Motivation

Mizuho, who lived next door to us in Japan, was a concert pianist who had studied in Vienna for a dozen years. Almost every night, we could hear her playing. The notes would come wafting through the summer breeze, passionate and intense, as refreshing as a waterfall spilling over rocks. After a long day at work, it soothed our headaches and calmed our frayed nerves.

One day, I happened to run into Mizuho's mother. "We love hearing Mizuho play!" I told her.

She looked nervous. "I hope it's not too loud -- it isn't too loud, is it?"

I shook my head. "Honestly, it's so beautiful, it could hardly be loud enough!"

"You're sure it doesn't bother you? Because if it does, we'll get her to stop playing so late--"

"Please don't!" I said hastily. "We love hearing her play!"

She smiled nervously; she didn't look convinced.

"You're so lucky to have a daughter who plays so beautifully!" I gushed. "We'd do anything to get ours to play like that!"

Mizuho's mother shrugged. "She's always enjoyed playing," she murmured.

I smiled and shook my head at this. My husband and I had our work cut out for us getting our daughters to practice.

"I can imagine how much work you put into getting her to that level," I ventured. "Just pushing her to practice must have been a full-time job."

She stared at me. "I never put any work into getting her to practice at all," she said flatly.

"Really?" I could hardly believe this.

She tilted her head. "Do you know, I used to beg her to go outside and play with her friends? She just wouldn't leave the piano alone!"

Now I really couldn't believe it: She sounded -- and looked -- aggrieved.

"I'm serious," she persisted. "She would hole up in the house for hours, playing the piano. Her friends would come by, wanting her to go out and play with them -- but no. She had to play the piano. We were so worried about her!"

Over the next year, I got to know Mizuho, and she confirmed what her mother told me. "My parents used to threaten to shut the piano on my hands!" she said. "But they couldn't stop me."

A few months before we left Japan, we were given tickets to one of Mizuho's concerts. She was incredible.

I work with a woman I will call Güzin. Although Güzin isn't a native speaker of English and has never lived in an English-speaking country, she speaks English so well I assumed that her family must have started her learning the language at an early age. Somehow I got the idea that they had enrolled her in one of those high level English language nurseries, or perhaps hired an English-speaking nanny for her. When I asked her about this, though, she laughed.

"I taught myself when I was a toddler."

"Come on -- you couldn't have!"

"I did," she insisted. "My parents both worked. They left me at home all day and I found these English language tapes they bought for my older sister, who wasn't the slightest bit interested in English and never used them. I was bored all by myself, so I put them on. And that's how I learned English."

"God, your parents must have been thrilled!"

"Not really. My mother tried to stop me from writing it. She thought I was too young."

Güzin can speak English for hours on end. She doesn't stumble over words or have to ask what people mean. After seventeen years in Japan and endless, exhausting study, my Japanese is close to her level of English.

Some people, it seems, are just determined to learn no matter what.