I'm trying to learn Thai as its my family's native tongue and I feel like I have no motivation whatsoever to progress with it.
I have wanted to learn it all my life (I'm 22 now) and yet ALL that time I never bothered because of certain beliefs and attitudes that hinder me.
First of all, with languages, I'm a perfectionist, and I have the worst discomfort if I cannot execute a phrase correctly. I don't like the idea of sounding like a thick-accented tourist, I want to sound at least a quarter native. Yes it's utterly stupid but that's what my brain feels like.
Secondly, when I see enthusiastic positive-attitude polyglots like benny lewis or whatever going to different countries and speaking accented broken thai, I cringe. It's extremely judgemental of me and I hate this reaction, I wish I never had it, but for some reason I've always had this reaction. But when an asian person speaks broken english I don't judge them whatsoever, I think it's great they're trying to learn and I'm patient/respectful with them. So there's this irrational double standard I have where I specifically feel uncomfortable hearing white people speak an asian language but not asian people speaking english. Makes no sense and yet that's how my brain reacts.
Thirdly, I hate people laughing at me when I do make mistakes with languages even if they don't mean any harm. Like I tried to say a phrase in Thai and my brother's blunt reaction was "wtf looool that's shit, here you say it like this". Or if I say a phrase with the wrong tones he might just laugh his ass off and say "what on earth are you trying to say". Maybe it's just because I'm deeply insecure and can't just suck it up like everyone else.
This shit is so bad that even if I could wave a magic wand and skip to conversational level in thai, I STILL wouldn't want my friends hearing me suddenly answer my mother's phone call and speak thai, because I think I'd sound like a cringy tourist. I'm utterly embarrassed and ashamed of this feeling yet I don't know how to get rid of it.
I need HELP. I've had these attitudes literally before PUBERTY, I'm the only kid I know whose mother tried to speak her native tongue to me and I refused to learn, and they're so ingrained in my mind that it's prevented me from learning thai all the way up to age 22. I don't why I developed these problems so young but I have.
I've been repeating my very first lesson of pimsleur for 5 days and I'm 1) barely remembering any words/phrases to move on 2) cringing at my attempted pronunciation of the phrases. It's starting to really upset me now. I have the ability to learn a new language and yet I can clearly see how my beliefs and gut reactions are stopping me. It would be more efficient use of my time to try and speak natively with my mother, ESPECIALLY during lockdown with all the free time, and yet I feel major discomfort even trying.
Did not want to even write this post because I don't want people to judge me - I feel really ashamed of these attitudes even though I never chose to have them.
Is there anyone else whose experienced what I'm going through, and is there hope for me?
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