I WAS going over the
article about the 20-year-old Oxford student who speaks 11 different languages –
as well as another article – and learned (and was reminded) that no single
method of learning a language is the best.
Alex Rawlings, the
student, said his mother spoke to him in Greek, French and English.
In a way he picked up
on what the mother taught him and then he learned others when he went to
school, or on his own.
The point that came
to mind was using different methods should help complement each other –
learning by speaking to others, using a text book, video, YouTube, etc.
There was also the
point that some methods work better for some people than others.
Some people can
easily pick up languages by listening to others speaking it. Others need basic
rules/grammar with text (as in English or French) to identify words and work
out the correct pronunciation.
Some time ago in
England, people taught learning grammar rules often hindered students from learning
languages (like French). Now, they realize that grammar rules are important – important
for English as well as any other language their students would like to learn.
From experience, I
have come to appreciate English better (as well as revisiting the basic parts
of speech e.g. noun, verb, conjunction, adjective, etc – things we learned in
school) when I delved into studies in French.
The basic structure
of language also is important to note as in recognizing the order of the
SUBJECT (S), OBJECT (O) and VERB (V) in a sentence. See the examples in these
languages:
1. PIDGIN: Mi harim yu. (S-V-O)
2. ENGLISH: I hear you. (S-V-O)
3. FRENCH: Je t’écoute. (S-O-V) (Je te + écoute)
4. MOTU: Oi lau kamonai. (O-S-V)
As you can see in
Pidgin and English (for this sentence at least), the structure is the same.
That is not the case in French or Motu.
Students of French
must understand that.
Notice that in Motu
the object is usually placed before the subject. It seems weird? Well, that is
its structure.
All languages have
their own “weird” rules. You should learn them to be confident in the use of the language that you are studying.
C’est une nouvelle semaine. Bonne semaine. Bon chance. (It is a new week.
Have a nice week. Best wishes/good luck.)
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