Transcript
[00:00:03] Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the English input output podcast. With this podcast, you can easily practice listening to English every day.
[00:00:14] Please check my website. If you want to read the transcript for this episode
[00:00:27] today. I want to talk about a question I often get asked by my students.
[00:00:34] They often ask me Connor, how did you learn Japanese? What methods do you use? So I'll try to answer these questions in today's episode.
[00:00:46] Today's episode will be a little longer than usual, so please make yourself comfortable. 楽にしてください
[00:00:55] First of all, I've been teaching English and studying Japanese for over five years. And I believe if you want to learn any language, you need to have a certain mindset.
[00:01:08] By that. I mean, 言語を学ぶために必要な考え方があります.
[00:01:14] When we were children, we were forced to learn a language at school, right?
[00:01:20] For people in Japan, this was probably English. For me, it was French.
[00:01:27] And we were taught that learning a language involves reading, grammar rules and word lists from textbooks too, right? Well, this is not the right way to study. It doesn't help you learn a language in the long term.
[00:01:42] So from a young age, we already have a negative image about learning a language. We think it's too difficult, too confusing, too boring, et cetera.
[00:01:55] But I think having the right mindset is more important than anything any textbook can teach you. So I want to share this mindset with you because it helped me learn Japanese.
[00:02:10] And actually I have a list of things here. First on the list is be patient.
[00:02:17] By that, I mean, 辛抱しよう.
[00:02:19] When I first started to learn Japanese, I didn't think I want to speak Japanese in six months or I will be fluent in one year. I thought I will learn Japanese, even if it takes me 30 years.
[00:02:36] Now, I know there are people who want to learn English quickly to pass an exam like, IELTS or TOEIC.
[00:02:44] And I understand that having these qualifications can help people get a better job.
[00:02:50] But from my experience teaching English, I think many students try to take these exams too soon and too often, I'll talk more about how to pass IELTS and TOEIC in another episode, but to put it simply slow down and spend time improving your overall English skills.
[00:03:13] If you still have a low level of English, then don't take the exam next month, take it in two or three years.
[00:03:22] There is an exception. If you're somebody who doesn't have a job, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, or kids, that means you have time to study.
[00:03:37] In this case. If you study English five hours every day, You can absolutely learn English in one year.
[00:03:46] However, in reality, it's going to take most people at least a few years to get a good level of English. And that's if they study one hour every day.
[00:03:58] So basically learning any language long-term takes a very, very long time. And if you understand this from the beginning, you won't be disappointed later.
[00:04:09] Anyway, next on the list is be independent. And by that, I mean, 自立しよう.
[00:04:15] I think it's important to have a teacher when learning a language. However, if you want to learn a language well, you also have to do independent learning.
[00:04:27] That means you need to find materials to read, listen, and watch in your spare time. And you need to learn from topics that interest you.
[00:04:37] for example, if you're interested in British culture, you could read a news article about something that happened in England. You could listen to a British English podcast. You could watch a drama made in the UK, or you could practice speaking in a British accent.
[00:04:57] Then, with your teacher, you need to talk about things that interest you.
[00:05:03] If your teacher understands your interests, they can make interesting lessons and find more materials for you to learn from. That is part of their job as a teacher.
[00:05:15] And I just want to say something about that very quickly. If you take online English lessons, it's much better to choose a private teacher.
[00:05:25] There are many good teachers who work for big eikaiwa companies, but to be honest, most of them are paid less than McDonald's workers. So their motivation to teach students is actually very low.
[00:05:39] A motivated teacher is willing to spend their free time finding materials to help their students. Meaning students can learn a language twice as fast. So please support your teacher.
[00:05:53] And it's also a bit of self promotion, but I still have many spaces available for students on my website. So please take my lesson if you would like to learn English from a teacher who wants you to succeed.
[00:06:07] Basically, if you support your teacher, your teacher will support you.
[00:06:12] In addition, if you are more independent, then learning becomes more fun. And if learning is fun, then you will have the motivation to continue learning.
[00:06:24] And that brings me to my next point. I don't want these episodes to be too long, so this will be the last one.
[00:06:32] So the next point is simply, don't worry so much.
[00:06:36] If I forget the meaning of a word or I can't remember some Kanji, then it's not a problem. I don't worry about it.
[00:06:45] I think people quickly lose motivation when this happens. The moment they forget a word they learned last week or last month, they feel they're becoming worse at the language.
[00:06:57] However, that simply isn't true. If you forget a word, that just means it's not in your long-term memory, you haven't acquired it yet.
[00:07:12] So if you continue to read, if you continue to listen, You will see that word again. Every time you see that word, you are more likely to acquire it in your long term memory.
[00:07:27] This is how I remember Japanese words, Kanji, grammar, and sentence structure. I continue to do lots of input and I don't mind if I forget some words. I know that I will remember them later.
[00:07:43] Anyway, there's a lot more, I would like to talk about in this episode, but those are some points that helped me learn Japanese. I'll probably divide this topic into two parts. So please look forward to the next part.
[00:07:57] But I'll end today's episode here. Thanks so much again for listening guys. And I'll see you in the next episode.
[00:08:05] Have a good one.
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