Learning another language??

I just came back from another linguistic class and the linguistic classes never cease to amaze me. I have never really noticed that language acquisition is a very unique process. We utter words which have never been taught to us;We construct grammar on our own prior to the formal instruction and we create our own words!! God has really given us a superb computer in our mind.

I can't remember how i learned 3 languages in 20 years. Though Tamil is my mother tongue, learning a language which has 247 sounds with some exceptions where same sound occurs for 3 letters should have never been easy. But i managed!Now when i think back about it, i can't remember how i knew which /n/ sound occurs for a particular word. It just happened!May be the practice or may be i wanted to prevent my knuckles from reddening!

Learning to write Malay could still be attributed to the school factor but learning the spoken language?? I have no idea. I grew up surrounded by Tamil speaking people and Tamil medium school but when i enrolled for my secondary education in a Malay school, the language came so easily! and Nowadays when my friends ask me on my Malay and English acquisition, i just don't know what to say. I can't retrieve the mental image of learning a language. It appears sooo vague and now when i attempt to learn another language it seems so impossible. It just can't stick to the brain. The brain which astonishingly supported my multiple language learning 15-20 years ago is now failing me.At the age when i didn't know what learning is, learning came so easily and today when i have learned the language learning theories and processes, language learning could never be tougher. Human brain is simply superb . Ok now i have rattled so much that i can't rattle anymore. I can't be blamed..it's the linguistic class :p