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Language Learning method: Part I of V
I recently sent the following message to a friend who said he found it helpful. So I'm posting it here in case any of you might get anything out of it.
Learning languages is great fun, and it does take quite a bit of work. I find it most rewarding if I can keep up with it regularly every day, or at least several times a week. Less often than that, and you're usually not going to make much progress forward.
But learning to speak a language is a huge task to take on. In order to be fluent, you need a vocabulary in the tens of thousands of words, you've got these volumes of grammar rules to learn, and literally thousands of hours of practice, both alone, and in conversation with other speakers in order to develop some facility with the language. Maybe it sounds like I'm trying to discourage you here—I’m sure this all sounds discouraging. But I swear that's not my point. My point is, you have to have a realistic view of what you're up to in order to really take it on.
Maybe you've heard the one about how you eat an elephant—one bite at a time. That's how I deal with this huge project of learning to speak a foreign language.
On one level, I divide the job up into functional parts: I need to learn vocabulary, grammar, and dialogue phrases. I also break it down into skills: I need to develop my ability to speak, to hear, to read, and to write. Each of these shifts the focus a little, and each has special considerations. It seems like it ought to be easy, you learn how to say a word right, you should have no trouble catching it when you hear it. And it does help, but the problem is, we often forget that any skill that involves physical muscles has two parts to it—the knowledge and the execution. The knowledge takes just a minute or so – we memorize the definition or the grammar rule. But then the first time we have to use it in a conversation, we do it wrong. And not just once, but time and time again, over and over. A lot of us get really impatient about that, thinking we're being stupid, hitting ourselves in the head. But there's nothing wrong with all those repeated mistakes. It's just our normal learning process. You had to fall on your butt a few times to learn to walk, to ride a bike, and you'll have to mix up your measure words, or choose the wrong prepositions a huge number of times before your brain forges the proper connections so that you can do it smoothly and easily. All it take is the willingness to be wrong a whole lot of times until you can get it right.
I don't know where you are with the Chinese writing, but if you read and write Mandarin traditional characters, you should have little trouble reading Cantonese. You will mostly need to concentrate on speaking and listening. But I'm sure you'll already know that.
Continued: See Part II of V
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
April 11, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:need help with mandarin
Hi,
I am from Bejing, capital of China, Chinese is my native language. I live in New York. I need to improve my English listening and speaking. Where do you come from? where do you live now?
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Jenny Y.
April 8, 2005
# Msgs: 4
Latest: May 25, 2005
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Re:need help with mandarin
Hi,
I am from Bejing, capital of China, Chinese is my native language. I live in New York. I need to improve my English listening and speaking. Where do you come from? where do you live now?
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Jenny Y.
April 8, 2005
# Msgs: 4
Latest: May 25, 2005
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Re:need help with mandarin
Hi,
I am from Bejing, capital of China, Chinese is my native language. I live in New York. I need to improve my English listening and speaking. Where do you come from? where do you live now?
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Jenny Y.
April 8, 2005
# Msgs: 4
Latest: May 25, 2005
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¿Quieres practicar español?
Hola:
Vivo en la ciudad de México y busco con quien practicar inglés o francés, a cambio puedo enseñar español. Tengo 39 años y soy periodista. No soy goldmember, por lo que espero un primer acercamiento para intercambiar información.
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Language pair: Spanish; French
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Miguel Angel S.
March 28, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:I would like to learn Italian
Hi Danny,
I should be pleased to help you with your Italian.
I live in Rome and I need to practise my poor English.
Get in touch with me to practise exchange .... Im interested.
Bye, Rocco.
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Language pair: Italian; English
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Rocco G.
March 25, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:I want to learn Greek
Hi I have sent a message a while ago that it has not appeared. Maybe because I gave a link and the system must have thought it was an email address. Anyways. No, it is not bye. We say ... Yia or ta leme...
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Language pair: Greek; Greek
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Yalatia N.
March 24, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Answer
Yes, I know from direct personal knowledge that there is such a thing as a gold member. In fact, if you read enough messages you will eventually come across people who will go so far as to confess. admit to such a thing.
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA.
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Language pair: English; German
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Mark S.
March 17, 2005
# Msgs: 2
Latest: March 17, 2005
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Re:Mandarin For English ,Thank you!
Hi! ok... lets see... your message was a little bit difficult to understand. The use of the verb teach is tricky. It is usually confused with the verb learn.
Teach means I give knowledge I am a teacher Learn means I receive, take knowledge, I am a student.
Interesting is a quality of smth or sb while I am interested in sth or sb means something or somebody is interesting for me. (it is feeling, a situation)
So you are interested in Learning English because it is an interesting language to learn and you are seeking friends! It took me a while to figure out your message. I figured out you speak Mandarin by your profile!When trying to write in English remember that English is a very structured language and you need to know the exemptions. Hard work yes. But with couple of penfriends it can be really easy!
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Language pair: English; All
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Yalatia N.
March 17, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:Feeling generous- anyone want to learn English? I'll help teach.
You will help teach? ?? Help sb teach English or will you help sb with learning English? I would be more than glad to help you with your English and Hellenic. I can speak some Spanish, and French and I am learning Turkish. Any knowledge I have I would love to share with you!
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Language pair: English; Arabic, Middle Eastern
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Yalatia N.
March 17, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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