ADHD and learning a foreign language

As someone who has struggled with ADHD for much of my life, I've often wondered about its impact on my ability to learn a foreign language. Eight years ago, I moved to Italy and began learning Italian. Despite being 35 at the time, I found it exciting and enjoyed the process. However, when I later moved to Basel and attempted to learn German, I found it virtually impossible and still can't speak a word of it today. In contrast, learning French in the French-speaking part of Switzerland was a lot easier.

After reflecting on my language learning experiences, I've realized that ADHD can certainly impact our ability to learn a foreign language. ADHD can affect our executive functioning skills such as working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control. Additionally, symptoms such as hyperactivity and impulsivity can make it difficult to pay attention and stay focused in a classroom or meeting setting.

I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences on this topic because there isn't much information available about the relationship between ADHD and language learning. I plan to do more research on this subject and would love to hear from others who may have had similar experiences. Let's start a conversation about how ADHD may impact language learning and find ways to overcome these challenges.

Transcript

Hi and welcome to my ADHD superpower is a podcast about reframing ADHD by focusing on what we acceler open our professional and personal lives my name is Sean and I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 42 I always believed that you had to be an 8 year old boy to get diagnosed with ADHD it wasn't until like paying bills or attending and remembering appointments I finally had an explanation for struggles she isn't always a superpowered life and language learning languages I guess about 8 years ago when I moved to Italy I started learning Italian and that was really it was a completely new language to me I really enjoyed it I really enjoyed the language it was it was exciting to kind of meetings relatively old I guess for learning a new language in that I was 35 when I moved I think it was a bit harder for me to to speak the language and it was to kind of write and understand and be able to read but I think that's quite normal for everyone then I moved to Basel and I really really struggle to learn German I mean I found it virtually impossible just no motivation no desire to learn German whatsoever and I really still cannot speak a word of German although I can kind of read it and understand it to some degree and then I move to the French speaking part of Switzerland and I did find learning French a lot easier to I think part of that is just because I started learning French at school from 10 years old and even though when I left school I really could hardly speak a word of French there was some vocabulary and and kind of grammatical structures that I kind of already knew very deep with my brain so that's my my kind of a little bit of a history of my language learning as an adult but the reason I wanted to talk about this topic is because there's not really much out there and I've often wondered if my if my ADHD had an impact on my ability to learn a foreign language and I think yeah I just I just wanted to kind of talk about this and kind of do a little bit of research into this to see if that is the case so ADHD itself isn't a learning difficulty but it can kind of impact on our ability to learn and I think that that's not necessarily I think that's because of some of the symptoms of ADHD might make language learning more difficult language we have problems with executive functioning so you're probably wondering what's executive functioning and that's a set of mental skills that include things like working memory flexible thinking and kind of self-control and we use these skills every day to kind of learn work and manage our daily life and if you have if you have problems with you Internalizing your thoughts you know you daydreaming things like that and then there's a hyperact hyperactivity and those are kind of I think what most people think of when they think of ADHD where you know people are fidgety and interrupting all the time and then there's a combined type of ADHD and that's and that's what I have where there's a mixture of both soap especially in a classroom or you know any kind of setting in the office in a meeting I find it really hard to sit still I'm always always fidgeting and because I'm fidgeting and kind of they're not concentrating on the class or the the meeting because I'm kind of focusing on you know so I think that can happen we have real difficulty paying attention so that can that can certainly be a negative aspect of ADHD on learning and the other the other thing as well is disorganization so things like not remembering to do your homework and not being able to find where your notes are having really badly organized notes and things like that I think lesson can impact on younger Learners the impulsivity so an example of this could be you have an assignment that's due tomorrow but instead of going doing the assignment you impulsively decide to go out I probably have less of that but maybe it's manifesting in different ways like oh I'm just going to go and get a snack or and I'm more in a procrastination rather than kind of impulsivity and the other thing as well is lack of attention to details I think for me personally this isn't about what I'm actually producing or writing that I don't pay attention to the detail is actually more in listening to instructions or reading a question sometimes I'll miss that it's you know a negative question so like select the answer is not correct or or it will say things I'm kind of missing what's required in the answer on ADHD and language learning and most of them are kind of conducted via surveys so asking participants to rate their language learning and I think there are a number of issues with with that which I'll go into further kind of podcast I think that really just touched on some of those potential issues today so one of the common symptoms rejection sensitive dysphoria you might see it as RSD so this is where we can experience severe emotional pain because because we feel rejected by people who are close to us or actually because we tend to set high standards for ourselves and when we when we feel like we haven't met those things I definitely felt this recently so I did I did this video language test last year this is the equivalent of the Dell French test so this is a test that they do in Switzerland and during the exam I just didn't really perform how I would be able to perform outside of test kind of conditions Yeah and actually with the ridiculous thing was that luckily I got my test results about 3 weeks later and I had 82% in the oral and 97% in the written exam so my my reaction was completely outrageous to the actuality of the situation I just had this extreme emotional reaction and there was and it was kind of unfounded??????? focus on sitting still in a classroom and all of these things are not suboptimal for people with ADHD there's lots of evidence that we tend to learn through kind of seeing something on and doing for me I tend to kind of need to practice something myself in order to kind of take that information and consistency I mean right now now that I've been learning languages for years and I have as I said I have managed to pass my time and I am trying to constantly improve my experiences living in Basel I've learned some strategies for learning a language and one of the first ones I mean I suppose if you're absolutely had to learn language to get a job in a new place then then that might be enough but really I think she's in a language that you're passionate about is the shore fire away to be able to kind of maintain that passion and stick with it I love learning French I really enjoyed learning Italian I really hated learning German because I don't like that language and and the difference is incredible you know a French oh I wonder what's on TV you know I wonder I wonder if there's anything new on Netflix and and your brain is constantly kind of being distracted so find a time when your brain is the most quiet and for me that's very early mornings which I know sounds horrible but actually I really I really enjoyed kind of getting up at 5:30 a.m. and I find my brain is really quiet I'm not as distracted as other times of the day so that works really well for me the other thing is I think don't set yourself big goals like we can set yourself because you need to have smaller manageable goals within that so by that I mean everyday I'm going to do one exercise And maybe your award at the end of that can be that you know you can go on Facebook or something like that but set yourself small manageable goals the other part that I've realized is meeting through a language book is really boring for me you know maybe I can do it for 5 or 10 minutes but I really need I kind of mixed media kind of approach to learning so things like YouTube videos there are so many great language learning videos on YouTube and also visuals so having posted with pictures and or even putting posters on objects with your vocabulary can be really useful yes so those are my tips and that's the end of this week's episode and stay tuned and hit follow if you like what you hear and look out for new episodes coming every Sunday thanks for listening