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Learning a New Language
Learning a New Language

Learn English: ESL Lesson about learning new languages

Date: Feb 18 2020

Themes: School, Travel

Grammar: Simple Past Tense

Intro

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As a kid, learning a new language is pretty easy. In fact, the younger you are, the easier it will be. Once you become a teenager, it’s harder to learn a second language. And adults can definitely build conversational skills, but it’s even harder as you get older.

The best way to gain fluency in any second language is to listen to it 24/7. You can have an aptitude for language and the ability to memorize new words, but you will pick up any language faster when you hear and speak it every day. Not only that, but your accent will be far better than if you learn it from a book. Just one more reason why traveling is so cool!

Listen to Gary and Julie talk about their experiences with learning new languages in today’s English lesson.

Dialog

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Julie

Julie

Gary

Gary

Julie:  So, Gary…

Gary:  Yeah.

Julie:  Do you speak any languages other than English?

Gary:  I can speak very little Spanish and Japanese.

Julie:  Did you learn them when you were in school, or did you live somewhere outside of the US?

Gary:  Good question! I learned Japanese while I was living in Japan, so Japanese was around me 24/7. So it was pretty easy. Do you have an aptitude to learn new languages?

Julie:  I think I do. I do. I studied French when I was a teenager, and I studied Spanish in college. And because those languages are so similar, I think that helped me to build fluency in both of them. Well, I shouldn’t say… I’m not fluent. I would say I have conversational skills.

Gary:  But it was much easier for you to be able to memorize different words because in Spanish and French they were very similar.

Julie:  Sometimes the verbs are almost identical. It was easier for me to pick up Spanish because I could think about the word in French. Would you say that being in Japan also helped with your accent? Do you know what I mean?

Gary:  Yeah. I think I heard certain words that were spoken in a specific way. And in fact, I learned a Tokyo-based accent, versus an Osaka-type accent.

Julie:  That’s interesting.

 

Grammar Point

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Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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Discussion

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Gary and Julie have both studied different languages. Gary speaks some Spanish and a lot of Japanese. He lived in Japan, so he heard the language 24/7, which made it easier for him to learn.

Julie learned Spanish and French in school. Because the languages are very similar, she was able to develop conversational skills in both. One day Julie may even have fluency in these languages. It takes a lot of work, but it’s worth it!

Do you speak more than one language? Is it difficult to learn a new language?

 

Comments

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tar1ta

tar1ta

Antarctica

@YellovY, do you like listening to English words during sleep?


I did such a thing once :) VOA Special English etc., you know.


It made sleep difficult, that’s all.

08:13 PM Feb 20 2015 |

YellovY

YellovY

Aruba

When we are obsessed for something such as learning English, people might be crazy just to think about it. They might listen to it 24/7 . For example they are listening music during sleep, put on ear phone and they are gone to sleep and I think many people do that. So, they think that if they learn English. Even when they are going to sleep they want to hear the last words. That’s about English, english and english.

12:45 PM Feb 20 2015 |

1 person likes this

tar1ta

tar1ta

Antarctica

Dear Shoba,


Since I used to be, let’s say, “a horse that was being made to drink” I can tell you there is no thirst for knowledge in that case.


Brave? You made me laugh :) If you only knew how strong is my fear of English, especially of speaking in it…


I think I should learn not only grammar but also pronunciation, listening… and stuff.

06:17 PM Feb 18 2015 |

1 person likes this

tar1ta

tar1ta

Antarctica

@saeed.skull,


I can’t get at the meaning of “to listen to it [a language] 24/7” too.


No sleeping, no eating, no drinking, no… no… just learning English :D


I think it’s an overstatement.


06:00 PM Feb 18 2015 |

hoseiny

hoseiny

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

hello, my penpal tar1ta and thank you.


of course i were not complaining about learning english in fact i think it is very joyfull and that is why i continue it. again thanks

02:57 PM Feb 18 2015 |

2 people like this

saeed.skull

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

24/7 .. lol .. that was funny .. thanks


08:40 AM Feb 18 2015 |

1 person likes this

Shoba

Shoba

Sri Lanka



Hello dear WobblyJoe,


Thanks for sharing your learning techniques with us. I’m sure many members, including me, will benefit from them.



05:16 AM Feb 18 2015 |

1 person likes this

Shoba

Shoba

Sri Lanka



Dear Tar1ta,


Unfortunately our English teacher didn’t know that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. 


Then again, don’t you think that some horses might fall for the taste of water when they are given a drop by force? Maybe, our teacher was playing on this concept, who knows? 


As for your next question, it must be around 10-12 books. All the books taught us some grammar points and had worksheets to test our understanding. 


Actually, I think you are very brave to have two grammar books. I have only an idioms dictionary and a phrasal verbs dictionary. Learning grammar is painful for me. 


I can’t believe that some people like grammar so much that they even keep their names as “Grammarist”!



05:11 AM Feb 18 2015 |

WobblyJoe

WobblyJoe

United States

Tar1ta- Good questions.


started/began- I use them interchangeably. So I use starts/begins interchangeably. In that context, they are synonyms. I’m not even sure how I chose which word I plan to use, except it just comes out that way. The few who could distinguish which is correct definitively would  tend to be those who like grammar as a subject. I think.


Kill is to end the life of something. It can be a life as from God or something like a project or a tv show. “Kill it” and “End it” can be thought of as alike in that sense. “Murder” is a crime. Even Homicide, which is normally used as a word for murder, doesn’t actually mean murder. Murder is criminal homicide. There are other kinds of homicide. “homicide” is the killing of a human, “murder” is criminal homicide, “kill” is to end life.


“kind” has many contexts. As an adjective, it can mean someone who is nice. It can apply as an adjective to a thing too as in “the corn was kind to me this year” which would mean “the corn produced well with little effort on my part” or something like that.


When you see “kind” it will usually mean “nice” (but not always in a completely literal sense, as in the example of the corn.) but it’s is also a common form of the meaning of the words ”type” or “sort”. “Different kind of.., Different type of…, and Different sort of…. are examples of the same meaning in three different phrasings. You can give yourself a headache figuring out which is correct, but very few native speakers would hear a difference because all are so common. Same as with start/began.


“Good” and “well” are examples of adverbs that are almost interchangeable but not if you want to sound educated. Unlike some phrasings that perhaps only 10% of English speakers would know is wrong, Good/Well are remembered by about half of the people it seems. In cases of health, people feel “well” not “good”. Thats pretty widely remembered but still commonly heard wrong. Context determines whether you use “good” or “well” otherwise.


07:20 PM Feb 17 2015 |

tar1ta

tar1ta

Antarctica

WobblyJoe,


It seems to me that learning verbs is more difficult. For example, what sentence is right: “the tourist season started” or “the tourist season began”? What’s the difference between “kill” and “murder”? The same problem with adjectives; “kind” – is it about a person or a thing?


And about adverbs: how to take “good” from “well”?  Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples. I hope you understand what I try to tell you :)

06:27 PM Feb 17 2015 |

WobblyJoe

WobblyJoe

United States

Tar1ta- I use them for nouns, verbs, all kinds of words. The word on one side, it’s meaning on the other. I don’t put the words in sentences. I never thought about doing that. In English, words are so portable that learning them in a sentence doesn’t mean much except in that context. It never occurred to me other languages might not be the same way.


I did start out by learning a few basic phrases I knew I’d need such as “where’s the bathroom?”  but now I am working on building vocabulary. The phrases I know will only get me a bathroom, a meal, and directions. I need a vocabulary to do more.

06:00 PM Feb 17 2015 |

1 person likes this

Ditti

Ditti

Hungary


Most of the Ebaby members have right. We should speak, listen and talk English 24/7 or at least one, two hours a day but if you would like to learn an another language you should practise languages twice duble as long as before, don’t we ? Unfortunately it is very much time besides work, family, etc! )-:


Anyway I learnt German for one year. I attended a course which was organized by the unimployed office. I was lucky because I could learn another language for free. But I didn’t want to forget anything from my English and try to learn both of them. It worked for a few months but after I had to realise that I had to give up English for a while because I always mixed the two languages and it wouldn’t be lucky at the geman language exam . J After the exam (which was just an elementary anyway) I wanted to countinue both of them but I didn’t have so much time. Although I think that it is a very big mistake to give up a language when you reached a certain level but I wasn’t able to continue it. Besides I think that I should reach a much higher level at English and maybe I can begin an other language after then.


 

05:32 PM Feb 17 2015 |

tar1ta

tar1ta

Antarctica

WobblyJoe,


Do you learn nouns written on flashcards?


And do you write down only words or sentences with those words as well?

05:21 PM Feb 17 2015 |

1 person likes this

 julito

julito

Argentina

Wobblyjoe,
Very good advice, a good and entertainment method to test ourselves how good we are at memorizing new words. Thanks for the tip !!

05:19 PM Feb 17 2015 |

tar1ta

tar1ta

Antarctica

Grammarist,


I agree with your statement right down the line!


If there is no need for knowing foreign languages, why to learn them? It is not enough that you learn a language, you must use it (including speaking, listening, reading, remembering words) all the time. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t start learning at all. Some time ago I was friends with penpals from Uruguay, Chile and Guatemala. So I decided to learn Spanish. It wasn’t so difficult as English was in some way (mostly there was no need in learning phonemic notation) but I didn’t speak Spanish often and then I forgot all I knew rather quickly.

05:16 PM Feb 17 2015 |

WobblyJoe

WobblyJoe

United States

Like Shoba and Julito, I write them down. I write the word on one side of a 3×5 card and the words meaning on the other side so I can test myself over words by flipping the cards. Just going through the flashcards in the morning really helps me and doesn’t take very long. (oh, “flashcards” is what we call those cards here)


Its how I learned multiplication as a kid. It still works for me.

05:02 PM Feb 17 2015 |

tar1ta

tar1ta

Antarctica

Dear Shoba,


What a horror story you’ve told us!


Didn’t your teacher think that learning a foreign language under compulsion might be an unpleasant thing and his students wouldn’t want to know it at all!?


And do you think students need so many grammar books?  (BTW, how many books were you made to read?)


I have two grammar books and a textbook and it’s more than enough for me. Maybe I’m wrong.

04:55 PM Feb 17 2015 |

Shoba

Shoba

Sri Lanka


Hi dear Djana,


I agree with dear Julito. Jotting down the phrases and new words we come across when we read or hear something new helps us a lot. Going through them from time to time will help you to memorize them more effectively. 


Happy studying, Djana! 



03:38 PM Feb 17 2015 |

1 person likes this

 julito

julito

Argentina

@Djana ,hello,


It could help that if you write down   phrases and new words . It will definetely help.   

12:24 PM Feb 17 2015 |

2 people like this

Djana

Djana

Algeria

I’m learning 3 languages in the same time,english,French and German,and i was learninb Spanish too but i stoped,it’s not hard to learn a new language it just needs a will and a desire for doing it and it will be easy,but i have a problem ,i can’t memorize words well i always forget what i learned :p

12:16 PM Feb 17 2015 |

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