In my experience, learning a foreign language is a journey of faith. Just like how religion requires a belief in what cannot be seen, language study requires a belief that an achievable goal lies down the road.

When you start learning a language, your comprehension is bound to be almost nonexistent. You memorize words, go through lessons, flip through flashcards, etc. You do these things with some vague notion that someday, if you work at it, you’ll understand.

Many times, you’ll be disappointed. You might study and gain use of a thousand words, and yet still find reading children’s books hard, or TV shows incomprehensible.

Maybe you’ll complete a couple years worth of university courses, and yet still struggle with basic conversations.

But every now and then, you might also see glimpses of progress, glimmers of hope. You might learn a new word and suddenly see it used everywhere. You might finally “get” a grammatical construct that previously stumped you.

Each of these bits of progress is are like little “victories”. And it’s only through accumulating vast numbers of these “victories” that one can ultimately win.

Therein, again, comes the faith. It takes faith to believe that your efforts aren’t wasted, that ultimately you will understand the language. It takes faith to believe that these “victories” aren’t simply illusions.

To learn a language, you must keep the faith, keep it however long proves necessary. Depending on the language and your talents, it could take over a decade.

I think faith in God is similar. Through life’s ups and downs, we keep the faith. Sometimes we’re shown teasing tastes of what lies beyond, but for the most part we just have to keep charging forward.