Let 'er Fly And Hope For The Best

My four-year old and I are currently wrestling for TV time. He's watching all of the prescribed language building shows that teach him how to sound out words, spell, and build sentences. I, on the other hand, am struggling with learning the Japanese language and prefer to watch NHK, the Japanese news network. I'm also working hard sounding out words, spelling, and building rudimentary sentences. Right now I think my son is winning as he can spell just about any word that he can sound out, while I inadvertently offended someone in a Japanese restaurant the other day by blurting out the wrong noun-adjective combination. I take solace in the fact that I speak Spanish as well, so I'm one up on him :)

All this is to say, I marvel at how quickly my son can pick up the idiosyncrasies of the English language. He makes me laugh with all of the stuff that he comes up with. My battle with Japanese is not as colorful, but probably just as humorous to a native speaker. Like most adults learning a new task, I over-think things, being afraid of making mistakes makes me hesitant and unsure. Kids don't think at all, and they're quite happy to make as many mistakes as needed, free from the social pressures of being correct and proper all of the time. They just let it fly and hope for the best. I'm envious.