What are some red flags that indicate a person is not serious about learning a language?

I'm a native speaker teacher and people in this chamber often act as if the teacher is always the bad one, the one who scams, lies, etc.<br><br>The reality is that in about 30% of the cases I've had, students were not serious about learning the language.<br><br>So I'll share some red flags that I've noticed:<br><br>1. Wanting to learn a language in record time (3 months, 6 months, one year) and then give up. If someone is serious about language learning they won't care if it takes them 5 or 10 years to become fluent. It's about the journey<br><br>2. Wanting to learn a language just for a partner, friends or because they got a job in a foreign country. In these cases it's often not about passion for the language or culture but about pragmatism, which may not be enough to keep someone motivated in the long term<br><br>3. Not having learned any language before and expecting the teacher to spoon feed them and solve all their problems<br><br>4. Not doing homework. If someone is not putting effort on their own, there is no reason to expect they will put effort with a teacher<br><br>5. Insisting they can become fluent without speaking, writing, reading or listening in the target language<br><br>6. Asking the teacher to translate everything to their native language, which is a waste of time and defeats the purpose of language learning in many ways<br><br>7. Expecting the teacher to push them to work, to motivate them. I'm a teacher, not a personal trainer<br><br>8. Not knowing what people mean by "fluency" and thinking it's realistic to be "fluent" in 3-6 months when the average is about 5-7 years<br><br>9. Reading too many language learning books and thinking they know more about the process than a professional<br><br>10. Not liking to do homework with authentic materials and instead wanting to do fake activities like multiple choice questions, language learning app exercises, etc. If someone is not interested in doing homework with authentic materials it means they don't like the language, they just want to learn it for pragmatic reasons<br><br>11. Wanting to learn a language because they think they have a talent for it. There is no such thing as a gift for languages. It's just either passion and hard work or nothing<br><br>12. Not wanting to learn the script of a language if it's different from the Latin alphabet. If someone is not willing to invest a few hours of their time to learn an alphabet, they are most likely not serious about the language<br><br>13. Wanting to learn a language to move to a country and live a different lifestyle but having no idea about how much money they'll need to save, knowing nothing about the country and the costs of living there, etc.<br><br>14. Thinking that language teachers are personal trainers who will help them do all the work, and that with a teacher you can become fluent much faster than by yourself. That's not how it works<br><br>15. Telling the teacher to stop speaking in the target language because they don't understand anything and need everything translated to their native language. If a teacher accepts this kind of thing, he's just trying to make easy money