Tim Doner-Abdalaziz Baroun

Tim doner is a successful foreign language learner. He speaks more than twenty language. I find that the patience he has and the committee is amazing and it the most interesting thing about him. I liked his ways in learning languages and one of his ways got my attraction. When he visited stores and markets trying to find someone speaks one of the languages that he speaks. I think that is a good strategy and I will emulate it. I really appreciate Tim for his hard work and for his ability. It is really interesting when you find someone that his mother language is different from yours and speaks your language   

Tim Doner - Bia Anchão

Tim Doner was born in New York. He is considered the youngest polyglot in the world, being fluent in more than 20 languages.

His history started when he was just a child, and were a cast actor. He liked to perform in different accents and by doing this, he realized how funny and interesting other cultures could be. He had French classes during school, but his first achievement as a polyglot was learning Hebrew by himself. Later on, more and more languages became part of his daily activities, seeking for knowledge but also entertainment. As proof of that, his methods to learn includes traditional tasks, such as reading, grammar/vocabulary repetition and memorization, but also nontraditional ones, such as images with actions and playing with phonetics.

Images with actions:

In a image or photograph of a place that you know pretty well, insert 10 or more action words that you use to do in specific spot in the new language. Then, try to describe all of them, using the new language words.

Playing with phonetics:

Figure out 3 or 4 new words that have similar sounds, even they have nothing in common. Repeat them, in different moments of your day, seeking for memorization.

The way he found to overcome obstacles has fascinated me. Instead of giving in when he couldn't speak French fluent, he rediscovered himself and his love for languages, but mainly his love and respect for others cultures.  

I'll use his "image with actions" method to keep improving my English, and also my sense of localization in Dunis! XD

Tim Doner-Chiaki Kitaoka

Tim Doner is a polyglot who can speak more than 20 languages. He learning languages as his hobby. He tried many ways to learn languages. The ways interested me.
 He said he listened songs in which the other language is written and sped them back up. When I heard this, I feel so sad because I tried the same but couldn't reach his level. However, he stepped further.
 He also chat with native speakers. I think this extremely helps us enhance our language which is not the mother tongue.
 Moreover, he record himself speaking language into his computer and uploads them on you Tube. Then, native speakers who watched the videos left him advise.    As you can see, Tim carried many techniques. I must learn from him.
 It is interesting that he also mention to the fact that losing one languages means not only itself but also losing their mythology, history and folklore. Learning the others' language connects learning more than just language.

My ways of learning English

 I have been in New Zealand since October and when I came   here I wasn't good at English and I thought that it is hard but      in fact I found it the opposite .I learned a lot about English and  I enjoyed it .From my experience learning a foreign language needs time and patience.Also committee .I think the most important thing in learning new language is how to learn it or study it.you need to chose the best way for you what suites some students prefer to watch films other like to  

.read instead.So it is different  from one person to another

 For me I like to watch movies with subtitles in English. This helps to learn new words with knowing how to pronounce them and how write them .also I try to have a conversation with native speakers that helps to learn how to speak fluently

this is my ways in learning English.

Tim Doner-Natsuki Sakamoto

 

I watched any video about him, and learned how he learning any language and how should I learn an additional language.

 Firstly, he uses any language every day. He considers language is a way of life. He spends most of the time learning English. I still think it is essential for us to make it a habit.

Secondly, he adopts audio output in his learning. He always output at home by using the internet, with loud voice. He watches videos and repeats what the actor said. He says that it enables him to learn any language effectively, and it is fun as well. He also said that even if there is no teacher with you, we can learn enough because we can use many stuffs like books, movies and computers. I guess what he would like to say is the most important thing when learning English is to have fun, enjoy.

Thirdly, he has a thought that once we learn a basic grammar, it easier to learn, so all we have to do is to learn a basic of the language. Then, we just use it without being afraid of making mistakes. This idea encouraged me.

He speaks over 20 lunguage, so some people think that Tim is talented in language, but I don’t think so. He always makes effort. Watching video is one of the efforts. He inspired me to do my best.

Tim Doner - Tomoki Fujiwara

As for me, the most interesting thing about him is his passion to learn a new language. Before watching videos about him, I thought I have to learn only English to communicate with foreign people and acquire some new mind-set, because we can share our mind-set with people who can speak in English. However, he said that we should learn a language when we want to get some new thought. This is because language has a strong connection with its culture and thought. This idea can be helped by his saying that “you can translate words easily, but you can’t quite translate meaning”. I believe it means we can’t translate some nuance of the language, and this results in the conclusion that we should learn a new language.

Also, I think we can take one of his way into consideration that he put together some words which have similar way to write down or pronounce, and connect the meaning of these words with some words of another language. I think it can help us distinguish these words easily, and it can prevent us from misunderstanding or misuse of words.

Tim Doner - Futo Anyoji

When I saw Timothy Doner have a talk about language for TEDxTeen in 2014 entitled “Breaking the language barrier”, not only his confident attitude while talking but also a wise sayings he cited seemed powerful and impressive to me. It is Nelson Mandela that Doner quoted from. Mandela said that “if you talk to a man in a language he understands that goes to his head. If you talk to a man in his language that goes to his heart.” This may contain what Doner thinks language is all about. As he refers in his speech he believes learning  language is not just memorizing words or expressions but knowing cultural backgrounds, thought, mindsets or opening “up your mind to the idea language in its sense, in essence, represents a cultural worldview. It is rather notable as it can be connected with the idea that a language which is on the verge of death means a unique perspective on the world is being lost. Doner may be seriously concerned about it, concluding “you can translate words easily but you can’t quite translate meanings.”

Tim Doner-Satoe Konuma

“He is a GENIUS!!!”

This is his first impression to me. He does speak some foreign languages with no difficulty!! That’s really amazing, isn’t it!?

Almost all of you think so too. We consider that he is talented and has a special brain. But later, the more I watched the YouTube video, the more things I found. When the video finished, I came to have both positive and negative thoughts about him, so I will show you my thoughts here.

 

Positive Part

Accorrding to the video, he spends many hours on studying foreign languages every day. That means “He does make a lot of effort”. So, the reason why he is good at foreign languages is not only his talent but also his endeavor.

Then, how does he study new languages? His answer is “to have a lot of audio input”. That is, “watching TV is important when learning an additional language”. He also says that repeating the words and phrases (which are on TV) over and over is a good way to train. His advice is very useful to me. Instead of TV, I read the textbooks for beginners and repeat aloud after the textbooks’ CDs. To be honest, I am sometimes bored with my method, so his way looks enjoyable and I will try it!!

 

Negative Part

As I wrote, Tim Doner actually masters 20 foreign languages. But I wonder if he can do other academic activities such as reading books, writing passages, studying other subjects, and so on. Naturally, the more time he spends on studying new languages, the less time he has to do other things.
Of course it is admirable to learn 20 foreign languages, but other abilities (for example, thinking logically and writing something academically) are also important. This opinion is based on my experience. When I studied five new languages at the same time, I had little time to do other academic activities. So, I didn’t have a habit of thinking logically and writing something academic. This led me to have a lot of trouble in thinking logically and writing reports. To be honest, I am suffering from this blog! (Of course I know the importance of writing this blog and I want to be good at writing!) Therefore, I am worried about his spending too much time on studying new languages.

 

End

Although he seems to study other subjects a little, he is very brilliant to master 20 foreign languages. That’s absolutely true. I want to master foreign languages like him, so I will watch TV and use the Internet sources when I learn a new language.

Tim Doner-Minami Kamata

  I watched the two videos about Tim Doner who can speak 20 languages. He can speak Russian,Italian,Chinese and Indian etc. 

  He said he thinks the most rewarding part of learning Farsi is understanding Iranian culture and history. I thought I should understand not only their culture and history but also language when I hear that. He read many newspapers with different languages in the video. He also read some books for each languages. For example he introduced books written in French and German. He thinks the best way to learn languages is using audio device and input knowledge. He also said repeating over and over and watch movies is good for learning languages. I like watching movies,so I will try this this method I thought. He said he's leaning many languages without teaching from teacher. However he spend most of his time to study languages. When I heard it,I thought I can study language up to my efforts. I also thought I should make a lot of effort harder than anyone else to seccess. 

  After I watched his movies I thought he tries many  methods to learn languages. If you try many method to learn languages you can enjoy studying it. I will try some of the way he recommended for us.

Tim Doner - Nanako Komori

I selected “Teen speaks Over 20 Language” and “Polyglots Teen speaks 23 languages” .

I really impressed the comment in first video, learning language is “way of life” for Tim. He watches movies and TV shows and that connect his study directly.  I want to emulate the way to use audio in studying language. I want to use YouTube, movies, TV shows and so on.

And in the latter video, he said if you knew French, you were able to understand languages which have same rule to it, like Italian and Spanish. I learned French in my university, so I want to try other Romance language. Also, he mentioned in video, to learn one language made it possible to understand culture, history and society the language was used. I want to understand the background of language I am studying.

Tim Doner-Kazuma Hiroi

The language Tim Doner acquired first is Hebrew. He began to learn it when he was thirteen years old because he was interested in issues in Middle East Asia. Now that he can speak more than twenty languages, he is called a polyglot. The most interesting thing he said is that “The important thing to do is to have a lot of audio input over and over”. He said watching TV is the basis of learning languages because It exposes you to the normal rate of speech and more colloquial usage of words than textbooks.

I want to emulate his way of learning languages because I think it is reasonable. Many studies show that we can remember something  more by using not only visual but also audio. After I go back to Japan, I will watch a lot of movies in English.

Tim Doner - Haruki Washio

He says each language has its own expression that shows how one society or culture thinks, so he becomes a little bit a different person when he starts to speak a foreign language and he may say something he wouldn’t say in English. English, his mother tongue, is a great common language so it is possible that it interferes with his learning a different language, but since he understands as above he can continue learning, I think.

His parents say he studied languages 20 hours a week. I think it’s great but at the same time I wonder how it’s possible with only 20 hours because he has not  only to acquire new languages but also to maintain ones he already know.

He told us some tips for learning foreign languages such as repeating self over and over. I noticed that I can get a clue from such YouTube clips.

Tim Doner - Huiwon

I watched TED about "Breaking the language barrier"

The most interesting part of this video was he had posted his procedure of learning languages on

the YOUTUBE. Amazing! What happened after posting? Lots of native people commented on that

such as correcting his pronunciation and also he could make native friends easily and naturally!!

I always say that It’s hard to get a chance to talk with native speaker. But it’s not true. If I can

overcome my inner fear about making mistakes in English, I can get many chances everyday

everytime.

Tim Doner - Urara Motomura

I found that Tim Doner has a strong passion for language learning. He likes to learning language and finally connect to another person by speaking foreign languages. I thought that learning languages is his way of life.

The most interesting I found about him is he uses imaginal space to memorize new vocabulary. I agree with this method because memorizing based on places is effective and easier to remember. Moreover, he usually memorize simple words at first, for example, father, hand and bread. It is also effective because we can use daily. So, I will try these strategies.

Tim Doner always practices languages he has learned in many daily situations. He said in a video that New York is a good place to learn foreign languages because it has a linguistic diversity. He usually tries to talk with foreigners to test his language skill and to improve his skill. I would like to talk to foreigners more and watch more DVDs.

Tim Doner-Yuto

    For him, learning languages is not his hobby but a way of life. In each study, he experiments on lots of ways to learn and evaluates them. To consider about the way of studying is really important in order to study effectively.
    I've found three ways of his leaning method. First thing is about audio input. He listens to lots of music and watches TV shows and movies in language that he wants to learn. This helps to improve listening skills and pronunciation.
    Second thing is the importance of getting feedback. He posts his videos in which he speaks languages that he wants to get feedback about. And he talks with the native speakers once a week to get feedback of his skills.
    The last thing is about the ways of memorizing vocabulary. He tries to find some similarities between words in terms of phonetic similarities, meaning, and so on. It helps you to learn as much words as possible.

Tim Doner- Rio Nagasawa

 I selected "Teen Speaks Over 20 Languages."
 What I thought the most interesting about his learning strategies was that he didn't do any special things like expensive private lessons or home staying in other countries. Instead , he used flashcards apps and instructional books (I got this information other than the movie) and often watched movies or TV shows. For example, he watched Japanese animations when he learned Japanese. I use the same statistics when I learn English, but I think he has much  stronger passion to learn from movies or TV shows than me.
 I always watch English movies with Japanese subtitles and miss most of English speaking voices. However, if I really want to master English, I had better stop watching with subtitles or use subtitles but  be more careful to what people are saying in a movie.
 It was also interesting that he learned minor languages like African dialects. In the movie, he said learning foreign languages was just his hobby, but I expect him to  deal with ethnical or international relationships with his extraordinary talent.

Tim Doner - Hiroki

I wached the movie “Breaking the language barrier”.

I was amazed that fact that even Tom Doner , he studied a lot of  languages by grammar books and by wachting TV shows. 

I think his unique way of memorize was really useful. He used the way that memorize similar word of different languages.  He memorizes many words, so  if he see a word, he can imagine another words related. 

The most interesting things that he said was conversations change depenging on cultures. Therefore, he said , you can translate word easily but you can’t translate the meaning. If you are not polyglot, you cannot find the fact. So, if you say the  same meaning, their reply maybe different.

I want to emulate his unique way of memory.  When I learn new words in English, I will try connect English and Japanese.

Tim Doner-Ryo Nakanowatari

His way of thinking is quite interesting. He said as he learns a language he will become a little bit different person because he thinks acquiring a language is knowing about the society and history in which the language is spoken and he gets new perspective and idea. Speaking of other polyglots I read about in the textbook, they are generally in the environment which helps them to learn language. One of them was born in the environment in which different family members speak different languages. However, Tim was born in normal family, but he succeeded in learning a lots of languages. It is amazing. One of the basis of his learning language is watching TV or movies. It makes you to be exposed to normal rate of the language and colloquial register. And he said he normally repeated it over and over again. I also think that it is useful for me so I will introduce it into my daily language learning.

A Shortcut To Good Progress In An Additional Language - Futo Anyoji

Sometimes it is very enjoyable to learn an additional language, particularly when you have just started. However, you will soon find it very difficult, or almost impossible to master one language after you have grown up. You may be wondering why you cannot develop your language ability just like babies do, common geniuses in language. As for me, English is the first additional language, which I am still learning and is my best language besides Japanese. Recalling how I’ve been learning English I may be able to say the best way to learn a second language is to imitate the way babies acquire their own language, that is, to communicate with native speakers, listen to them, speak to them. You will be able to improve your pronunciation by imitating them, and they may correct your accent, grammar in a right way when talking with you. You do not always need to go abroad. It is also a good idea to take private lessons in your own country or speak to foreigners who visit your country as tourists or something. I had not been to any foreign countries until I visit Cambridge when I was fifteen, but before that, I had had a chance to participate in a summer program, where professors and students at a well-known American university were engaged and taught us English. Simultaneously I started to take private lessons. Both were truly helpful for me back then and I believe, thanks to them, I got much better, gaining confidence in my English, which encouraged me to visit English-speaking countries.    

To communicate with native speakers has all the essence you need to master the language you are learning. It seems the best shortcut you can take to developing your vocabulary, including colloquial expressions and idioms, fluency, listening ability etc. I hope you and I will make the most of this occasion to learn English here in New Zealand!

The way to learn English in my experience-Chiaki Kitaoka

 When you study additional language, there's an effective way. The way is easy to practice and makes you enjoy. It is watching videos which English speakers make on You Tube.  It works better when native speakers don't make a speech but chat.

 However this doesn't work if you watch videos without thinking anything. You can get only amused.  There's some tips for this method.

 First of all, you should choose videos which interest you. The more interested you are, the more you get from the　video and you can continue watching. For example, if you're interested in make up, then watch make tutorials. If you love cooking, you should choose videos about cooking.

 Second, if you are not confident in listening to what they say in the videos, you can watch them with subtitle. Subtitle also helps you find words you don't know. When I come across new words, I stop the video once and write them down on my memo. Then I start watching videos again. 

 Third, you should repeat what they say. By repeating what native speakers say, you can get the key to how to pronounce and speak fluently. Also you can learn how to use body languages.

 In fact, I've watched make up tutorials on You Tube almost everyday. At the time when I start watching them, my listening and speaking skills were more horrible than now but I could improve my skills. If you are interested in cosmetics, I have recommendation for you. If you are confident in speaking and listening, you should watch Jeffre Star and Kathlenn Lights. If you are not, you should watch Im Jenn.

 I hope my method will help you!

I wouldn’t have to struggle that much if I knew that. - Haruki Washio

As you can see, I’m a poor speaker of English so I’m not sure what the best way is to learn a new language, for I’m not sure even what I’m saying in English. When I started to learn French, I felt that it was much easier to learn it if you associate each of French word or grammatical rule with its counterpart in English, so maybe comparing the new language with the one you already know is of a little help for language learners. However, this is not a new idea at all since it is almost inevitable that you use your native language as a ladder when you learn the second language. 
I think you can learn a language faster if you stay abroad but it costs a lot and not everyone can do that so I cannot say that this is the best way, either. Therefore, my answer is “I don’t know”, but I hope I can find something suggestive during my stay here.

Lots of things you can do in your own country_yuto

There are lots of things you can do in your own country.

    When you are to acquire languages other than your mother tongue, everyone thinks that they can’t do it without studying abroad. But is it true? If so, the people who can’t afford going overseas can’t master any foreign languages, can they? Can the only people who has some international experience when they were young be an interpreter or translator? Here, I want to insist NO to that question. (from now on, I will talk about English only coz it’s too annoying to write “foreign languages” each times)
    I admit that studying abroad is one of the best ways to learn English and if you are to master it nearly perfectly, it would be necessary to do it. But at the same time, I think there are lots of ways to study it and each one has some purposes and meanings. For example, watching movies and reading the scripts will help you to practice listening. Trying to talk to yourself in English will be good if you are to practice speaking it. Then, what studying abroad is for? I think it is to get used to using English and make your English more fluent. And this is the last phase of mastering English, I believe. (you can’t stop learning...) So what I would like to say here is that studying abroad is just one of the phases or ways of studying English.
    Actually, I have never been to foreign countries nor studied overseas but I have a feeling that I can communicate in English and I believe (without any reasons) that I can use it as a tool in my future. So to wrap up, I think what you should do when you are to master or learn English is to do what you can do in your circumstances or environment and to try to make the most of it.

(Here I’ve noticed that I don’t say anything specific so far so I’ll write down some good ways in my experience to learn English at your own country)

・Try to talk yourself in English and if you find phrases you have difficulty to say, just search them on the Internet.

・Learn phonetic symbols and use them to practice pronunciations.

・Take or make the opportunities to speak English as much as possible. (for example, find someone to exchange languages with Skype)

How to learn a new language - Tomoki Fujiwara

I think that when learning a new language, especially for beginners and intermediates, it is important to study in a proper order and to repeat practicing and reviewing. The former is especially about input, and the latter is about output. Regarding the order of learning, some people say that the important thing is not to stick to studying about grammar, but to communicate with people who can speak the language or native speaker of the language, but I don't think so. If the person has the freshness and flexibility to learn a lot of new things every day, that method will eventually result in learning the right grammar and quickly speaking a new language, but for a person who has grown up to some extent, that's hard. However, because they understand some difficult concepts and can apply them to some real use in reading or listening comprehension, systematically learning a language will be effective. I think that learning a language from a bird's-eye view will result in mastering the language faster than just in communication. It is also essential to increase the vocabulary in parallel with the grammar. When we increase our vocabulary, we should remember not only the word but also the phrases and sentences in which the word is used. I think sometimes it becomes help now when I talk without the time of thinking about the usage of words. Also, although it is troublesome, when learning a word, it is of course important to listen to it and know the actual pronunciation. So as for the order of learning, we need to learn grammar and get enough vocabulary before we output unnecessarily, I think. Practicing and reviewing is especially about output. Of course, it is important to speak as much English as we can with confidence in front of people, but just using it will slow our progress, I believe. If we can reflect on the fact that this kind of expression was better than what we used or that we successfully use some expression, it is probable that we can improve our language skill faster. Considering these things and from my experience, I believe that we should think about the proper order, then use the language and reflect on the usage again and again.

Make It a Habit - Natsuki Sakamoto

There are a lot of ways to learn an additional language, but the best way that I think is to use that language every day.

 When I was in high school, I was studying English hard every day for the university entrance examination. After taking that entrance examination, I have long-term vacation before entering the university, it was about 2months. During the vacation, I didn’t study English at all because I thought there is no reason why I study. However, I had to take the placement test after entering the university. Since I had known the date of the placement test before the test, I have started to study for that. However, I had not studied for 2 months as I said, so I realized that I lose my English skills especially in terms of the vocabulary. In the end, my score of the placement test was too bad than the score I had got in the high school. After entering the university, I have been studying English hard every day and using it every day as well. Therefore, my English skills getting better. Even though I don’t study English only one day, my English skills get bad.

From these experiences, the best method to learn an additional language is to use or study EVERY DAY.

Foreign languages in everyday life- Rio Nagasawa

When I was 12 years old, I started studying English for the first time at my junior high school. It was hard for me because I did not know much about English other than alphabets or simple greetings. Especially, pronunciations and memorizing new large numbers of words were difficult. In order to overcome this problem, I practiced in mainly two ways.

 The first one is that read the textbook and words book aloud over and over. And the other one is that I tried to find similar or same expressions and words in daily lives. For example, in sightseeing spots in Japan, big stations, lyrics of foreign songs or movies. When I found the words that I have already learned, I was so excited that it motivated me to work harder. 

I can say the same thing when I started learning Chinese in my university. When I went to sightseeing spots or airport in south east Asian countries, I could find many Chinese writing and it made me feel like continue to study Chinese.

Watching dramas〜family comedy ーHiroki

I like watching dramas.I think  that watching dramas is the best way to learn an additional languages for me.

I’m from Japan. I  think Japan has very different culture from other foreign countries. Different cultures have different lifestyles. For example, Japanese people have family’s car only because Japan is quite small country and traffic is developed very much but in other countries such as America, people have their own car. If you don’t know lifestyles of other countries, you must be upset because you are not familiar with the lifestyle. So, it is really important to understand their backgrounds

and what they are thinking in daily lives.

By watching dramas, especially family comedy, you can learn how foreign people live their lives. Moreover, of course, comedy is really funny and most of dramas will finish for 30 minutes. So, you can enjoy dramas and your concentration will continue easily for whole time.

I prefer a drama “full house”. This is interesting drama. Surely, you can enjoy this.

You know how difficult it is - Huiwon

After I’ve learned lots of basic things such as vocabulary, grammar in English, my goal has 

been always to speak fluently. However there were not many chances to talk with native

even though I’ve been living in New  Zealand. So during last 6 month, I’ve asked myself 

whether staying here is worth or not. 

While I was considering about efficiency of living abroad, my family visited NZ to meet me

and travel here. We were traveling around southern island for 10 days, during that time I had 

to solve lots of troubles. For instance, We hired big campervan to travel and one day this car 

was stuck in the sand near a beach. So I needed to converse with many native people not

only directly but also on the phone in order to ask some help. Usually when I talk with someone about a subject that is not familiar with me, I used to hesitate a lot because I need 

seconds to check the grammar and the order and everything in my sentences. But in real 

situation such as the accident, no one waited for me while I prepared my perfect  sentences. 

At that time, I had to listen and get it and also speak a lot according to the speed of native. 

After that incident, I’ve been getting more confident and realised that It is really important to 

face diverse situations and to communicate with others to deal with it.

Although there are lots of contents which let me know how to learn a second language

efficiently on the internet and also I’ve watched them quite often, the reason I can’t speak 

English more fluently is I don’t carry out the ways that many teachers recommended. I know 

that it is useless that i just know something unless i don’t practice it a lot. 

But you know how difficult it is.

To learn here and to enjoy using English - Nanako Komori

I think this situation I'm facing now is one of the best way for me to learn an additional language. That is to jump into new environment using the language I want to learn. From my experiences, when I went to the United States for two weeks in my high school days, I felt that I became better in listening to English and speaking it. If you go to environment that you want to learn, almost all of the things around you are written in the language, and people around you are talking in the language. Then you try to understand what signboard means, what local people say and try to communicate with them. It makes possible for you to improve your English skills!!

But in my experience, after I got back to my country from the US, I felt my skills went worse. So I think not only going foreign countries where people speak the additional languages, but also keeping the skills are important. 

To keep the skill, maybe to enjoy movies, musics and books that use the language is good. If you like artists who is native in the language, you are more motivated to to learn and improve the language.

From the above, I think, the best way to learn an additional language,  it is important to learn from everything around me, which will be people, just a signboard and books. That is for me to learn here, in this language center and to enjoy using English.

The best way to learn an additional language-Kazuma Hiroi

Before I came to New Zealand, I thought the best way to learn languages is to listen and speak aloud such as watching TV programs and shadowing. For example, I read text aloud and listened to CDs of a textbook when I studied Chinese for exam.

But I have changed my mind and thought studying abroad is the best way to learn languages since I came to NZ. English has been one of the subjects I have to study for exams since I began to study it. But studying abroad brought home to me the fact that English is not a subject but a language. 

It is sometimes tough to put myself in environment where I have to speak and listen to the language all day. However, I think it will surely help me learning it. I will spend much more time in using English and be accustomed to it. I won't miss this opportunity and will make efforts to master English.

The Best Way to Learn an Additional Language in My Experience (Satoe Konuma)

“What’s the best way to learn a foreign language?”

“What’s the quickest way to master a new language?”

We ask ourselves these kinds of questions when we start studying a language.

We all want to use effective study methods so we can learn a language quickly and speak it well.

However, I think there are no methods to learn a language quickly and easily. This thought is based on my experience.
I studied six foreign languages (except English) at university ; Chinese (for a year), Korean, Thai, Russian, French and German (for four months). Moreover, I got high scores in the tests of them. 
Then, you would wonder "How did Satoca get high scores?" In fact, I was not able to find any methods by which anyone can master a new language easily. Instead, I found five important things about learning a language from this experience.

Here, I will show you the best way to learn an additional language.

Five important things when learning languages!!

I think there are five important things when learning an additional language : to love a language itself, to master its characters and pronunciation, to learn its vocabularies, to learn grammars, and to read sentences aloud every day. It is true that they are hard, boring, and not special, but they are essential in learning a language and eventually the simplest way.

1.Love a language itself

This is the most important thing. Perhaps the first question to address is why you want to learn  a foreign language? There are some answers : to travel abroad, to enjoy foreign movies, to communicate with people from other countries, and so on. But if you must use your hating language in order to achieve your goal, it is terrible. As a partner, you should love a language. With love, you are eager to study and know about him(or her).

2.Master the characters and pronunciation

This is the second important thing. Look at the characters below.

안녕하세요?

Can you understand this? Naturally, if you don’t know these characters, you cannot understand words. So before you memorize vocabularies, you must master characters. Then, if you don’t know its pronunciation, you cannot speak with people, so the pronunciation is essential too.

But you don’t have to speak like “a native speaker” because few people pronounce words “precisely”, including native speakers. For example, there are a lot of English users in the world, but there are also a lot of dialects of it, such as British, American, Australian and Canadian. So there is no clear definition about “precise pronunciation”. Of course, You must try to pronounse words precisely, but you don’t have to do that perfectly.

3. Memorize the vocabularies

Can you understand the word above?(안녕하세요?)  Just learning and pronouncing the characters don’t lead to understanding of the meaning, so you must memorize words and their meanings. I recommend to use a book which includes writing words or sentences in your target language on one side and a picture or translation on the other. To learn the words or sentences, you look at one side, see if you can remember what’s on the other side, then turn it over to see if you’d remembered it correctly.

Also, you should check the words constantly. This means that you’ll remember a word much better if you look at it once a day for five days, rather than five times in the same day.

Another tip for remembering vocabularies is that people tend to remember things better when they can link them to personal experiences. Linking words in the language you’re learning to words and images in your own language helps you memorize words easily.

4. Learn grammars

Do you really need to study grammar when you master your mother tongue? Almost all of us say, “No.”
But how about a foreign language? A foreign language is different from a native language, so the way to learn a foreign language is also different from the way to master our mother tongue.
Grammar rules do help people speak more accurately. This statement comes from my experience as a language learner. Knowing the grammar helps me understand what the sentences say and I can read books written in my target languages.

5. Read sentences aloud every day

Now, you know the importance of learning characters, pronunciation, words and grammar, but if you can’t be bothered, it’s never going to happen. You must use it. Ideally, you can speak with your friends who speak your target language, but this case is rare.
Instead of this, an easier way to use it is to read sentences aloud every day. Reading helps you revisit learned vocabularies and see those words in new sentences and contexts. One excellent source of foreign language exposure is through graded readers, which are designed specifically for language learners.
Moreover, reading sentences aloud every day helps you get used to the sound and rhythm of the language, which leads to improving your speaking and reading  skill.

The Best Way to Learn an Additional Language in My Experience

In conclusion, the best way to learn a new language is to master its characters and pronunciation, to learn its vocabularies, to learn grammars, and to read sentences aloud every day. This way is not special, but it is the simplest and the most essential process in learning an additional language and this is how I have studied seven foreign languages.

Read the same thing many times.-Ryo Nakanowatari

The best way to learn an additional language is to read the same passage again and again in a loud voice. One of the benefits is that you can pick up some new words easily by reading the same sentences many times. If you find a word or a phrase you don’t know, you can look it up and learn the meaning. Next time you read a sentence which includes the word you’ve looked up, you will understand meaning and as you keep reading, you’ll be familiar with the word. The more you read, the more familiar you become with.

In addition, if you read the same passage many times, you’ll read faster because you will remember the contents of it, but surprisingly, not only the speed of reading the passage which you read many times but also the speed of reading a new passage increases. A study suggests that reading the same thing many times strengthen your memory while reading. Reading fast requires retaining information while reading, so it is helpful for reading fast to strengthen your memory and in order to strengthen your memory while reading, reading the same many times is important.

The way to make learning interesting - Urara Motomura

I think that enjoying learning language is the best way. And for me, there are three points of making learning interesting.
One is comparing with your mother tongue. Learning foreign language is difficult when you cannot find any same point between your mother tongue and the foreign language, because you have to change the way of thinking. However, I believe many of languages have some same points in grammar or vocabulary.
Second point is learning not only linguistic knowledge but also its culture, for example, life, event and food. Studying abroad is a good example. Preparing to travel its country by yourself is also a good idea.
The last but not least is “Rome was not built in a day”; continuity is the father of success. To continue learning an additional language is more important than any other method. I think you don’t worry if you cannot pick up new additional language. If you are a super genius, you must forget what you see and listen many years ago. So, never give up and continuing practice is the best way to learn an additional language.

Best way to learn languages-Minami Kamata

　I think to speak a lot with the native speakers is the best way to learn additional languages. I have some experiences to study abroad. 

The first time I went to foreign country is when I was a junior high school student.Second time is when I was a high school student.I really regretted for many things through these two experiences. For example,I thought Why didn't I study more before I came here,I should have talked with my hostfamily more,I should have tried something.However after I Came back to Japan I found I can hear English than before.Then I had come to think that I want to study English more.
　While I studied in high school,I decided to study English more in unversity.Now,I use English a lot everyday,so I can improve my English skills than I was junior high school and high school student. 

　For this experiences I think to go to onother country which people speak the language you want to learn and speak with native speakers a lot is the best way to learn additional languages.

Diving into a culture - Bia Anchão

Sometimes we got stock in the idea of studying and forgot how important is practicing what we have learnt. Or sometimes, we just are a little bit shy to show people what and why we have been studying so hard. Coming to New Zealand was turning time for me.

Recently I moved from Brazil, to work as a dairy assistant in a farm at Papakaio, a inner country area near Oamaru town. I couldn’t know that diving into a new place should be the best way to trully learn English.

Instead of doing repeatedly listening, writing and reading lessons, I needed to understand what my work mates were asking and telling me. Otherwise, things could go really wrong.

And I am pretty sure that in the beginning all this pressure make you feel afraid, but asking them to repeat or teach you something MUST NOT be a reason to you feel this way.  

So, as Mark Spina said today in our class, taking risks is the best way to learn another language!

Welcome to The Advanced DW Term 1 2020 Blog

Welcome to our blog. I'm looking forward to conversing with you here. Trust you'll enjoy the ride. David :-)