No translation, just lost

Just when you think, ha, yeah, I've got this, I can do this...you begin your first Japanese class.  Holy crap!

We've all studied foreign languages: Spanish, French, German, etc.  Many of my friends have studied English as their second (or third) language.  Japanese, man.  Yeah.  A whole other ball game; definitely not a variation on the familiar baseball or soccer.  I always thought I had a certain flair for foreign languages.  I speak German and French with a good deal of proficiency.  But maybe these two languages in particular are just easier to learn for an English speaker.  English is, after all, a Germanic language.  And French, well, this language was so fashionable among the British aristocracy at one point that a great many words became permanent additions to the English language.  But Japanese...  There is simply no reference point.  Nothing looks or sounds like anything else in Western languages.  It is really beginning from scratch, learning to speak and read and listen like a child.

There is always that student in language classes that just doesn't get it.  They slow the class down; they require extra attention from the teacher; they make everything sound awful.  That student was me.  I was the dunce in the class.  Everyone else seemed to be getting it: Australians, Koreans, Canadians, French.  Everyone except me.  Wait.  I'm the guy that understands language; I'm the guy that excels in language classes, the star student.  How/why was it coming so easy to these other people?  Where/when did they acquire this basic knowledge of Japanese?  I'm telling you, I was f*%#ing lost!  Just scratching my head.  

I want to blame it on the total immersion style of teaching; no English or any other language was spoken for two hours.  I want to blame it on the "old dog/new tricks".  Hell, I want to blame it on my 15 years of exposure to tetrachloroethene living above a dry cleaner in Brooklyn.  Wh-wh-what?  Why?  Huh?  Wie bitte?  Comment?

(sigh)