Jason Box, 85, started learning Welsh, his native language, at the age of 70. He grew up in South Wales, where he was ______ and educated in English and since the age of 23, he has lived and worked in Birmingham. After retiring, he decided that he wanted to reconnect with his roots. “I’m a Welshman and everybody should be able to speak their ______ language.”

With ______ time on his hands, he started looking on the Internet for ways to learn Welsh, but the exercises he ______ didn’t help him with pronunciation. Then last year he started ______ with SpeakWelsh, which offers a series of podcasts (播客) and runs twice-monthly classes with a teacher, where he meets and practices with other ______ learners.

Jason is one of older adults who are learning languages in ______ life. While younger people are ______ thought to be quick language learners, there is no evidence to suggest that senior learners are ______ in terms of absorbing new information according to Meg, head of languages at a university in London. Instead, he ______ , the key element to being a successful language learner is motivation.

“I was excited at the prospect of learning a language,” says Jason. “I ______ not doing it in my younger days. When you’re ______ a family and working, you’re committed to those things. Learning a language and meeting people is exciting. It’s ______ to go out and I look forward to it.”

Learning a language could potentially help to ______ the growing concern around loneliness among older people in the UK. “Loneliness is a terrible thing. Going to a class is socializing. If you get out, you are with other people and that’s a(n) ______ for sure.” says Jason.

When I first entered university, my aunt, who is an English professor, gave me a new English dictionary and advised me to use it. I was ________ to see that it was an English-English dictionary, also known as a monolingual (单语的) dictionary. Although it was a dictionary intended for non-native learners, none of my classmates had one and, to be honest, I found it extremely ________ to use at first. I would ________ words in the dictionary but still could not fully understand the meanings. I was used to the ________ English-Chinese dictionaries, in which the words are ________ both in English and Chinese. I really wondered why my aunt gave me such ________ to make things so difficult for me. Now, I understand that monolingual dictionaries are ________ in learning a foreign language.

As I ________, there is, in fact, often no perfect equivalent (对应物) between two ________ in two languages. My aunt even ________ that even a Chinese “equivalent” can never give you the ________ meaning of the word in English! Therefore, she insisted that I read the definition of a word in a monolingual dictionary when I wanted to get a better ________ of its meaning. Gradually, I have come to see what she ________.

Using a monolingual dictionary has helped me in another important way. This dictionary uses a (n) ________ number of words, around 2, 000, in its definitions. When I read these definitions, I am ________ exposed to the basic words and learn how they are used to explain objects and ideas. Because of this, I can express myself more easily in English.

It was 80 years ago when I wrote my first letter to Paul and Renee. I was about 13. Paul was the same _________ as me, his sister Renee was two years younger, and they lived in France. I was crazy about learning languages, so I was _________ when my French teacher assigned (分配) us pen pals.

It was quite a(n) _________ to get a letter from a foreign country, so I _________ receiving their reply. They weren’t good at English, so after six months, we were all writing in _________ , which helped me have a good knowledge of the language.

I decided to go to France on holiday in 1949 to_________them. The family _________ me well, and I visited several times in the years that followed. The first time I met Renee, she _________ me up at the station, and we hit it off straight away.

Lnever.got to meet Paul. Renee wrote to me and _________ me that he had died shortly after joining the army. Renee and I continued writing to each other, and our friendship became __________ . We talked about our families, our __________ and cur troubles in life. After that I moved to South Africa for a while, married, had children, and changed jobs. Throughout all this, we __________writing letters.

I’m 93 now and I still write to Renee. She has difficulty writing now, so she phones me to__________ . Most people don’t seem to have the __________for letters anymore, but it gives me great pleasure to write. And this is the most valuable __________ I have ever had.