In 2007, I decided to learn Japanese. I enrolled into a beginners' class where I struggled with grammar, pronunciation and seemingly simple tasks such as telling time and phone numbers. I also could not express myself. I found these extremely frustrating as it was not what I had expected.
I learnt Japanese for around a year but cannot understand most of it. Now I try to be more understanding of the poor pronunciation and/or grammar of some people because I know that I may actually be worser in ability. Also, I now know that I should not judge others without understanding what they go through.
In the polytechnic, I decided to learn German and I experienced similar difficulties. I still learn German here in NUS, although not in this semester. German grammatical structure is easier for me to understand than that of Japanese due to its similarities to English grammar but I find many grammatical points such as prepositions and cases difficult to understand. I also do not understand why certain words phrased in certain ways have unexpected meanings.
I now realize why non-native English speakers fluent in English often make mistakes with prepositions, misunderstand certain phrases or use strange idioms. I hope that I can become a person able to cope with difficult circumstances.
Thank you, Esther, for sharing this information about the trials of your various language learning experiences. It's interesting that through your study of German and Japanese, your awareness of the difficulties that non-native learners of English experience has been enhanced. I wonder though if that includes you developing greater empathy towards others in general as they confront the assorted vagaries in life.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, this is a stimulating post!
Hello Esther!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blogpost.
It is generally well-written. But, for third paragraph, it should be "worse in ability" instead of "worser" right?
Same paragraph: "what they went through" instead of "what they go through"?
For last paragraph, maybe you could change it to "non-native English who are fluent in English".
Please correct me if I am wrong! Nice blogpost! :)
Hi Esther!
ReplyDeleteThis is really an insightful blog post for me, I didn't know that other languages also have grammar!
As compared to the previous blog post, the sentences in this post is generally a lot shorter and I find it very easy to understand :)
Here are some suggestions
For the second paragraph, my suggested version is
"I still could not understand most of Japanese language, after learning it for almost a year. This makes me more understanding towards people with poor pronunciation and/or grammar because I know that I may actually be worse in this ability. Also, I now know that I should not judge others without understanding what they go through."
I changed some of the sentence structure to make the first sentence and the second sentence linked as I believe that the second sentence is the effect as a result of the first sentence. I also changed the "worser in ability" to "worse in ability". :)
Pardon me if i am wrong!
Ke Yun
Thanks everyone for the kind comments!
ReplyDelete