Successful in learning a foreign language

The most difficult thing for a person to accept when he begins to learn a foreign language is that the foreign language is so different from his own. Of course, he expects to find some differences; it may sometimes seem to him that some of the differences are completely unnecessary.

A person’s native language has a powerful influence on him. After all, he has been speaking his language since before he can remember. His family, his friends, even complete strangers – everyone around him uses that language. Under such circumstances, it is only natural that a person would have the feeling that his language is the most beautiful, the most perfect and the most logical of all languages.

Therefore, the first thing that one must learn as he begins to study a foreign language is that, each language is the best possible language for the people who use it. We would not expect a person from India to think and act exactly like a person from France. And we should not expect the languages of India to be exactly like the French language. After this fact has been understood and accepted, many of the problems in language learning disappear.