Humans Are Programmed for Learning Languages

Learning foreign languages is often difficult for adults because they don't use efficient methods for studying languages. Humans are programmed to learn to speak by listening and responding. It's essentially an oral and aural process. That's why it's so hard to learn a new language out of a book. If you want to learn to speak a foreign language, you will have much more success if you use a program that uses audio tapes or CDs. That way, you'll be using the language-learning hardware you were born with instead of some other learning strategy that is less suited to learning languages.