When you start studying a new language, everything becomes different. Your reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking all have to change if you want to really excel. I've been studying Spanish for the past five years now, and I definitely need to keep studying if I want to be fluent someday. Learning a new language can be really hard, especially if you start learning it when you're older.
1. "Say something in [new language]!"
This is probably the thing I hate hearing the most. First, because I was just put on the spot to says something correctly in a language that I'm not exactly 100 percent confident speaking in yet. Second because it's kind of insensitive to belittle my active studying of another language to a cute party trick I can whip out any time.
Not to mention, I could say anything to you in the new language and just tell you it was something nice, so watch out.
2. Talking to native speakers...
Just around the time you do get confident speaking a new language, you'll meet native speakers of that language who want to talk to you. I never forgot anything as quickly as I did the first time my bilingual friends tried to speak to me in Spanish. It took me like five minutes to process everything because I was so used to hearing sentences and words pronounced with American-English accents. They always say, "oh, you speak Spanish so well!" But I know they're just humoring me.3. ...And saying something incredibly incorrect.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to remember that direct translations to language are not always correct. For example, "la media naranja" directly translates to "the middle orange" in English. However, it actually means "soul mate". Imagine you're trying to show off your language skills in a conversation with native speakers and you trip up on something as silly as a direct translation error. You become a laughing stock and they never let you forget it.4. Pronunciations
Depending on what language you're learning, you might have to change everything about the way you speak. The consonants, vowels, and letter combinations can be completely different. So, if you don't want to sound like a complete idiot, you need to relearn how to talk.
5. Thinking in both languages.
Like I said, you have to completely change the way you think (relative to grammar, number, gender, idioms, etc.) when you learn a new language. It's a hard adaptation, but when you finally do it, it feels amazing. The problem, of course, is thinking in both your native language and new language at the same time. Everything gets slowed down, you're confused, you process what you hear in one language and respond in another, it's terrible.
