Wednesday, July 24

As I was at the beach with my kids today this scenario played out in my mind; humor me and read through it: 

I am going to give you two pitches as if I was a Hawaiian language sales person.

Pitch 1: Want to learn Hawaiian?! It is so easy, anyone can do it! No matter how young or old all you need to do is practice a little every day and before you know it you'll be speaking the language. Don't let anyone discourage you from pursuing this goal because I know that if I can do it then so can you!

Pitch 2: Learning Hawaiian is not easy. Take it from me - I've been learning Hawaiian for 8 years and I still struggle to get all of my thoughts out without making mistakes. If you want to learn this language you have to make it a lifelong choice. You also have to accept that it is going to take a vast amount of time so you either have to be patient enough to space out the process over a number of years or free enough to devote a lot of time to studying every day.

Now if you were approached by me with these two pitches - which one would work better on you? Which one do you think is the one I've been using to try and encourage others to learn Hawaiian?

This is something I was thinking about today because over the years I have definitely encouraged others to learn Hawaiian with Pitch #1 and I've noticed that I have encouraged a lot of people to start learning, but not many have stuck with it. While I am sincere when I use pitch #1 and I truly think anyone can learn - I am pondering now that it may not give someone learning a full picture of what it takes to learn Hawaiian therefore raising their expectations and setting themselves up to be discouraged if expectations are not met.

I am going to try out pitch #2 for a while and see if it's better. Let me know what you think.