Friday was one of my worst days at Chinese class. Bad days are common for me. Some days I feel I cannot keep up with the teacher. Some days I struggle to speak in response to questions. Some days I want to quit. Friday was one of them.
Struggling in class unfamiliar to me. I was always a good student. But the feeling of failing is a utterly foreign. And most days in this rediscovery of student life I feel that way.
In some of my many musings on dimensions of intelligence I recognize the vast differences in people’s abilities to pick up new skills. Athletes with kinesthetic intelligence quickly master a new sport. Creative savants can piece together fascinating art with unplanned materials. And historically those gifted with language have been the first of their culture to cross geographic divides into foreign lands. Imagine the first European linguists using their genius to decode the strange tongues in North America with zero context or reference.
In language there is surely a continuum of capabilities defined not just by experience but an innate intelligence. It spans from the genius Europeans that first spoke with southern Africans and native Americans to the dullards that cannot imitate or comprehend a strange uttering. I am not so pessimistic as to sort myself completely at the simpleton’s side of this range. But in a class full of people interested in learning a new language, I know I am one of the closest to it.