ‘kid-with-a-mind-like-a-fully available-10,000,000-terabyte-hard drive’ reason all of us possess as kids.

I think I would ignore her even if I understood what she was saying. I guess some things are the same in any language.