Learn to play the piano. I did try, but it was futile.

Speak a new language.

Yes!!!! I tried that too. I took Spanish in high school. Thought I could learn to actual speak it as an adult. Nope.

Yes, that's a good one - speak a different language, maybe two or three. I tried teaching myself Italian. I got to where I could read and write it better than speak it. That was years ago, and it's mostly lost. I'd like to speak French and Swedish.

Fencing.

Fly a plane, sail a boat, surf, speak multiple languages, play the guitar... Obviously, I haven't wanted to do any of those badly enough to sacrifice other aspects of my life.

Sing. And dance.

Go back to college & become a pharmacist.

Now that I'm retired and don't have to be practical, my desire would be to magically learn an ancient language -- such as Sumerian, and work in the British Museum deciphering clay tablets. Emphasis on 'magically' because no, I don't want it enough to put real life effort into it. But it would be cool!

I would like to learn line dancing and to ride a horse.

Sing! I was the one the church choir director asked to just mouth the words when I was a child. No help to learn how to do better. I could get my reticent kitty to come home by singing to her. She must have hated it so much because it hurt her ears, but she came running every time.

I'd like to be able to ride the Leadville 100 (mountain bike race). Or one of the stages of the Tour of Italy or Tour de France (not in the actual race, just one of the stage routes that they open to amateurs) - and be able to speak the local language while doing it. I could start working on the language anyway.

I wanted to be a pilot when I was young -- too nearsighted, alas!

I've become interested in archaeology -- that would be my "back to school" ambition!

Hmm, I would like to be able to sing well, or play the violin. I took piano lessons but even though I could read music easily, my fingers never wanted to move quickly no matter how much I practiced. I can't type quickly, either. So violin really is a dream, although not a pipe dream I guess!

I wish I knew how to play a guitar or violin. My brother would teach me I'm sure and if he lived a little closer I might look into it but will have to settle for enjoying others playing.

Play guitar, and yes, I have thought about taking lessons since retirement, but haven’t had time to work it in yet. Also if I could I would love to study medicine, specifically orthopedics or specialized surgery or some sort. Always something I wish I had the opportunity to do years ago but it wasn’t encouraged particularly in my time. Learn a foreign language really well, it I have no aptitude for this.

I wish I could sing! I don’t let my lack of pitch stop me, but I would like to be able to be in a proper choir. Instwas, I ring in the handbell choir.

I’d like to learn to play the guitar, without my fingertips hurting (and without cutting my nails short).

I’d like to learn to speak Danish Or Swedish, Probably not that hard, but finding people to practice with might be. (As a kid I wanted to go to Concordia Language Villages for camp; I think my parents thought it too nerdy.)

I play the guitar and can offer some encouragement for those who want to learn-

There are two kinds of finger/hand hurts and they go away pretty fast if you stick with playing:

The tips of your fingers will hurt from pushing down the strings on the fret board. Metal strings do hurt at first. You should have a metal stringed guitar unless your interest is in the classical/Flamenco direction. If so, get a classical guitar and the strings are thicker and made of nylon. With either, in not too long as you continue to practice, you'll get small and mostly not visible callouses on your fingertips and your fingertips will no longer hurt from pressing strings.

Second, your hand and fingers may hurt or ache as you begin because pushing down strings takes hand strength with muscles you probably don't use much. It's as if you were squeezing a tennis ball tightly with your fingertips, This too will go away in time as you strengthen your hand muscles. You can speed up the process by getting a rubber squeeze ball and using it when you're not playing. Or pushing your fingers into a tennis ball. Or, by practicing more. As with the fingertip callouses, the more you play, the easier it gets.

There's no substitute for having shorter fingernails on your fingering hand, the left hand for righties and the right hand for lefties. If that's something you don't want to do, choose another instrument. I keep a nail cutter in one guitar bag so if I go somewhere to play and I forgot to first trim my nails, I can do it without biting them off.

How about ukulele?

Ukeleles do have nylon strings, they're smaller and MUCH cheaper, but it depends what you want to do, what you want to play, what you want to learn.

A ukelele is not a small form factor guitar. They're tuned differently, they sound different, and sometimes you can't play on a ukelele what you can play on a guitar.

If what you want to do is learn 3--5 basic chords so that you can strum simple songs while singing or while others sing, a ukelele will mostly suffice Mostly, not always. If you know anything about music from having played a different instrument, or if you have a variety of things you want to learn how to play, a ukelele is not a substitute for a guitar.

A suggestion for a beginner, something I didn't mention before- there's a third factor that contributes to how difficult the strings are to push down and how much strength and pain are involved. That's something call the guitar's "action", whether it's high or low. It's an odd word that means - how high the strings are above the fret board. If they're high, the guitar is harder to play and if lower, easier. The action on electric guitars is lower than on acoustic ones and so they're easier to play from this standpoint.

I mention this because - cheap guitars usually have high action and can be very hard to play. Go into a good guitar store, like Guitar Center, and ask to be shown an acoustic guitar for a beginner with low action. They should be able to help you. Alternatively, pick up something cheap and used, see if you like it, and if you want to progress, get a Fender Squire pack (their most inexpensive electric guitar with a small amp) for about $200 and use that to develop your ability until you're ready to quit or move on to better things.

Good luck.

I'd love to speak a foreign language, preferably french. After 4 yrs of french in HS, I learned I have ZERO ear for languages!

I'm occasionally trying to learn Welsh. Maybe I'll get there. For me, totally impractical, but I'm retired, so I don't need all my endeavors to be practical these days.

But things I want to do that I'll never be able to do: And, yes, some learning is involved.

* Hike the Appalachian Trail. This feat does require some learning. Unfortunately my knee and ankle will never ever permit me to do this. Currently, I still require even semi-steep steps to have a railing before I can negotiate going down on such a stairway, without my injured knee buckling.

* Play the guitar like Jorma Kaukonen.

* Turn into my childhood dream, and become a bona-fide astronomer.

I can certainly come up with more when I'm not as tired and sleepy as I currently am... tomorrow?

I would like to speak fluent Portuguese. I already speak fluent German, Italian, and Spanish, and I speak French also, but with a terrible American accent, or so I have been told. I know enough Russian to translate folk tales into English, but I don't speak it, although I can read it fairly well. However, after having visited Brazil, I felt disappointed that I was unable to converse with people that I met there.

Knit! I took a lesson or two. I can knit, I just can't grasp how to fix my mistakes!

"* Play the guitar like Jorma Kaukonen."

Really. Don't bother, you won't get there. In Jorma and Jack Cassady, the Jefferson Airplane had two of the most gifted musicians of the era. Here's a couple of more recent Jorma things, recorded live so no do-overs. He wrote both songs and of course both parts

Embryonic Journey performance, Airplane induction into RR Hall of Fame - Recent as in the 1990s not 60s.

Genesis, originally from his Quah album, this from 2011

I'd like to learn how to knit! Believe me, I've tried. A dear friend tried to teach me, twice! It's hopeless--my fingers just do not work that way. She was surprised, as I'm very artsy and craftsy.

Cake decorating. I have tried, they tasted good. Lol

Hmmmmm. . . . Interesting question. If I were a young person in this day and age, just starting on a career path, I would go into crime scene investigation and forensics.

I often wish I had stuck with one of the musical instruments I 'played with' in my teens, probably the piano or accordion. I would love to take up painting or sculpting again, but I don't think it would be possible, my hands shake too much. It would be wonderful to be able to sing, but I have a voice like my nickname, rusty. I would like to be able to stand and walk normally again, without the need for a cane or walker, but I doubt that is apt to happen. My balance is too far gone.

I would like to be able to speak and read German. Our library has a free online program called 'Pronunciator' that offers a lot of languages. I've checked out the German a time or two, mainly the travel phrases, and I think I could learn it if I really set my mind to it. I just haven't really set my mind to doing it seriously.

Rusty

One thing I’ve wanted to do for a long time is learn Spanish. There are a lot of Hispanics in this area and I want to feel comfortable conversing. I installed Duolingo on my phone and do lessons every day.

Things i’d like to do-roller blade ( probably not a good idea due to knee surgery a few years ago-still tempted. I have roller blades I’ve never used and almost put them in my last yard sale). Learn to can things. Seems easy enough. Will try it one of these days. Walk the Grand Canyon from rim to rim. I’d like to learn how to do ordinary household repairs. DH just seems to know how to do it with little effort. I want to be like that! Painting too.

Remodeling skills. Specifically, how to lay tile.

hike the Appalachian Trail

sew - hand and machine

in-depth visits to all the National Parks - staying for 2 weeks minimum (probably would need more time)

go back to school for Horticulture

interior and exterior decorator

speak fluent Italian

Several things....First off Auto mechanic (would save us a lot of money), Fluent Spanish and organ/piano.

I believe that most everyone has an ability, special gift, talent or whatever you want to call it to do something. We can learn to do other things up to a certain point but probably won't be expert at it or even "good enough". I also think that due to whatever life hands a person they might not ever find that particular gift which is very sad. So they spend their whole life trying to reach perfection with something that they shouldn't be trying to do in the first place. My personal ability from early on was drawing and painting. But I wanted to do other things like ride a horse or water-ski or dance. When I was a teenager I wanted to play the guitar - I thought that was the coolest thing ever - actually taught myself the basic chords and got pretty good with that but wasn't able to bar chord due to the small hands/fingers. So my dreams of being the next Jimi Hendrix pretty much fizzled. Anyway after many attempts I could not learn to read music - my sister majored in music and couldn't beat it into my skull. This was not what I was meant to do. So later in life even though I was very busy with raising and maintaining a family and working full time, I learned to do a lot of things nevertheless. Quilting, flower arranging, gardening, painting, furniture refinishing, mostly artsy crafty things. These are the things that I finally realized come easy to me because that's where my abilities and interests really are and had been since I was very little. I think we are better off sticking to our instinctual talents. I've often thought I'd like to learn a new language, especially Spanish since there are a lot of Hispanics here but I still have enough trouble mastering the English language much less another one. LOL! Maybe I could learn some of the common words but never enough to read and write. Yes there are things that I wish I could do but I'm pretty sure I know where my innate abilities lie and where they don't and I don't waste too much time trying to change that.

Sprtphntc and Artemis, I set a goal of hiking the Appalachian Trail, though not all at once. 40 years after I set that goal, I’ve hiked . . . Wait for it . . . 1.5 miles. Lol! I just walk a portion whenever I come across it, on other road trips. Since I live in the midwest that’s not very often. So it’s not a serious goal, but it is fun.

Artemis, you will enjoy “Travels in an Old Tongue: Touring the World Speaking Welsh” by Pamela Petro! Travels in an Old Tongue: Touring the World Speaking Welsh

rita, I know I have abilities in some areas and inabilities in others, but it doesn’t stop me from trying the things I’m pretty sure I can’t get good at. Sometimes it’s just fun, and you expand your horizons, and maybe learn something you can use in other areas of your life. And by the way, I know a lot of musicians who do not read music. But they have a really good ear. I also know people who play music, but don’t read music, and, well, their ear isn’t that great either. But they have fun.

Elmer, we have a local senior group called Hummers and Strummers, who all play the ukele and sing. Now that I’m old enough to join, I’d love to do that.

Sprtphntc, when you are 62 you can get a lifetime pass to the National Parks for, I think, $99. Your whole carload gets in free! My DH gave it to me for my birthday; if only we lived near any national parks.

Botanical illustration.......and I still might :-)

And I do wish I had taken Spanish instead of French in school. I had a lot of French (8 years) and I can read and speak it moderately well (or could....little practice recently) but it is not a useful skill at all in my world. Spanish would be much more helpful in my landscaping life :-) I can make do with a kind of pigeon Spanish but I start morphing into French at the drop of a hat......my contractor's workers find it very amusing. Fortunately, he speaks excellent English and translates for me.

I would love to become extremely conversant in Danish. I know the basics because I was raised with Danish parents but have not used the language for years regularly. I'd love to learn Spanish as well. DH and I tried for a while but it didn't stick. .

I'd love to learn to sing and play guitar and piano. Maybe then we could start a GW band.

I do think it's okay to stretch yourself beyond your innate abilities. One of the TED talks I heard talks about finding your own way to learn a language and I think that might apply to just about everything we learn.

Of course appreciating oneself for our more easily developed talents or skills wise is good but I like the challenge of going somewhere where I might not quite fit in at first.

They say even learning something poorly helps to grow brain cells. Just don't stress about it or judge yourself if you can help it.

You might never became become Beethoven but you might enjoy it and learn to appreciate your own playing or singing or art or whatever.

Also having the right equipment works. I know that they are making pianos nowadays for women's smaller hands. Perhaps they have a smaller guitar as well or even a child's guitar might work for some.

I just want all of our dreams to come true. The saying goes You can have everything but not all at once so it would take time but it's doable to me.

Maybe we should all learn guitar and to sing in Spanish and sort of combine the three things :-). Or one day of each week we could all post in Danish German and Spanish and whatever other language everybody wants to speak.

https://www.ted.com/talks/lydia_machova_the_secrets_of_learning_a_new_language/transcript?language=en

some of us that live under a rock has never heard of the "Git UP" you need to post a link for us dummies. I had to google it.

Yeonassky, my dad spoke some Danish, but we mostly learned what we called “kids at the table Danish”: I cannot spell so I’ll use the English. Watch out, pour forth, summons to the table, we don’t talk about that, thank you for dinner, thank you for the last time we were together (I love that expression “ tak fa sist” (sp?) and wish there were a good English equivalent).

gardengal, I learned French and Spanish. One summer, we had two French teen boys staying with us, and one’s English was weak so we occasionally bolstered with French. One day my cleaning lady came, we usually spoke Spanish. And one of the boys also spoke a little Spanish. My head was swimming and I had a hard time keeping my syntax and vocabulary straight, so I couldn’t speak either one!

I would like to understand poetry, of any type. But I have a limited literature imagination in that I can't pick out the theme of a book or the imagery or metaphors in a poem. I think that Haikus are the coolest thing and I remember seeing this one

Haikus are easy

but sometimes they don't make sense

Refrigerator

gardengal (and others) there is such a thing as "learning how" to learn a foreign language. This thought explains the problem we Americans have with other languages- how English is typically taught in US schools lacks sufficient coverage of grammar, parts of speech, verb forms and conjugations, etc., So when it comes time to learn a foreign language, we don't immediately grasp the concepts of the puzzle parts needed. We know what sounds right or wrong in English as a mother tongue, but not why or what it is.

Examples - if a language teacher says - "Here's the subjunctive (or the past perfect) form of the verb X" or "use these endings for an indirect object", American students eyes start spinning because they don't know what those are in English.

Western languages are mostly similar in grammar with some differences and so if you've learned enough grammar to develop some ability in one language, and understand concepts like tenses, verb conjugations, noun genders, etc., learning a second language (whether or not you remember the first) should be much easier.

Spanish and French are cousins in the Romance Language family and knowing one makes learning the other much easier.

Learning a French and Spanish helped me understand English so much better. And German was a revelation! And I come from the era of “parsing sentences” so I already had a base. Drives me crazy that my older kid didn’t learn about subject, object, predicate, not to mention tenses, until he took Latin in middle school. My younger’s wonderful elementary school LA program used Michael Clay Thompson’s books, and he took Latin from 2nd grade, changing to French in 5th.

Elmer, I am well aware of all that. But when one language is so firmly ingrained - as French is to me - it is difficult to transition to a second, especially one that is so closely related, without falling back on the first. I am sure I could do so with some intensive training but I am not willing to do that at this point in time. My comment was only that I wish now I had chosen Spanish over French while in school as it is far more applicable to everyday life.

btw, I can also read Italian decently although have never tried to speak it and have never studied it. But many of the reference books I accessed in college for architectural history were written in Italian and that is close enough to French to make reading it possible.

I went down a similar path, bpath. German in college after French and Spanish was the biggest upfront challenge because of case declensions and sentence word order differences but like anything else, you get into it and in time it makes sense. I retain high functionality in French (can read, watch TV, talk on most subjects) and a bit less so in German but I think once you get to a certain point, it does stick. And it's so much fun!

Immersion is the only way to cement capability. Whether regular time spent here with native speakers or as an excuse for an extended trip, it helps immensely. In the meantime, the internet provides great access to media in different languages. Like anything else, you get out of it what you put in.

Elmer, I spent a summer in France with a family, after my junior year of HS. Beginning of senior year, first day of French class, within minutes the teacher noticed the huge difference in my fluidity (if not fluency). Immersion is key. But here’s an odd thing. When I took German, I was in Switzerland, French-speaking area, and my teacher was Austrian. We couldn’t figure out why I had a North German accent.

Oh, another thing I think I’d like to learn is to knit or crochet. But, I know I’d never have patience to make much more than a scarf. A really long scarf. I’d just keep going, to keep my hands busy while bingeing on “Killing Eve” or whatever our latest obsession is. My grandmother was a fine and prolific knitter. She made 8 afghans for her grandchildren, which get a lot more use than the sweaters. I have a wonderful hat and scarf from her, though, that I still use after 50 years. She tried to teach me once, but I was still in that “i want to bike uptown and hang out with my friends” stage.

(I found this amusing: there are TONS of videos on "how to roll your R's"! I never could do that in high school Spanish class despite Ms L's best efforts. So maybe after all this time ...! )

bpath, you probably know that Swiss and Austrian spoken German both have high/low, sing-songy tonalities. Absent that, you'd sound not necessarily Northern but just not a High German speaker.

Sky diving, paragliding, wingsuit gliding, scuba diving, paddle boarding, kayaking, and so many other sports I wish I had done when I was young and in good health.

Play the violin or the piano. Since I don't have a musical bone in my body, not going to happen.

Knit gorgeous sweaters. My knitting is atrocious and no one has been able to help me improve it, so that's also out.

Sew gorgeous quilts. But I don't know how to use a sewing machine and I am too impatient anyway.

Elmer, it was my professor who identified my accent as North German. I figure she knew what she was talking about. She demonstrated the different styles of German for us, including the very particular schweitzerdeutsch vocabulary and expressions.

I have taken classes in Spanish and German but other than a few words my teachers the times I took the classes gave up as apparently I was not hearing and repeating things as they thought I should. I can read both enough to get by but that is it. Trying a community education class in French in a couple of weeks.

Choir was required for a year in HS and I took it a second year because I enjoyed singing. No one enjoyed hearing me. However to heal my lungs by expansion I read about what is called "Note Singing". You do not sing words only sounds as loud and as long as you can. Now I am told I hit some beautiful notes. Those that want to sing might try starting with a open mouthed "O". I found that it helps to run the scales when I have chest congestion as the vibration seems to break up the crud.

I don't know if schweitzerdeutsch is considered a different language or just a dialect but as you know it has even more tonality than how the Swiss speak German and I suspect may be why they do. Many even speak in a sing-songy way in English.

You may or may not know that there are many regional dialects for most Western European languages, most especially German, French, and Dutch. In some cases, some dialects can have a very narrow reach, encompassing areas as small as a town and its surrounding area. A curious thing about many of these small area dialects is that some are often not mutually intelligible with dialects in even neighboring areas and most dialects are often not understandable by speakers of the standard form of a language.