EU Official Language

English is probably the most common language in the world. But the status won't last in the European Union due to Brexit. 

When the U.K. complete withdraw from EU, no country use English as the official first language in the EU. French and German will be the official language in the EU. English will become one of working languages in the union.

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                        にほんブログ村 

 

My American Friend

My American friend and I talked to each other on Skype in this morning. We met on a language exchange site and became friends 13 months ago. We've been busy recently, so it was the first time in a month we talked online. Other than that, we've been chatting almost every Sunday. It's not only good for studying, but also a precious time for me. I learn lots of things from him.

He lives in Florida and has studied Japanese  by himself for several years. He kindly teaches English to me and his attitude toward studying Japanese has inspired me a lot.

I hope we can visit each others countries and drink beer together.

A beautiful English teacher

Several years ago, I took private English lessons from a beautiful Nepalese woman. The class took place once a week in a cofee shop and lasted three months. She came to Japan with her husband who took a doctor's course at Shimane University and she was an English teacher in Nepal.
The first thing she tought me was 'speak politely' It was really impressive for me and I think it's important for all language learners. People tend to want to speak casual way but it sounds rude sometime.
She went private schools in Nepal and learned all subjects in English. Of course local language were allowed in class at lower grade. To be continued, maybe.

Extensive reading

About eight years ago, I began to study English for the first time in 20-something years. I don't remember exactly why I was thinking about learning English at that time. Maybe it was a fashion. I bought some books on extencive reading, 多読, and it was really interesting for me. They say there are only three rules for extensive reading. First, don't use any dictionaries while reading a book. Second, you should skip unfamiliar words in the books. And last, throw away the book if you lose interest in it. The method was quite new for me. I started reading English books like the way I learned from the books.
It worked well at first and spent six years just reading books in that way. It was fun but I've changed my mind because as long as I don't use a dictionary I won't read any advanced books or magazines like TIME. It's obvious. At best, I could read books at young adult level if I did't use a dictionary. I should have used dictionaries more.

Thinking about this year

Time flies. Can you believe it's November already? One year ago, I studied English all alone except taking on-line lessons. I was using Twitter at that time but I didn't follow Japanese people so I didn't have English learneing friends at all. I had no idea what to do for learning English.
The situation has chenged since this March after taking English pronunciation lesson from Mr. Kaz Uekawa who teaches it with Eigonodo methed. He said speak English from your throat. He also recomended me to make friends on language exchange site and talk with the friends on Skype for improve my English skills. And I did it. Talking with friends on Skype helps me to speak English. I've got used to do it now, not really good at though.
After that, I followed many English learners, some of them are master class, on Twitter and made friends on Facebook. I learned a lot from them like shadowing, reading TIME magazine, rapid reading, flash speaking and more and others are inspireing me to study English hard. Thanks all. I'll continue to do my best.

Why do you study language?

Almost every Sunday morning, I talk with an American friend on Skype. We met a language exchange site, Lang-8, this march. He's learning Japanese all by himself for several years.

He lives in Florida and he is nice, funny and a little bit shy. Every Japanese learner has their own reason for studying Japanese like Japanese culture, manga, J-Pop and so on. He said he likes the sound of Japanese. I understand his reason that brought him to learn Japanese because I also like the sound of English.