Learning a new language...or a new paradigm

"In order to conquer any foreign language, one needs to open two princiapl doors. The first is comprehension. The second, the spoken language. In between, there are smaller doors, equally relevant: syntax, grammar, vocabulary, nuances of meaning, pronounciation.At this point, one gains relative mastery. In my case, I daed to open a third door: the written language.

Bit by bit, as one studies, the door to comprehension swings open. The spoken language, apart from a foreign accent and some mispronouciations here and there, also opens with relative ease. The written language, certainly the most formidable door, remains ajar. Since I started thinking and writing in Italian only at the age of forty-five, I knocked on this door quite late, and it creaks a little. Although it welcomes me, it keeps odd hours, and is rather unpredictable."

- From Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Translating Myself And Others'

Both an inspiration and an overview of how to tackle a foreign language or for that matter, a shift in skills, paradigms, anything that the mind has never grappled with before. Comprehension, conversation and then owning and writing in it...