Is learning a foreign language ever easy? Yes. If you are five and move to another country, you will quickly pick up the language. But what about for the rest of us who are no longer five, and need to be polite when traveling for business or for pleasure? I think that answer is also yes. Language learning can be easy if you don’t want or need to learn too much.
The key to successful language learning in my mind is not to set the goal too high. It is rather like running. Even if you run twice a week, you don’t necessarily want to be able to run a marathon (馬拉松). You might just want to keep a level of fitness. I think the same can be true for language learning.
Let’s get back to the goal. If you decide to learn ten words in a foreign language before visiting the country, you know that you will be sure to do this. However, if you decide to talk to people with great fluency (流利), unless you are quite a talented person, you will probably fail and give up in half-way.
It is also far easier to start learning a foreign language than to finish. In other words, the better you are, the slower it can be to improve, because you will not be able to move further because of grammar, making sentences, learning less common words, etc. If you are only trying to learn a few foreign words and sentences, you will enjoy faster progress, have more fun, and won’t have to spend too much time.
The idea of learning only a few hundred words in a language, and then stopping, isn’t the usual way to language learning, but it can be a very meaningful and enjoyable activity.
【小題1】In the writer’s opinion, it is easy for adults to learn English if _______.

—Tom, please tell me       .
—In the Olympic Sports Center.