Learning a Foreign Language
Isn’t learning a foreign language hard?
It’s not that hard.
I think it is. English was hard to learn.
What is your native language?
my native language is Arabic. How about yours?
Mine is French.
Oh, cool. Do you know any other languages?
I know German and a little bit of Spanish. How about you?
I only know English and Arabic.
Oh, okay. How did you learn English?
I took classes in school. How about you?
I taught myself.
Oh, really? Cool! How did you do that?
I started by studying vocabulary, and then simple phrases.
That’s really cool. How do you remember vocabulary?
The best way for me is to use flashcards. How about you?
I like to write vocabulary words many times.
That helps me too.
So, you know a lot of languages.
Yeah. I studied them a lot when I was a child.
They say it’s easier to learn a foreign language when you are a child.
I agree with that. It gets harder as I get older.
I guess that’s why I only know two!
Too bad. Knowing a lot of languages can be really helpful.
How so?
Well, if you travel a lot, it’s easier when you can communicate with others.
That’s true. What if you don’t travel a lot?
It’s still nice to know about other cultures.
Do you study culture when you study language?
Well, I think that language is part of culture.
Oh, that’s true.
Learning about culture is also very interesting.
Yeah, it is. There’s a lot you have to learn to speak a language well.
You have to learn to write that language, too.
You also have to be able to read and understand it!
Yeah, it really is a lot of work.
It’s worth it, though.