By Kenneth H Jones
To learn a language you need a good motivating reason. It is pointless trying out a bit of one language and then a bit of another simply because you feel like. You need one solid good motive that will drive you to successful language learning. To learn how to speak and write japanese you need a good reason.
My Reason For Learning Japanese
For me the reason I started to learn Japanese was because 10 years ago my daughter had an exchange student staying with us who was from Tokyo. One evening the student's mother rang up to speak to her. I didn't know a single word of Japanese and she couldn't speak English. We were at the end of a phone completely unable to communicate. I couldn't explain that her daughter was out.
I found this event very embarrassing and decided to at least learn some of the language. For some reason this episode motivated me to learn a language. Very soon after this we made friends with a person from Japan now living near us in the UK. We hit it off from day one and she helped me learn the Japanese language.
The point of telling you all this is simply that you need to have a similar impetus to start language learning or you will not persevere with it. Much of the problem with the UK schools language program problems are simply motivation. We are told that our Foreign counterparts are so fluent that you do not need to learn their language. Actually I have found this to be quite incorrect. I have visited Japan, France, Germany and Spain in the last 5 years and had to fall back on my language skills to order food, book a room and get a hire car.
3 Reasons to learn Japanese
1. I need to learn a language to do my job. You can get posted overseas or have to deal with a foreign company who needs to have dialogue in both languages.
2. My new life partner's first language is not English. This could beg the question how you got this far without a common language but it can and does happen.
3. I am moving to Japan and want to become part of the local community. If this is you start now before you get there.
There of course a host of other motivational factors to language learning but there is one more worth mentioning which happens when you have started to learn. This is when you successfully communicate with someone in a foreign language who knows no English. You know enough to make yourself understood and have understood the other half of the conversation. I remember the first time this happened to me in Japan. I had to catch a train but was running late. I simply asked for the platform number of the train to the next city and got a clear cut answer that I understood in Japanese. I got on the train so keen to learn more of the Japanese language.
So learn Japanese by all means but make sure you have a good reason that will give you the discipline to stay with the course.
To learn a language you need a good motivating reason. It is pointless trying out a bit of one language and then a bit of another simply because you feel like. You need one solid good motive that will drive you to successful language learning. To learn how to speak and write japanese you need a good reason.
My Reason For Learning Japanese
For me the reason I started to learn Japanese was because 10 years ago my daughter had an exchange student staying with us who was from Tokyo. One evening the student's mother rang up to speak to her. I didn't know a single word of Japanese and she couldn't speak English. We were at the end of a phone completely unable to communicate. I couldn't explain that her daughter was out.
I found this event very embarrassing and decided to at least learn some of the language. For some reason this episode motivated me to learn a language. Very soon after this we made friends with a person from Japan now living near us in the UK. We hit it off from day one and she helped me learn the Japanese language.
The point of telling you all this is simply that you need to have a similar impetus to start language learning or you will not persevere with it. Much of the problem with the UK schools language program problems are simply motivation. We are told that our Foreign counterparts are so fluent that you do not need to learn their language. Actually I have found this to be quite incorrect. I have visited Japan, France, Germany and Spain in the last 5 years and had to fall back on my language skills to order food, book a room and get a hire car.
3 Reasons to learn Japanese
1. I need to learn a language to do my job. You can get posted overseas or have to deal with a foreign company who needs to have dialogue in both languages.
2. My new life partner's first language is not English. This could beg the question how you got this far without a common language but it can and does happen.
3. I am moving to Japan and want to become part of the local community. If this is you start now before you get there.
There of course a host of other motivational factors to language learning but there is one more worth mentioning which happens when you have started to learn. This is when you successfully communicate with someone in a foreign language who knows no English. You know enough to make yourself understood and have understood the other half of the conversation. I remember the first time this happened to me in Japan. I had to catch a train but was running late. I simply asked for the platform number of the train to the next city and got a clear cut answer that I understood in Japanese. I got on the train so keen to learn more of the Japanese language.
So learn Japanese by all means but make sure you have a good reason that will give you the discipline to stay with the course.
0 comments:
Post a Comment