Sit Jenn sit, good girl!

There are two questions which have pledged many great minds throughout human existence - which came first; the chicken or the egg? And can you teach an old dog new tricks?  Well the first is blatantly obvious - everyone knows that it is neither - all chickens are actually alien beings biding their time until their mother ship returns to take over the world. (actually: I think this t-shirt answers that question.) The second one, that's a little trickier.  On the one hand, yes you can eventually teach the old dog to roll over, but that is probably because the dog died of natural causes.  On the other hand, why would you want to teach an old dog new tricks.  Aren't they good enough the way they are now?  Does every dog really need to know how to pour a glass of pinot grigio? (That's a rhetorical question: of course they do, since social workers tend to label parents who train their children to do the same trick as "unfit" and "bad").  I know you're probably wondering when I'm actually going to talk about something of interest/importance, but I like to create an atmosphere of suspense for my readers, but your patience will be rewarded.......right.......now


As some of you may know, I recently started taking an introductory french class.  And because of this I've been spending a lot of time reflecting on the "old dog, new tricks" dilemma.  My classes are on Wednesday evening; during classes and shorty thereafter, I able to communicate perfectly with anyone who ONLY wants to know a) my name b) if I'm tired c) if I'm happy.  However, for some stupid reason, this new found linguistic knowledge is only able to remain in my brain for a matter of hours.  No matter what I do (listen to the course CD continuously, read the textbook repeatedly, stuff cotton balls in my ears) I cannot retain this language!  Which leads me back to the old dog-new tricks question.  Is there a point in one's life that language acquisition is nearly, if not completely impossible? 

Researchers theorize that the ability to acquire a new language is severely diminished around the age of 9. Actually I randomly picked that number cause I was too lazy to google it. But I do know that at some point during our short lives, our brain streamlines everything that's going on inside our noggins.  Whats working gets to stay, everything else is closed down.  That is why its so much easier for children to learn stuff. Nothing has been shut down; a child's brain is wide open - literally like a sponge. Language, technology, cool arm twisting tricks, whatever, it all just gets sucked right up and sticks!. Need proof? Just go ask any 9 year old how to google/text/download porn - and they'll be able to do with their eyes shut.  Its just the way our brains are designed. 

This desire of mine to learn French is stressing my brain out.  The little-tiny construction supervisors inside my cranium who naively thought the job of building my brain was complete are now scrambling to re-build the language connectors.   And I'm not kidding when I say that I can feel this process and it actually hurts.  Sure I was able to go back to university and graduate with honors, and sure all that educational mumble jumble was, at times, difficult to understand, but this french is whole other story. Whoever said that English was one of the hardest languages to learn obviously spoke French as their first language. 

But alas, it is getting easier.  I'm three classes in and I can now respond to some very basic questions which contain words which closely resemble English words.  "Tu est optimiste?" "Oui, je suis optimiste." "Tu est contente?" "Non, je ne suis pas contente" As the cobwebs and dust bunnies are slowly being evicted from my linguistic receptors, the french language is finally starting to take hold.  Now don't get me wrong, the whole masculine/feminine BS is still throwing me way off but its beginning to make sense....on paper.  Verbally, I'm not so sure.  I think the little construction men inside my brain have been too busy hooting and hollering at passing blood cells cause they're way behind schedule on the brain-vocal cords connecting highway.

Au revoir et bonne soirée.