Why do some people find it easy to learn languages while others don’t?
I would say, people's ability to grasp new languages relies on three factors:Exposure - A person who has been exposed to a multi lingual society for a long time will automatically gain snatches of many languages. At the very least, he/she will be able to express basic needs and pleasantries. From there, it's easier to relate to the intricacies of the language and as such, learn it.Motivation - Lack of motivation is one of the major reasons people aren't able to learn new skills, not just languages. Passion and/or necessity are very strong motivators. A person who can step out of thinking 'Why should I?’ or 'How can I?’ can easily become multi-lingual.Ability to Relate - Language consists primarily of three things - mapping a vocabulary to reality, identifying patterns through grammar and scripts, and being able to do this unconsciously. The level of relating ability a person has determines how well he/she can do these.The level to which a person can learn a new language depends primarily on the above. Looking at myself, I'd say I have moderate exposure, high level of motivation and moderate relating ability. Hence I am able to grasp the basics of new languages quickly, but not become fluent at them.Hope this helped.
Why some people find it difficult to learn a new language and some find it really easy?
Music. It is a good example: If you were born with the gift of music you can sing in tune, play musical instruments, know when something is wrong, etc. Being very intelligent helps to learn many things, but not always Languages or music. I have taught Spanish Language to many very intelligent persons, doctors, lawyers, economists. But they have the same problems (in my opinion, some times more) than average people.I was teaching Spanish L. to a retired couple. He was a famous doctor from Somewhere in Europe and his wife had been his secretary. He told me in the "first class free" that they probably will come to study in separated classes because he was a doctor and his wife, ... well, was not a doctor, and that he will, presumably, will learn faster than his wife.I told him and her why don't you come together at the beginning, you see how everything goes in the first four or five classes and then you decide. They did that and he was desperate and confused to see that his wife was learning much faster than him. "Women learn Languages much faster than men", I used to tell him.I think it has a lot to do the Culture Factor and where and how you been educated and grown up.Once I was teaching Spanish L. to a 25 years old man. He had the same problems to learn Spanish than the other citizens from the country in which he was born and grew up. Short time later his parents came to see him and stay with him for several months. They were studying Spanish hearing the tapes that were recorded in my classes with the voices of his son and my own voice. Also they used my book. In short time both parents were speaking Spanish fluently. And their son was having the same problems for learning Spanish than the people from the country where he was born. His parents were born in Nigeria. Their son was born in an European country where both parents had met for the first time.The similarity of studying music or Languages are not 100% true.Why?Because in Languages you can sing in tune, at least, one song: Your own Language.Remember my 'discovery':All illiterate people of the world speak, at least, one Language.So:Why some people find it difficult to learn a new language and some find it really easy?It has to do with multiple factors: The two main ones:1) You.2) The country in which you were born and the type of Culture and Education given to you when you were growing.In my humble opinion.
Why are languages so easy to learn for some people but hard for others?
First of all I think we are not all equal in term of capacities.But, in general, what several studies (cf TEDx conferences, some feedback from multilingual, etc) show, it that it’s a question of methodology. The people who turn up to learn several languages very fast and very deeper put their own methodology. They correspond to them in term of interest, tools, time available, etc. What is common is their commitment in the goal of learning a new language : in general they like it, and they develop a positive approach around this process. So they are motivated and they stay involved in the learning process.Additionally, it’s apparently more and more easy to learn additional languages. So the harder is the second language, after the mother tong, and the third… but after it’s more and more quick to learn new languages. It’s why some multilingual like it.
Some people are better off not learning another language. True or False?
If they actually master the other language there's no downside. Struggling to learn something you're finding too difficult is a negative experience.
Why is learning a language so hard?
Because you need to think of it as if you were learning any other new skill, like playing the piano or boxing. You can start using it immediately but you’re not going to be that good at first—especially if you constantly compare yourself to the professionals. All the while, you are wondering when you are going to be able to say things just like you do in English (or whatever your native language is).There are two ironies there. One is you should actually be more impatient, not less. Spend more time learning. One hundred hours of study and practice—learning a foreign language—over the course of two or three weeks is much more beneficial than one hundred hours over the course of a semester. Condense it and you will learn much, much faster. You will have less time to forget things and will be more likely to make connections between words, grammar rules, expressions, etc.The other irony is that you will never be able to express yourself like you do in English (or whatever your language is). Why? Because that foreign language is reflects a culture that is different than yours. When people try to express their own culture through another language, they sound ridiculous. Here is an exampleIt’s exaggerated to be funny, but there is a reason we all get the joke. Dan Akroyd and Steve Martin were acting like foreigners picking up on American women. Their English is totally understandable but they come off the wrong way. Why? They are expressing their (fictional) culture in English. This is also one of the reasons Borat is so funny.Spend more time, in a condensed schedule, learning your language and you will see much better results. Make sure you try to express yourself as they do as much as possible or you will sound very funny—when you weren’t trying to be funny.
Why are some people so reluctant about learning a foreign language?
There are probably different reasons for different people, but if I were to guess the most common reason I would say because people think it's hard (and it is). We live in an instant society. With the technology today everyone is used to getting things quickly and many times without much effort. However, languages take a lot of time and a lot of effort. Even constructed languages require time and effort. Esperanto is much easier to learn relative to natural languages, but it will still take months or even a year to become fluent. You would need to study intensively to reach fluency in several months. It still takes effort and many people nowadays just don't like that. This rang even truer to me on Saturday when I went to the mall. I was in Barnes and Nobles and naturally went to the language section. Guess what I saw a lot of? Learn x language in 30 minutes a day. Learn x language quick and easy. X language the easy way. You get the point. I would be willing to bet that these sorts of language books sell the most. And when people find out that they can't become fluent with these books, they just give it up. They don't want to put in the time and the effort. Also, there's the myth that children learn languages more easily than adults. I've seen this in a lot of language classes (especially my aunt's adult ESL classes) where students don't put in much effort because they don't think they could get the pronunciation or ever really become fluent because they're older and can't learn as easily as children. They think, what's the point? However, this is actually not true. Most research indicates the opposite is true - adults can actually learn more efficiently and quickly than children because they can associate words and concepts and such with their native tongue. We were very young when we learned our first language. Naturally we don't remember the process of learning our first language. This is why people assume that it is easier for children, because we don't remember how hard it was when we had to do it as children.