Learning a foreign language is not easy.

 Learning a foreign language is not easy.    It takes time and effort, no matter how clever you are.   No matter how well-educated you are in other fields.    A foreign language has a history behind it and a culture that surrounds it and for which it is the vehicle.     If a student approaches the task without this understanding, his or her learning journey will be all the harder.     

In all humility also, we need to understand that not everyone finds learning languages easy, just as not everyone finds learning maths easy (I certainly don't), or learning to drive, or learning to cook, or learning physics or geography or any skill or area of knowledge at all.    Some will learn faster and more easily than others.

When we become language aware, we understand that every step we take in the new language is progress, and that comparing our own progress to that of others is a foolish error.    It is enough to be aware that the performative aspect of language learning makes the ego already vulnerable enough.

Learning a new language has a beginning, but no end.    It is a lifetime's journey and will always lag behind the mother tongue, but it will always be there, a new dimension to our lives, a new personality and a new depth to our souls.