#anyways after literally deaking with intense anxiety for like a week and a half

[ucannotkillmeinawaythatmatters]

I just wanna rant for a bit about how ableist the rhetoric around learning languages can be, especially as it relates to american colleges

so as part of my degree, I'm required to take two semesters of an upper level language. issue is, I'm hard of hearing and my college does not offer any type of sign language as an option

obviously trying to learn an AUDIO BASED language as a person who literally can't hear is a fucking challenge. and yeah sure, they have exemptions but I'm "not disabled enough" to qualify

first of all, that's fucking bullshit. a policy that I'm sure was written by abled ppl determining that I'm not disabled enough?? to be exempt from something made really fucking hard due to my disability?? bullshit

when I was a kid I literally had one of those speech language pathologists to help me speak ENGLISH correctly. I used to mispronounce words all the damn time cuz I wasn't hearing what it actually sounded like. certain syllables just aren't picked up by my brain so words like "computer" would get butchered into "come-cue-ter." getting hearing aids in addition to learning from the language lady I had helped with this problem a lot. I don't rly struggle with it anymore now that I'm older.

now that I'm learning Spanish, however, I'm having the exact same problems I had as a baby. this makes sense if you consider that I'm basically a one year old in Spanish knowledge. but in college, I don't get a speech language pathologist to help me understand pronunciations and syllables. and my hearing aids have been fucked up and are too expensive for me to afford replacing them rn. and in college I have to worry about grades and passing the class and shit. I've literally had actual breakdowns crying and sobbing over how much I'm struggling in the classes due to something I literally cannot control

so yes, the second I'm done with this semester, I will be giving up on learning Spanish and any audio based language. it's just really fucking exhausting to hear all the jokes about pathetic monolingual Americans who only know one language.