2019年3月30日土曜日

2019年3月30日土曜日 -

Adam: Learning a foreign language

My name is Adam and I'm an instructor at NOVA and also a Japanese language student at J-Kokusai Gakuin located in Hommachi in Osaka. Being both a language teacher and language student, I've learned some insights into studying a foreign language that have helped me to improve my Japanese language skills.

One thing I've noticed about where I teach and where I study is that you only use the language you are trying to learn. I find that this can be difficult but very effective. When I first started, I really struggled to say what I was thinking in Japanese and still have this problem from time to time. However, after only three months I've noticed a big improvement in my Japanese. I'm the only English speaker in my class, so I'm forced to use Japanese and this has undeniably increased my Japanese language skills.

There is something else I've noticed that has become clear to me but I think a lot of people don't think about, and that is that different languages and cultures think differently. For example, one thing my students tend to struggle with is showing emotions when they are talking. Japan has a polite culture and this is reflected in the language.

My favorite lesson to teach is giving an emotional reaction. It offers my students a challenge. When we do exercises and you have to give an angry response, I think I can sometimes scare my students because it seems so real. But because it is so opposite to how Japanese people conduct themselves, I believe it helps them to think more like a native English speaker and improve their emotional responses.

Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope this helps you with your studies!

insights : 洞察力
effective : 効果的な
struggled : もがく
from time to time : 時々
improvement :上達
undeniably :　まぎれもなく
tend to : ～する傾向がある
reflected : 映し出された
response :応答
opposite :正反対
conduct : 導く