By Richard J Graham
Some people make the mistake of thinking "Oh, I'm going to learn a foreign language, let's learn what all those funny Chinese or Japanese symbols mean!".
Now this usually is quite fun, but is it how you learnt to speak English? Were your parents putting pens and papers in the hands of their wonderful newborn or were they going "coo, coo, coo, isn't she cute?
The chances are that before you even thought about reading or writing, you had several thousand hours of listening and probably quite a few hours of speaking practice behind you.
But what about today? How much of your daily conversation is speaking / listening and how much is reading / writing? What do you think? Well, you're most probably reading this article now and you've probably read a fair few emails & blogs today, but usually around %90 of your daily communication is speaking and listening. Try and count it and see!
That's why if you want to learn a language, forget the reading and writing, start by listening and speaking!
Now there do tend to be two groups of thought on this issue. People like me who think that listening and speaking are more important tend to be really good at listening and speaking but really bad at reading and writing. People who think that reading and writing are more important are usually really good at those, but hopeless when you ask them a question on the street.
The question is, which would you rather be, someone who can read the newspaper and write a beautiful letter, or someone who can chat with anyone they meet over a coffee or beers?
Some people make the mistake of thinking "Oh, I'm going to learn a foreign language, let's learn what all those funny Chinese or Japanese symbols mean!".
Now this usually is quite fun, but is it how you learnt to speak English? Were your parents putting pens and papers in the hands of their wonderful newborn or were they going "coo, coo, coo, isn't she cute?
The chances are that before you even thought about reading or writing, you had several thousand hours of listening and probably quite a few hours of speaking practice behind you.
But what about today? How much of your daily conversation is speaking / listening and how much is reading / writing? What do you think? Well, you're most probably reading this article now and you've probably read a fair few emails & blogs today, but usually around %90 of your daily communication is speaking and listening. Try and count it and see!
That's why if you want to learn a language, forget the reading and writing, start by listening and speaking!
Now there do tend to be two groups of thought on this issue. People like me who think that listening and speaking are more important tend to be really good at listening and speaking but really bad at reading and writing. People who think that reading and writing are more important are usually really good at those, but hopeless when you ask them a question on the street.
The question is, which would you rather be, someone who can read the newspaper and write a beautiful letter, or someone who can chat with anyone they meet over a coffee or beers?
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