Many westerners who are learning Mandarin Chinese believed that themselves are tone-deaf,Maybe because Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language and English is not a tonal language.In fact, all languages make use of tones to different degrees, at different times.And tones cannot be the only thing that a person uses to understand a language.No matter which language you speak, you will use many different sources of information to understand what is going on.You will use the words, and word changes, of course.The order in which words appear.The grammar.But there is much more.The words and the grammar is only about 5% of a language.

For a start,context is incredibly important to understanding language,at least fully.You may well have had an experience of overhearing a conversation between wife and husband.The words seem disjointed.They don’t seem to connect to anything, and yet the couple understand each other.

We also use the facial expressions, and even the visual signals from people’s mouths, to tell us what word they actually used.

The people who have mastered more than one language simply believe they can, and refuse to accept any excuse.Because they know that the myths about   ‘difficulty’ or ‘imposibility’ are just that.And these myths can make it seem harder than is really the case.

I had this bad belief half a year previously, and I think that it is easy for me to learn English in class and yet it’s hard to master it or to speak it truly fluent.I don’t even try to explore the reason for it, and just think that learning a language is difficult, and try to find some valid and logical reason to support this sort of thinking.Now,I find what I think was true was not.After all,somehow I mastered my mother tongue with nothing to hook on to.I’m a language genius.So,why can’t I pick up another language?Bad belief is one of the barrier to learning.It either help you or hinder you.If this belief will hinder my learning, why should I trust it?So,question the bad belief myths and do not accept them as a reason for failure.