I am staring at a posting in my classroom of three adults dressed in casual travel attire, carrying luggage, and proceeding from the airport with excited looks on their faces. The caption reads "Language is adventure". This is true in my case: the thing that excites me the most is learning new languages, about new languages, and language in general. I am not multi-lingual yet, but I have made a conscious effort and some of these strategies have helped me improve in my retention and immediate use of the language I have learned. Here are some things I do which I would suggest for others.
1. You can't respond if you can't understand - This is a very simple concept, but it is very important to consider: if you are unable to understand what one is saying to you, or if you are unable to understand a text, a song's lyrics, then you will not be able to respond with any sort of meaningful response. The ability to listen and understand comes first and foremost. This is evidenced by the fact that all babies begin learning their mother tongue(s) before their born by listening to the language spoken by their mother. In this same sense, I feel that its best to prepare before living in a foreign country by digesting any kind of media that one can get one's hands on. 2. Meta Linguistic Phrases - This kind of strategy is context dependent and is quite limited in its application, but for someone who plans to be a student in a foreign country, I will be living within an environment I can use meta-linguistic phrases to effectively speed up my language acquisition and comprehension. For example, if you do not understand what a word means, you can ask for someone to explain that word using words. This kind of construction in Japanese is found in the grammatical structure 「何々」というのは? If one is asking about a specific word, this is how it would be used 「飲み物」というのはなんですか。ーーー「飲み物というのは飲める何かの事です。」This strategy will be useful in learning how to ask language specific questions without reverting back to one's native language. This strategy may also be helpful considering that one will not always have the opportunity to fall back on one's native language given the situation. 3. Make use of Every Opportunity to Speak -In my case, my ability to speak effectively on the fly is probably the worst of my four language areas when it comes to Japanese (reading, listening, writing, speaking). I do feel that I have gradually gained the confidence to at least be open about my Japanese studies, but I have certainly not reached the point of speaking freely without any apprehension. This is natural, however, and will disappear with my progression in my studies as long as I take every opportunity available to me to make use of what I have learned. Speak, speak, speak, speak. That's all that needs to be said. And if you make a mistake, speak again until you clear up any misunderstandings.
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May 2019
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