Hi Fediverse! I’m writing this post to ask you to share your experience on learning your native language through your fundamental education or your private life.
As a non-native English speaker but currently using it as working language, I can survive in my daily life e.g., technical terms, talks with customer services or so. But when I really try to watch movies, series or read literature books, it is so discouraging that many words, which are essential to native speakers, are strange to me. Let me show you some words that are recently added into my learning list: paranoid, cursive, intricate, ameliorate… There are thousands of them not even including words from fantasy novels or those D&D things.
I believe that a random six-year-old wouldn’t know those higher level words (in terms of comparing to ‘hello’ or ‘nice’) either. Even a native speaker acquires those vocabulary gradually. So I am curious what is your language education look like? Since when do you realize that you understand most content in your native language and what have you done before that?
I do have English as an example but any other language is also welcome. Feel free to share anything. Thank you in advance : )
My English is far worse than yours in terms of grammar, I never managed to learn it so well, but I had always the knack for words. Somehow I remember them and thus I build up my vocabulary all the time.
I observed that the simple thing that helps me is to repeat the new word out loud whenever I can for the rest of the day. I don’t care about actually remembering it, mind you, I may not even recall it if I’d want to use it in a sentence, but I remember it when I see it.
In addition, surrounding myself with the foreign language helps greatly. If I play video game, the language is switched to the one foreign to me. If I watch a movie, I skip the dubbed version, etc, etc.
I hope it helps.
Native English speakers often only pick up these “advanced” words from the same sources where you’re seeing them: in fiction & literature.
Literary authors usually draw from larger vocabularies than textbooks or news articles. And then specific phrases from famous literature become idioms in the language, which again changes what people use them to mean.
That’s part of why reading literature in a second (or third, etc.) language is an important part of advanced language education.
You say that you watch movies and series. Watch them with subtitle in a language you understand well. However limiting yourself to only to this, may prevent you from learning English, as you’ll maybe just read the text and don’t pay too much attention to the sounds/words. Also careful with the platform you choose to watch on. Some have s* translation (amazon prime video in French. There is “context” but not always translated as expected for the wording).
This may help you for the speakers language, but not the text. Once your confortable enough to be able to understand good parts, try putting the subtitles in English. This will help you to associate sounds to written words.
And when confortable enough try removing the subtitles to see how you understand it.
When you read texts, and you get a word you don’t understand, try reading the context and try understanding it that way, and translate it immediately or search it’s definition.
I learned English in multiple ways :
- School (still did a big part even more for the written English)
- watching movies/series in English as described above subtitles in French, then English, then now without and understand most of it).
- plying games in English
There may also be tools to help to learn English. We had in class an app called quizlet for some time, and learned words, translations and verbs through that app (tho not only that one).
Another great way is writing and correcting. It can help a lot. However if you are correcting mistakes with other mistakes the effectiveness may not be as expected.
This would not be every way to learn English, but it may help you for your ideas.
Keep in mind that learning a language is hard and takes time. Even more if you don’t have the brains of a child (easy to create connections between neurons, which helps with learning anything).
Join the library. Ask for recommendations on English classics. A good librarian always knows. Every so often get an audiobook as well as the paper version for reference or reinforcement of something that may be confusing - be it a sentence, a paragraph, a phrase, a word or a chapter. Optionally, allow yourself only 2 checkouts of the same book before moving on. (That is a total of 4 weeks at my library - yes I still have a library card). I find this creates a learning pace you can measure & therefore stick to. It helps to have a consistent & structured timeline or you’ll not progress, could slowly give up or simply forget words after long breaks between books. Read out loud the new/interesting/difficult words to yourself so you can hear the sound those words make. Then listen to how other people say those words. Online dictionaries can be of help with pronunciation. If you’re not confident to use a word or phrase, even if you’ve read it - you’ll soon forget it or not use it correctly. Confidence comes with familiarity; familiarity with practice.
My mom was my 1st and 2nd grade teacher (admittedly a great one) and I feel like this helped me understand how my native language works pretty fast, as she’d motivate me to study and thoroughly help me out whenever I needed/wanted to. I was also into reading books so that helped me advance my vocabulary a lot. Now, as an adult, I believe I speak the language better than the average person in my age range but I may be lacking in more advanced vocabulary.
As far as English goes, I started learning at the age of 7 (we typically start learning it in third grade) but it was hideous as I could barely understand or memorize anything. The thing that helped me tremendously was listening to music, reading the lyrics and translating them into Greek. Also, I think the fact my mother tongue is Greek helped me learn English vocab faster/easier to be honest. Moreover, I started talking with a bunch of people whose native language is English during my early teen years which helped me advance a lot. My English is still nowhere near perfect but I’d like to think I’m fairly good at it haha
Reading books, watching movies/series with English subtitles and communicating with native speakers are all great ways to improve your skills in English
