Hector, an adult learner from Alburquerque, U.S.A., was concerned about learning Indonesian. His L1 is Spanish and L2 English. 

To ease his concerns, I showed him how his existing language skills are actually a powerful advantage. 

My method creates a direct connection between what students already know and what they need to learn. I've found that despite English being our common language, it's often more effective to compare Spanish and Indonesian directly. 

First, we focus on the similarities. Indonesian's phonology is simple and consistent, much like Spanish. The vowels are the same, and sounds like the rolled 'R' and the unique [ny] sound are all familiar to him. This gives Hector an immediate advantage: he can pronounce new words with ease, which builds confidence from day one. I also highlight how both languages use the Roman alphabet. 

I also show him how both languages form noun phrases in a similar way, where the adjective often follows the noun. 

English: the intelligent man (attributive)

Spanish: el hombre inteligente

Indonesian: si cowok pintar 

English: David's big house (possessive)

Spanish: la casa grande de David

Indonesian: rumah gedenya David

Next, we tackle the differences, but we frame them as opportunities to forge new neural pathways for him to learn the language. 

Spanish has complex verb conjugations and gendered nouns. Indonesian syntax, in contrast, is free of these complexities. I demonstrate how its simple subject-verb-object structure stays the same, regardless of tense or number. This simplifies the learning process. It saves him from memorizing long verb tables.

Also, Spanish and Indonesian words are often syllabically chunkable, following a simple Consonant-Vowel (CV) structure, unlike English. For example, co-che in Spanish and mo-bil in Indonesian follow the same pattern. This helps him learn new words more easily.