2026-01-16
9 分钟You know, I was thinking the other day, you know,
other things that I have learned now after so many years,
I don't know, 60, 70 years of learning languages,
are the things that I wish I knew then when I was getting started learning languages.
And there are, and I can think of five things that I wish I knew then.
The first thing is, it needn't be that difficult.
Traditional language teaching puts a lot of obstacles in front of us that destroy our confidence.
We have to learn these grammar rules.
We have to try to remember these words.
We don't want to get things wrong on the test.
As a school kid, you know, from grade two on, we had French, maybe from grade one on in Montreal.
And at the end of it all, I couldn't really speak French.
I was never very motivated.
But it wasn't me taking the initiative and learning a language.
So the first time that I can remember where I deliberately said I want to learn a language was when I was in France,
because I eventually did get interested in French and went to France and studied at the university there.
And I was in Grenoble, Grenoble.
And a friend of mine said, you know, you should study Russian.
So I thought, yeah, that sounds kind of neat.
So I got the textbook was by Nina Potapova.