What Difficulties Will You Face When Learning A Language?

Learning a language is never plain sailing and you are inevitably going to face some difficulties along the way. It is a real challenge and often the same things cause the majority of the issues.

These can make the whole experience miserable and can really make you want to give up. However, these difficulties are all things you can overcome with more practice.

I will go through some of the most common difficulties you can face when learning a language so that if you happen to come across them yourself, you will almost be expecting them, but more importantly, you will know that it is something you can overcome with perseverance.  

Grammar Will Upset You

Even if you have never tried to learn a language before, you are probably still aware of the misery that grammar can bring. It really is one of those things where its reputation can precede it. However, it’s an important part of the language, so we can’t really avoid it.

The difficulty always lies in the fact that there are always so many rules and then exceptions to these. It can just all seem so unnecessarily complicated and it is one of the most frustrating areas of learning a language.

Grammar is the core framework of the language, so it’s understandable that is going to be complex. If we look at English some of the rules are outrageous, but the beautiful thing is that we do not even realise we are using them. Our grammar is just second nature to us, and you can reach this level in your target language, it just takes time.

Fear Will Overwhelm You

We don’t like to make mistakes and we will do anything we can to avoid them, which can be pretty problematic in language learning as it is inevitable that we will make mistakes.

The fear of messing up is one of the biggest difficulties we can face. The real problem is that we do not realise it’s a problem. Language learners can very easily be overwhelmed by fear and this can drastically slow your progress.  

Fear will cause us to avoid pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone, as we subconsciously want to reduce our chances of mistakes. As we are now avoiding on working on our weakest areas, we do not get any stronger.

Self Doubt

As well as fear, you will just generally face self doubt. This is especially true in the early days, where you will really question yourself and wonder if you can actually learn the language.

Self doubt will make you want to quit and when you pair this with the discomfort of making mistakes it can be catastrophic for your mindset and really push you over the edge into giving up.

This is difficult and you need to do everything in your power to avoid it. Just keep practicing and the self doubt will start to fade away over time.   

Memory Issues

One of the main difficulties with learning a language is having to accept that you will forget things. It is extremely frustrating and seems a little strange, but it just a part of the process.

Things will not stick and you may have to learn them a number of times before you get comfortable with them. This happens to everyone and the only thing you can do is just accept it happens and keep practicing.

If you think about your own language, you probably forget words all the time, its maybe just not as noticeable as it’s usually only the obscure words, rather than the more common ones that you probably forget in the language you are learning.      

(You can read more about – Memory Tricks For Language Learning)

You will Have A Slow Processing Speed

You will also find it difficult to process the language, especially in the early days. Just listening will be a real struggle.

Natives speakers will sound like they are talking at 100mph and it can end up just being a noise to you. This is normal and it will take you a while to get comfortable even with a slow speed speaker.

The same is true for your own processing speed when you are speaking. Your words will not roll out of you in the same way that they do in your native language. You are going to be translating back and forth for a while, so things are a little delayed and while this is annoying, it will get faster with time. 

You Will Struggle To Stay Consistent

One of the biggest difficulties all language learners face is trying to stay consistent.

You need to be studying consistently to see any real progress and while it seems pretty straight forward to just say “ I will study every day” the reality is that it is extremely hard.

Life will get in the way and your language learning can easily get pushed to the side. You really need to focus on keeping it a priority. If your progress is not as fast as you want, it becomes even easier to push it to one side, where then your progress is only going to stop, and not get better.

If you can nail down your consistency, then you will be able to make progress!  

(You can read more about – Why Are You Struggling To Learn A Language?)

Its Hard To Find The Time

A large part of being consistent is being able to find the time to learn. Language learning requires a lot of time, probably way more than you realise, so you need to be prepared to try and dedicate a large portion of your life to learning the language you want to know.

It can take years to really get anywhere, so it is a pretty big commitment, but it is entirely possible. Just put the hours in and the language will come. 

The Lack Of Vocabulary Is Painful

Vocabulary really makes up a language and having a lack of it can be really difficult. You will quickly learn that a lack of vocabulary is painful. There is nothing worse than trying to say something and realising you don’t have the words you need.

This is frustrating, but it also makes things simple, it shows you clearly what you do not know and you can then focus on learning the words that you are missing from your vocabulary.  

It just takes times, but you will overcome this if you keep pushing yourself to learn.

Finding Good Material Is Difficult

A difficulty that doesn’t really get spoken about is trying to find good material to study. This will of course depend on what language you pick, but it can be hard to find material that is comprehensible.

Most material is going to be for natives, and there is certainly no shortage of this available, the issue comes when you are learning and need something a little simpler. You will usually get stuck with boring beginner lessons talking about colours and numbers, or you have to read kids books that cover these same topics.

These are of course important to know, but it’s still frustrating. It can take a while before you can leave this stuff behind and actually get into something interesting, while still understanding it.

For now you just have to power through the boring basics. It is worth the battle when you can start to understand more interesting material.

Maybe in the future there will be more comprehensible input for beginner learners.

(You can read more about – How Can You Make Your Language Learning Input More Comprehensible?)

Conclusion

As you can see there are many difficulties that we can all face along our language learning journey, but you can also see that there is nothing here that should make you quit. Every one of these difficulties can be overcome by just knuckling down and pushing through.

The more you practice and the more you study, the easier the language will become. Just keep going, don’t give up, things will get easier and you will get there. It takes time, but you can do it!

(You can read more about – Why Do So Many People Give Up When Learning A Language?)