Minimalist language learning

  I've read the first chapter and would like to share a few thoughts in this post. The first chapter introduces the protagonist, his difficult life situation, his past and several other characters. Apart from that, there are no special or dramatic events in this chapter. At this point, I'm not sure what this story is about or what to expect. I think this will change with the next chapter. I like how the story is told. It starts with the focus on the protagonist and introduces gradually more and more details about the protagonist and other characters in a natural way. It’s quite pleasant to read so far. Although nothing special happened during this chapter, I never felt bored. It's interesting to learn more and more about the protagonist and I'm curious how his life will change in the next chapters.  The level of difficulty is okay. I have to look up a bunch of words and don't understand every detail but most of the time I can follow the story well. Only scenes with ...

What do you think when you hear the word "talent“? Do you think talent in language learning exists and — if yes — that it makes a great difference? While I think that some people are able to learn pronunciation and other things more easily than others, for example, I don’t think that "talent“ is the only explanation to this. There are so many other factors that can influence someone's progress, but these are easily overlooked. That’s why I don’t like it when someone is called "talented“ just because he or she is good at something. That’s not the whole story. Why believing in talent can be problematic Another reason why I’m careful when it comes to "talent“ is that it makes many people think that if they don’t have this talent, they should give up. Believing in talent can destroy your motivation and joy to learn a new skill. When you feel stuck or when you made a mistake it’s easy to think "This is because I have no talent. I will never learn this language“ ...