Sailing as a Second Language

Most of my students are highly fluent in English, though it isn't their first language. They do quite well for themselves, holding their own as professionals, living and working in the United States. I help them with those difficult aspects that come after one becomes fluent -- those annoying little elusive grammar rules, and ALWAYS their pronunciation. Many of them have children that were born here in the US, and they are, at first, envious of their kids' ability to pick up flawless, accentless, American speech patterns. Later, as the child becomes able to express that mom or dad has said a word wrong, or "talks funny," that gift of a malleable child's brain seems more of a curse to these loving parents. Still, those children often have a bit of an initial struggle in school, simply not having the vocabulary, in English, that their peers have. Research has proven, again and again, that those non-native speaking kids catch up, and often exceed the academic performance of those same peers a little later in school. I am always telling my adult students that the best gift they can offer their kids is to speak to them in their native language at home. I urge them to not buy into the myth that English should be spoken at home for the sake of their childrens' education. Many are relieved to hear this bit of information, and I stand behind it 100%.

It isn't much of a leap for me to feel that sailing is most definitely a second language to me, one I learned much too late in life to be able to speak it without an accent that gives me away as a late-learner. Scott, on the other hand, learned it early enough in life that it is much more intuitive to him. Perhaps he wasn't born into it, but he has the benefit similar to my student's children. He got to learn to sail alongside learning lots of other things, since sailing wasn't the only thing his family did. He speaks and reacts and trims sails to a level of an enviable fluency, and he speaks other handy languages, too.

I try to tell myself that it is okay to be learning to sail as an adult. I know the brain has ways to compensate for late learning. I can study the science of it and apply the rules, just as adult language learners can do with grammar and pronunciation. It is truly a myth that kids pick up language easier and more quickly than adults. I could get into the reasons of why that is, and why it is extremely counter-intuitive, but I won't bore the poor readers of this blog with it here. I also know that sailing will probably never be perfectly intuitive for me. I may get quicker and more accurate with my reactions and anticipations, but there is still that split second (or two or three or four seconds) where I need to translate what is happening around me to the correct response.