I think I have been able to change my mindset a bit already. It feels positive.

I think a lot of people have negative experience ls in school that can put them off languages or make them feel bad at it, and despite the fact that being a first language English speaker is overall a huge advantage, it also can have its downsides.

It's such a global Lingua Franca that if you are a first language English speaker living in an English majority country, you're much more unlikely to be regularly or seriously exposed to any other language (though it depends on the country/region of course. But this is true for a lot of English majority areas). In many cases there isn't even/always an obvious second language that's the best or most obvious choice to be learning, or any that you have easy regular access to media or speakers of (though these last points are shifting somewhat in the internet era)

You're also likely to be surrounded by other monolingual people, and a culture that normalises being monolingual and is one that does not value language learning as an important skill.

It's easy to forget that *most* humans speak at least 2 languages and it's a human thing to be able to do it... And you obviously did it once, for your first language.

It also *does* take a lot of brain exercise to commit to really learning and the internet is filled with apparent hacks to "become fluent in a week!" Etc which can cause bursts of enthusiasm and then defeat, and a weird relationship with understanding how language learning works.

I've seen on a french teacher's profile recently:

"Do you want to speak like a native in only 1 month?

Then this support is not for you. I strongly advise you do not by it.

If you want to progress, it will take time and work"

And I just thought it was funny and brilliant in the context of so many online causes making ridiculous claims and promises in line with the tagline of this, but for real.

Anyway, I've made a very long post about this now...