1.Language-learning is a technical training. To learn a foreign language even reasonably well requires an acceptance of the discipline governing any technique; it also demands considerable staying-power. Yet the task is often approached with an attitude that is both casual and naïvely hopeful: it is inevitable that frustration and failure should rapidly follow on such beginnings. Moreover, most students (and even some teachers) ignore not only the problem of psychological preparation, but also the need to set a series of goals that are both clear and practically attainable.

2.Language-learning can never by easy. Any serious effort to learn a foreign language is bound to be exacting in some measure, for the following reasons among many:

(a) The learner has to condition his mind to a whole new way of looking at reality, and in many cases to a completely new set of intellectual norms. This might be called the “flexible-mentality hurdle”, one that is certainly beyond the capacity of some individuals.

(b) The learner must memorise a large number of words and phrases (both naturally in context and deliberately in isolation), if he is ever one day to become reasonably free of the tyranny of the dictionary. In some languages he will also need to memorise mechanically a minimum of variant forms, often conveniently arranged in tables. (It is for the teacher, and to some degree for the learner himself, to choose all of these items intelligently, with a view to economy, logical sequence and usefulness.)