Learning how to speak a new language is a lot like being a teenager....

....a really awkward teenager.

Remember in High School, how you would always think of the perfect things to say right after the conversation ended? You would always feel so dumb or want to kick yourself for not thinking of those things sooner. Sometimes, you even would let it eat at you for hours.

Better yet, do you remember in High School, how you would be "beasted" by your classmates in one of those debates that your history teacher ALWAYS insisted upon? You were absolutely helpless at times and stood there in front of everyone, while they made you look stupid. Sometimes, you would just ignore everything they said and act like nothing happened, because maybe your ENTIRE class would simply "forget".... but we all know that they never forgot.

Yeah... those feelings are a lot like what learning a new language feels like....

There comes a point, when you finally understand the "Present," "Past" and "Future" tenses. You are finally able to say complex things like, "I lost my gym membership card and have no idea what I did with it! How much does a new one cost?" , "Do you understand what you have to do? Answer this question in English. What will you watch on tv tonight?" or "Please excuse me, but I must go to the toilet. I will be back in 5 minutes."

So how does this relate to being an awkward teen?

Well...to put it gently.... You look like an adult. There are total of 700 expats in your town who have coincidentally made every effort to learn the language in approximately a year, except for a Canadian who was crying at the Post-Office and threatened to move to Prague....ANYWAYS, for the most-part people expect a mature vocabulary, complex sentences and not to mention a relatively quick response. However, when your still in that "learning the language" phase, then you make simple sentences with obvious grammatical errors and you speak rather slowly. So, the person who you're speaking to gives you a really awkward look. Then maybe 30 seconds to a minute later, you realize what you should have said. BAM! You now feel like that awkward teen.... and understand exactly how it only took the other expats a year to learn the language.

For a solid 3 months (November-January), I was so overwhelmed by everything...gave up on Czech... stayed and my house and always asked myself, "WHEN WILL THIS END?!"