Nextepisode’s blog

院生(M1) 専門-開発経済/国際関係

The best way to study English

 

I am stopping my part-time work so that I can study more intensively!

 

Although as I mentioned above, I haven't got any special ideas about the way to study English, I'd say, Just do it the way you feel is best for you, BUT do it intensively and seriously. I've never been to any English classes at all since childhood, but Ive studied Spaish since I was 15, Chinese since I was 18 and a little bit of Indonesian in order to do internship in Indonesia and Turkish since I have met my GF 2015.

 

Speaking of English, I just started by copying out first-year elementary school books onto paper, and then second- and third-year books so as to add all types of English, and then changed to copying out short dialogues from language study books, and then short news articles( like five-line police articles about lost cats) and so on. I learn well by copying things out and then building up my own vocabulary books. The most difficult and time-consuming thing was learning how to use a Japanese-English or English-English dictionary, because there were no compurters for quick on-screen checking in those days, so I just had to guess how words were probably pronunced. Sometimes, I remmember the  first character was very difficult to guess ( philanthorophy, inadvertently) so it sounds hours, or even weeks, to find the answer I was looking for. But the important thing is just never to give up serching, I think. The other thing, I'd say, is that it's better not to try translating too much from your primary language to the other, targer language. It's better to look at the target language all the time and gradually learn to imitate that directly. Take Japanese as an example to make it more accessible, If I want to say 

 

今トルコにいる and すぐ帰国しないだろう. as one sentence, it's no good saying.

今トルコにい(?)、すぐ帰国しないだろう. it's better to say

今トルコにおり、すぐ帰国しないだろう. 

 

But it's not so easy to arrive at that combination by translating from English, because (いる) is usually normal for (I'm)  and (おる)is usually strange. it's only in the combination for the two senences together that (おり)sometimes works out less strange than(い)and I can only learn that by imitating direct from examples of the target language. Therefore, translating too much from Japanese isn't ideal. So read or listen to many hundreds of authentic things, and occasionally copy short samples onto paper or speak them out in imitation. That's my way, but of course it may not be the best way for everyone.

 

If you have your own best way of training yourself, that's probably the best way to follow. But of course, it's always good to try out other new ideas too, from time to time.

 

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