Re: [Talk] changing environment around may help …
If I may put in my two cents, an English environment certainly is favorable
for language learners, but determination and conscious efforts used in the
right direction would make learning much more effective. By simply relating to
the way we learn Chinese, our own experience on language learning may provide
much insight.
As we were exploring the world when little and learning to use the tool
called Chinese, the 5 senses were the only things in our possession. This
limitation didn't stop us from learning. On the contrary, this allowed us to
focus on connecting the language to our inherent perceptions without any
disturbance or ambiguity, thus developing our language skills as a second-
nature.
Compare it to the way we learn Engilsh, we are doing exactly what we don't want
to do--learning second-handedly through translations of Chinese. The process
of translation itself is already putting English at a distance, preventing us
to build English as second-nature.
By submerging in an all-English environment, we're trying to create exactly
what we want, cutting off our reception of Chinese information from the
surrounding world, and use English instead. Through our 5 senses, we can link
our perspectives of the world to English itself. Even though it would be
impractical to try to find such an environment in Taiwan, we can still achieve
the same mental state with a conscious effort.
Words of Advice:
To push the learning one step further and truly prevent yourself from
translating languages, move outside of the comfort zone and stop thinking in
Chinese. When you talk to yourself, use English. When you step over dog poop,
curse in English. If you don't know how to think through a complicated issue,
simplify it to the elementary level. Grammar will fall into place as you get
a better hold of the overall structure of English, and memorizing rules would
not be all that critical.
--
"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."
-Mark Twain
--
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