Learning a foreign language is like having children

First of all I have to preface this by saying that I don't have children but have friends that do and I can imagine what it's like...

In my life I'm forever making analogies and when I think about myself wanting to learn German I think about a couple deciding to have a second child...


Why do I think the two things are similar?


* The first foreign language you learn will be the hardest and any subsequent ones you learn will be much easier because you've already developed the skills necessary and you've learnt the tricks, grammar rules...

* Having the first child is hard work (because you've never done it before) but having subsequent children should be comparatively easier since you've already done it all before and have an idea of what to expect.


* The beginning is always the hardest. The very very beginning of my learning French was hard. I'd see words I didn't know and immediately look them up in a French-English dictionary but it wasn't really that helpful because I hadn't learnt to conjugate yet! Once I got to an intermediate (B1) level things became much easier and faster to learn.

* I imagine raising a baby is the same. The beginning is super hard when the baby is a newborn and you don't know what you are doing and you never get any sleep... but after a few months or a year it becomes gradually easier.


* Once you've gotten to a stage of competency (in my case with French) you do start to feel a sense of dread that you'll have to start ALL over again with this other language you want to learn...

* Likewise for having a second child. I can imagine what a relief it is when your child is able to be a bit independent (around the age of 4-5) and starts school and if you have a second one you'll have to start all over again and do all that hard newborn stuff again...


Is it all worth it though?

It must be! I think there is some sort of a sense of addiction or something... Most people who love languages fail to stop learning at one foreign language, they keep going learning others.. and most people have at least two children... so there must be a reason to start all over again and go through the hard part to get to the good stuff! :) It must be... rewarding?