Unfulfillment

Learning a language is probably one of the most unfulfilling endeavors one can go through. The fact of the matter is, no matter how good you are in the language, you never feel like you are good enough. No matter how long or how hard you study, you will come across a word that will throw your game so far off and leave you wondering how the hell you got this far without knowing it.

But here is the thing. The ones who think that their abilities are not good enough are the smart ones. They strive, they work harder, they push themselves to get better. The ones who think they are great are the ones who drop the ball, slack off, and care more about their ego than their ability to speak. Besides, it is good to stay humble because no matter how good you are, there will be someone out there who is better, including millions of native speakers.

Language learning and retention is like a girlfriend. If you don't put in any effort and just ignore it, it will go away. In any language, there are so many things to learn outside the basics. Economic terms, business vocabulary, government lingo, high school slang, historic grammar, surfing words. It is a long, hard, endless road to language acquisition and to think you can master it all is a serious flaw in reasoning. But if you keep working at it, you will be better than you were the day before.

Language learning is unfulfilling because there will always be some aspect of the language that is slightly out of reach. It is also one of the most worthwhile things you can do. Now, excuse me while I find out how to say 'oxymoron'.