Essay 2-03b Language learning wasn't done in a day!

When human beings appeared in the history of the Earth, they had no language. Along the course of evolution, as civilization progresses, mankind produced languages and improved them to enrich our civilization. At present, using languages is necessary to communicate with others. We can’t live without communicating with people using languages. Therefore, learning languages is very important in our lives. Like others, I’ve learned languages in my entire life.


When I was born I spoke no language. I made no sounds other than crying and laughing. Crying and laughing was the only sounds which I made to covey my feeling. Now, I speak Japanese as my mother tongue and English as a foreign language. I acquired two languages over the twenty plus years since I was born, and I’m still on the way to the goal of learning English. For the next ten years, at least, I'm sure I will be keeping studying English.


Why I’m sure of that is I've heard people say that learning additional languages is life-long endeavor. There is no end for language learning since languages keep changing. Of course I will no longer be a student anymore in 10 years; I’ll probably be using my English skill as an English teacher and have been studying at an English conversation school to improve my English skill for my students and myself. Besides English, I’ll have been learning French, Korean, and Chinese. As for French, I’ve studied it for two years and I want to improve it. It would be a waste not to learn it more deeply, since French, like English, is widely spoken all over the world. As for Korean and Chinese, I’ve never studied them and I know almost nothing about them, but I think learning languages spoken in neighbor countries is as important for us as for Europeans.


Now I want to write about my Japanese language learning experience, as learning my mother tongue, going back to the time when I was born. As I explained, I spoke no language when I was a baby. Crying and laughing was the only sounds I could made to covey my feelings. Though I couldn’t speak any languages, I had already started my Japanese language learning on listening at that time. I actually started listening Japanese language when I was still in my mother’s womb. I don’t think I was motivated to learn languages at that time, but I miraculously memorized a lot of words and expressions, as do other babies, from my parents, older sister, friends, relatives and neighbors. I also memorized a lot of words and phrases from music and TV. My parents especially talked to me a lot and read many books for me. By entering kindergarten, I’d also practiced speaking, making numerous mistakes without feeling the least bit ashamed.


When I was a kindergartener, I learned how to read and write two of the three Japanese syllabaries Hiragana and Katakana. At that time, I started reading books and learning more Japanese by myself. By the time I entered elementary school, I could speak Japanese fluently enough to communicate with others. When I was in elementary school, I learned many Chinese characters, other one of three Japanese syllabaies, every year. By the time I graduated from elementary school, I’d learned over one thousand of them. Including combinations, I knew countless. When I was a fourth grader, I encountered alphabet for the first time in my life. I learned Roman letters and how to write my name using them. After that, however, I had no chance to study English until I entered junior high school. Until the time I finished elementary school, I’d studied only one language.

When I entered junior high school, I started learning a new language, English other than Japanese. Learning English was different from learning my mother tongue, Japanese. I started studying English by studying letters, which are alphabet, and grammar whereas I’d started learning Japanese with its sounds. That is, I started learning my second language by reading rather than learning mother tongue by listening. I kept learning English until I graduated from high school. At that time, I rarely studied speaking except when an ALT, an assistant language teacher which was a native speaker of English, visited once in a while.



At last, let me write about my present language learning. It’s my forth year at KGU now and I’ve studied English as my major. I studied French as well as a third language for the last two years. I also studied Japanese to enhance my powers of expression in my first year at college, which was one year ago. My focus on learning English is speaking and writing now, whereas my focus was mainly reading and listening at jr. high and high school. I mean, I study productive skills now while I studied passive skills at the first stage of English learning.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying English in class at college. Besides that, I've also used my free time for studying English. As for improving listening skill, I think you can't catch English spoken faster speed than you can speak so I’ve practiced speaking English as fast as I can. The focus was how fast I could speak so I tried not to think of the meaning while I read aloud. I often recorded my reading using an mp3 player and compared my reading to the sound source such as CDs attached to textbooks, movies, songs, and TV dramas. By doing this, I could improve my listening skill. To enhance my speaking skill, I’ve tried to spend my free time with exchange students of KGU. I often visited English lounge and their dorm and go for dinner, drink, and sightseeing. Regarding reading and writing, I studied with textbooks for TOEIC and TOEFL.


Looking back on my language learning history and envisioning my future language-learning plan at the same time, I again realized that language learning requires a lot of time. When you learn a language, it’s important to take a long-term view and look back on what you’ve done. Doing so frequently will accomplish your goal on language learning.
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