– How do most people respond to the idea that it is possible to learn a new language very quickly? Why do they think this way?

 

When people hear the idea that it is possible to learn a new language very quickly, most of them react in two quite different ways. Some of them simple don’t believe it. They don’t believe it partly because they never meet anyone who got it done. For some other reason, they do not want to believe it for it’s a perfect excuse for not trying to learn a new language. The others assume that learning languages quickly is a talent that most of the average people don’t have. That explains why only a small amount of genius people speak more than one language, in the mean time most of us struggle on the way of learning.

 

– How does the story about the tennis coach relate to the topic of learning a language? What is the relationship between learning how to play tennis and learning a new language?

 

The story about the tennis coach teaching an old and overweight woman to play tennis in just a few minutes gives us a great example of what is possible for people when then do things with appropriate methods. And this applies equally to language acquisition.

Like the old woman in the story above learning tennis from zero, we knew nothing about our mother tone when we came into the world. Also like the old woman with the help of the coach, we became fluent in early ages with our parents’ help while having fun playing and making friends. So why should it be different when coming across the second language? No way. If tennis can be learned in 20 minutes by an overweighted 55-year-old, it can be learned by anyone. Age is no barrier. So can the language.

 

– Explain your understanding of why the author uses examples of Asian languages to illustrate his points. Why does he not use European languages for his examples?

 

English and Asian languages are more different from each other than English and European languages. Moreover, in the western world, Asian languages are considered to be amongst the hardest to learn. Therefore, if Asian language can be learned by a westerner easily in a short period of time, then those languages that are closer to English will be just much easier.