I want to be able to speak English, but I don’t know what to do, I want to go abroad in the future, but I’m worried about my current language skills … I would like to introduce a little about how to study English by the author who has obtained a permanent residence visa.
First, get used to English with eyes
Do you feel confused when you see a long sentence in English that you are not familiar with? Isn’t your heart about to break just by looking at the first sentence or two? That’s because the English text is too fresh for your eyes! If you feel “pain”, you will not be able to learn English easily. Start by “getting used to” by seeing even a little bit every day.
Then what should I do? Here, I will introduce two methods that I actually tried.
Read English books
Suddenly hard things! You might have thought. However, even though it is a book, it does not mean that you should read a difficult book. All you have to do is read your favorite book, a book that you already know in Japanese. In my case, I like reading all the Harry Potter volumes, so I bought only one original of my favorite volume.
As many of you may know, Harry Potter is quite long and thick even with just one volume. At first, I was a little worried whether I could read through what I knew. However, the point here is not “reading and understanding” but “getting used to the eyes”. So you don’t have to read each sentence thoroughly. In the extreme, you can just look at it while flipping through it.
And there is no such thing as “when you have to read it completely”. So you don’t have to rush and you don’t get stressed. Here, I chose “a favorite book or a book that you know the content in Japanese” so that you can understand the content of the story even with this “para-para reading”. No matter how much you don’t need to read it, it won’t continue unless you have too much content in your head.
It’s important to see how story goes
Even if you can’t translate one sentence perfectly, you can understand the flow of the story by combining the contents of the story that you know in advance and the words that you can understand from many sentences. .. And as you read, you’ll notice words that come up many times and that are keywords in your story.
When I look up the meaning for the first time there, I feel like I’ve solved the mystery at once, and the meaning and usage of the word naturally comes to my mind. If you read it once and then read it again, you will feel that the “pain” that you see with your eyes is much less than the first time. By the way, I had one page a day, so it took me about half a year to finish reading this Harry Potter.
Read news in English
This is easy to do in this era when the Internet and smartphones are widespread. I think it’s a little easier than reading a book, as I mentioned earlier. First of all, one article is shorter than a book. And every article has a title. If you look at this title, you can see what is written. Even if you say “news” in one word, there are various genres such as economy, politics, entertainment news and weather. The point here is that you can choose the type of word you want to learn. For example, if you look at medical news, there are naturally many medical terms and words related to medical care. For those who want to get used to their eyes efficiently according to their purpose, we recommend that you read this news article even once a day.
Get used to English with ears
I’m not good at listening, I don’t know what I’m saying because it’s too fast … I’ll tell you how to “get used to it”. Previously, “listening training” was popular in the streets. You just have to do this. However, you don’t have to buy expensive teaching materials. All you have to do is listen to the radio. This is also possible now that the Internet is widespread.
First, keep listening!!
You can watch it immediately at any time by accessing the BBC Radio in the United Kingdom. When I was in Japan, I was just playing when I was at home every day. It was more like BGM than “let’s listen” before going to bed or when eating rice. Since “English spoken by people” is played on the radio, you can naturally memorize spoken expressions and accents. Again, there is no deadline or quota for how many hours you have to listen. You just have to “get used to it”. So, if you can, try it when you have a place to listen to it every day.
Get used to speak English
If you can understand the meaning of a word but are not good at pronunciation and want to be able to say more fluently, let’s get used to it!
The way to put it out is to “sing”. It doesn’t matter if you’re not good at singing! I don’t sing in public. However, the purpose is to be able to speak English according to the song and rhythm. Any song will do. Suddenly such a fast song is impossible! Those who say that can be nursery rhymes. The rhythm of “Kirakira Hoshi” is quite slow and easy to catch up.
Connection between sounds is important
What happens when you can sing here is that you will be able to “pronounce words by connecting them”. In other words, you will be able to say “slurry”. Take, for example, Wham’s Last Christmas’, which is famous as a Christmas song.
The first phrase is “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. But the very next day, You gave it away.” This last’You gave it away’, but I can’t make it in time if I sing “You gave it away”. When you actually listen to the song, you will hear “You Gebira Way”, and if you sing like this, you will be in time for the next phrase.
Even in actual English conversation, not all words are pronounced exactly. So, if you can “connect words and pronounce them”, you will be able to say it naturally. Also, by singing a song, the song itself will lead you. I think it’s faster to learn by practicing with a “model” than by practicing English pronunciation alone.
There are something you can do in Japan, too
You can’t improve your English unless you’re abroad. The above can also be done in Japan. I have been doing the above even after I went abroad. It is unlikely that you will be able to do it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow! However, once you get used to it, you will realize that one day you will be surprised at how well you have improved your English.
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