If you're going to learn a new language, you can't try to be perfect. You'll stop yourself from talking. You just have to let go.
Interpretation
Learning a new language requires accepting imperfection to communicate effectively.
In this quote, Yao Ming emphasizes the importance of allowing oneself to make mistakes when learning a new language. The fear of making errors can inhibit progress and prevent meaningful communication; thus, embracing imperfection is crucial for language acquisition and fluency.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a language class to encourage students to speak without fear.
Every sound in the gym is so fantastic. The screams of the fans, the whistle of the ref, the teammates calling to each other, the sounds of the ball touching the wooden floor, the sneakers touching the floor, and the sounds of the fight, the muscle and the sweat. Oh, and the last one-when the ball goes through the net. Don't laugh at my sensitivity and romanticism - those sounds really attract me.
When I was young, we were taught not to dunk. We were taught not to stand out from the rest of the team. It's different now.
When the buying stops, the killing can too.
I only want to play basketball, and play it well and be happy about it. But I realize that with being famous, comes a lot of demands.
Every day seems to bring news about another for-profit college scam. Hundreds of thousands of students have been deceived, misled, and harassed into enrolling at these schools where they end up with a mountain of debt and a worthless degree.
The elimination of ignorance, of illiteracy... and of needless inequalities in opportunities (is) to be seen as objectives that are valued for their own sake. They expand our freedom to lead the lives we have reason to value, and these elementary capabilities are of importance on their own
American youth attributes much more importance to arriving at driver's license age than at voting age.
Out of the homes of America will come the future citizens of America, and only as those homes are what they should be will this nation be what it should be.
To have a vision of the cosmic plan, in which every form of life depends on directed movements which have effects beyond their conscious aim, is to understand the child's work and be able to guide it better.
It has been a privilege to pursue knowledge for its own sake and to see how it might help mankind in more practical ways.
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