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Of all the intellectual pursuits, perhaps the most rewarding is the study of a new language different from your native tongue. Even as it stimulates and enriches your mind, mastering it deepens your understanding of the culture it reflects. Suddenly you have access to new literature in its original tongue, perhaps even revealing a new understanding of your own language and culture.

Yet so few people endeavor to acquire a new language for the simple reason that it's hard and requires a lot of practice. This is not unlike learning to play a musical instrument. Many people would love to learn, but they get discouraged by the difficulty and the slow progress.

In this essay I venture to explain the difficulties of learning a new language and offer a breakthrough that can enable you to learn a new language on your own terms and have fun while making a noticeable progress. I'll do so while sharing some of my own experience with learning English and French and recently with teaching my mother tongue of Hebrew.

Is there a language that you wish you could speak? Perhaps you would like that because you plan to live in another country or just to travel there for business or pleasure, or perhaps you would like to better communicate with new immigrants in your own community.

Your motivation for wanting to speak this language may be more personal. You may wish to better understand your own heritage. It may be religious. Perhaps it's a language that people close to you speak such as your spouse or one of your parents. My mother grew up in French Algeria and that entire side of the family speaks French. Undoubtedly this is one reason why I chose to learn French.

Finally, your motivation could be intellectual. I enjoy learning French because it adds another dimension to my knowledge of English. The influence of French on English is undeniable. Moreover, French culture is very rich and understanding the language allows me better appreciation, especially if I can read an author like Alber Camus or watch a French movie.

Alas, learning a language is not easy. It took me two decades before I could speak English as fast as I think (and I think quite slowly). I started French when I was in school, but I soon abandoned it because progress using the tools that I had at the time was too slow.

Before I tell you how I'm successfully learning French, let's consider the reasons why, despite the fact that we acquire our first language seemingly so effortlessly, we find it so difficult

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