7 Common Misconceptions About Language Learning

Steve Kaufmann, born in 1964, is an American linguist. He can read in 36 and communicate with most of the 36 languages. He shares his experience in an article titled as “7 Common Misconceptions About Language Learning“. According to him, there are seven common misconceptions about language learning, in detail,

• Language learning is difficult
• You have to have a gift for learning languages
• You have to live where the language is spoken
• Only children can learn to speak another language well
• To learn a language you need formal classroom instruction
• You need to speak in order to learn (and I have nobody to speak to)
• I would love to learn but I don’t have the time

There are more than 6000 languages. Some are more important because they are spoken by more people and in more countries. For example, Mandarin Chinese is spoken by over 1 billion people. Chinese origin words account for 60% of Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese vocabulary. So knowing Chinese helps learning these languages to a great extent. Chinese culture has influenced the world for thousands of years in terms of philosophy, art, medicine, technology, food etc. It is a language well worth learning.