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I think just the process of learning linguistics is fascinating, there are so many subtle nuances and slang you don’t realize you possess until you start teaching outside of your country, or even with your own country! For me, the biggest problem and greatest challenge will always be slang/idioms. Slang in any language is ever-evolving and changing, even in our lifetimes. There have been several changes to popular slang even in my lifetime, growing up till now. It’s a snapshot of the era and point in time in the past in which you can identify where speaking those sorts of slang words was appropriate. I will argue my point being that while learning these sort of slang terms and introducing them to foreign audiences can be fun, they should not be a primary focus. The primary focus with slang should be slang that has been accepted as an official or unofficial lexicon of the country of residence, something that is well-known or will be nationwide slang for some time to come. That’s what makes teaching and learning linguistics so fascinating to learn is how deeply layered it can be. Really studying Linguistics reflects on how proficient you are and what mastery you have over the language you are learning. Lack of exposure is also one of my bigger obstacles to tackle as well as students! Exposure to different environments can be a little daunting, but an even bigger obstacle is learning to navigate the larger environment of subtlety in the target language. You can spend your whole childhood learning a certain language from textbooks, but more than likely, those textbooks teach you the language in a very rigid way. Not to mention the fact that outside of learning the language, you switch back to your native language outside of lessons and studies because it's easier and you may be the only one in your environment learning that language. This ultimately makes it a lot harder to get a grasp and lose a lot of progress if you are the only one studying that language, as the only person you can practice on is yourself. Ambiguity and grammar within any target language can be trickier than others, depending on what language you are learning. For example, Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn for a native English speaker, as the English language borrows a lot from Latin. If you try to learn Japanese however, the structure and language are so far removed from the English language structure it’s a lot harder to learn. Grammar is the trickiest part of learning linguistics, as structures vary from language to language. The Chinese language does not have a tense, which can make for frustrating and confusing translations for native English speakers. Also, how Chinese is a tonal language, and how your tone can completely change a sentence, regardless of if you wanted to or not. This is what makes grammar so particularly challenging and frustrating. Language systems can be completely different from the one you have known your entire life, and translating can become this weird, broken sounding mess. This is what makes grammar and focusing on Linguistics of a language the most challenging thing about learning a new language. Citations S. Ying. (2019, October 11) ‘What are some common linguistics problems’ ITTT.blog ‘https://www.teflcourse.net/blog/what-are-some-common-linguistic-problems-ittt-tefl-blog/’ (2014, May 27) ‘The Easiest and Hardest Languages to Learn’ thecultureist.com ‘https://www.thecultureist.com/2014/05/27/spanish-korean-easiest-hardest-languages-learn-infographic/’
