[keerthiko]

IMO the hardest parts of learning a new language as an adult is

a) convincing yourself its worth the effort: almost every time an adult runs into a confusing element of a new language, they find themselves calculating how many people in the world speak this language, probability they don't speak english and likelihood of running into this person and circumstance, and it's easy to justify giving up and moving on

b) avoiding forcing it into the framework of your first language: if you have one distinctly favored language already, it's very hard not to try shove the new language you are learning into the former's mold, and this can be counterproductive in learning most languages that don't share an ancestor with your favored one.

a) is greatly mitigated by forcing yourself to be in said context by living in a place prioritizing that language. b) is greatly mitigated by already being bilingual+ with languages from distinct origins (eg: mandarin chinese and english) before learning a new one, so you can place the new language on a spectrum with the ones you already know instead of confined by the rules of just one.

[mrsvanwinkle]

longtime lurker first time account maker. i wouldnt say this was the first time i was tempted to express what felt to me as due acknowledgment nor was this the most compelling, but personal circumstances aligned with the what is apparently a "universal" (as far as human cognition is phenomenologically similar at least among a normal cluster) applicability of your observation on learning as we age, specifically the transactional social/market value of investing one's remaining lifetime. i especially loved the quasiglobal (euro.. swiss euro your emphasis) scope of the swiss school polyglot generator, definitely captured a sense of immensity in your narration (at least to me who understands how one language i dont know is a huge chunk of a known universe i am blind to) so ye anyway thanks, your post was a welcome dose of motivation to learn something complex yet relatively inane but ultimately disproportionately interesting tonight guiltfree not necessarily a new language but something i can brute clone in a childlike brain without the overhead of integrating it with the collective garbage ive recorded of my pov of the history of the universe so far. (i wish)