Foreign Language Learning Disability

[anna3101]

Now, I've always been completely convinced that anyone with enough motivation can learn any language. But the older I get, the more people I meet who are very smart, talented in many areas and obviously motivated but they just don't get along with a foreign language, period.

These people are not lazy. They do their best. And I want to help them somehow but I often I just give up because it starts to feel hopeless quite soon.

I've looked it up on the Internet and was surprised (and a bit relieved) to find this article:

http://www.ernweb.com/educational-research-articles/is-there-a-disability-for-learning-foreign-languages/

So maybe we finally have an explanation for what otherwise remains a total mystery to me.

I also managed to find an article with a lot of useful advice about how to overcome the problem and what strategies to use:

http://www.ldonline.org/article/22725/

Do you have some more advice?

Do you agree that it just may be a disability of a kind?

I don't know how else to explain it that a very-well educated, extremely intelligent grown-up person, who studies every day, cannot learn to speak or write in a foreign language...

[linguaholic]

Now, I've always been completely convinced that anyone with enough motivation can learn any language. But the older I get, the more people I meet who are very smart, talented in many areas and obviously motivated but they just don't get along with a foreign language, period.

These people are not lazy. They do their best. And I want to help them somehow but I often I just give up because it starts to feel hopeless quite soon.

I've looked it up on the Internet and was surprised (and a bit relieved) to find this article:

http://www.ernweb.com/educational-research-articles/is-there-a-disability-for-learning-foreign-languages/

So maybe we finally have an explanation for what otherwise remains a total mystery to me.

I also managed to find an article with a lot of useful advice about how to overcome the problem and what strategies to use:

http://www.ldonline.org/article/22725/

Do you have some more advice?

Do you agree that it just may be a disability of a kind?

I don't know how else to explain it that a very-well educated, extremely intelligent grown-up person, who studies every day, cannot learn to speak or write in a foreign language...

Very interesting indeed. I probably would not go as far as to say that some people have a 'disability' to learn forum languages, I would just say that they absolutely have no talent when it comes to languages and language learning. Same as for a lot of people who are actually good in languages often have a lot of struggle to learn anything about math and logical matters. Im curious to hear what everybody else has to say about this interesting topic/question.