ABSTRACT
Without language it is impossible fully to engage in human life, yet every language contains within its idioms and grammatical structures a complex set of largely unexamined cultural assumptions which both defines and limits the speaker’s sense of what human life actually consists of. Being able to move between languages helps us to question those assumptions, and thus to begin to understand other cultures from the basis of shared linguistic experience. In other words, learning a new language (or improving your grasp of one you have already started to master) not only enables you to read new books and talk to new people, it also offers the exciting possibility of an expanded world view and fresh ways of thinking and feeling. All too often, though, even people who got high marks in school language exams, let alone those who got low ones, are held back from adult language-learning by the disabling belief that they are ‘no good at languages’.
