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One of the Things What I Think About Learning English
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I’m going to post my comments on another language learning site.
I’d appreciate it if you would correct my mistakes before I post them on it.
I’m glad to know that some native English speakers are struggling to learn a foreign language as well.
Learning a foreign language takes you some efforts.
I’d like to say that it isn’t as easy as they think, whenever some native English speakers who don’t speak a foreign language at all themselves say to me, “Why do you not speak English? How many years have you studied it? Where did you learn it? Most Japanese people don’t speak English well. Why?” or they say behind my back that I don’t speak English at all. (Ironically, I can hear this phrase clearly, even though I don’t understand mostly what they say due to their unfamiliar accents. I’m familiar with an American accent, so even it was difficult for me to hear a New Zealander in the countryside say “Where are you now?” on the phone.)
Whenever this happens, I just shrug it off, because I don’t think they really understand what I feel until they put themselves in my shoes.
On the other hand, I haven’t told by any Korean that my Korean is bad even though my Korean is worse than English.
They encourage me to learn Korean, I think because they know how hard to learn a foreign language.
I don’t say that every native English speaker is mean, and there are a lot of people who encourage me to learn English, but sometimes it pisses me off when some native English speakers take it for granted that I speak English just because English is spoken all over the world.
I’d appreciate it if you would correct my mistakes before I post them on it.
I’m glad to know that some native English speakers are struggling to learn a foreign language as well.
Learning a foreign language takes you some efforts.
I’d like to say that it isn’t as easy as they think, whenever some native English speakers who don’t speak a foreign language at all themselves say to me, “Why do you not speak English? How many years have you studied it? Where did you learn it? Most Japanese people don’t speak English well. Why?” or they say behind my back that I don’t speak English at all. (Ironically, I can hear this phrase clearly, even though I don’t understand mostly what they say due to their unfamiliar accents. I’m familiar with an American accent, so even it was difficult for me to hear a New Zealander in the countryside say “Where are you now?” on the phone.)
Whenever this happens, I just shrug it off, because I don’t think they really understand what I feel until they put themselves in my shoes.
On the other hand, I haven’t told by any Korean that my Korean is bad even though my Korean is worse than English.
They encourage me to learn Korean, I think because they know how hard to learn a foreign language.
I don’t say that every native English speaker is mean, and there are a lot of people who encourage me to learn English, but sometimes it pisses me off when some native English speakers take it for granted that I speak English just because English is spoken all over the world.
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One of the Things What I Think About Learning English
Learning a foreign language takes you some efforts.
I’d like to say that it isn’t as easy as they think, whenever some native English speakers who don’t speak a foreign language at all themselves say to me, “Why do you not speak English?
This sounds correct, but the sentence is very long and hard to follow. It might be better to start with:
Whenever some native English speakers....say to me, "Why do you not speak English?...Most Japanese people don’t speak English well. Why?"
Then after that say, "I'd like to say that it isn't as easy as they think."
(Ironically, I can hear this phrase clearly, even though I don’t understand mostly most of what they say due to their unfamiliar accents.
I’m familiar with an American accent, so even but it was difficult for me to hear a New Zealander in the countryside say “Where are you now?” on the phone.)
or maybe you mean "even if"?
Whenever this happens, I just shrug it off, because I don’t think they really understand what I feel until they put themselves in my shoes.
On the other hand, I haven’t been told by any Korean that my Korean is bad even though my Korean is worse than my English.
I think they encourage me to learn Korean, I think because they know how hard it is to learn a foreign language.
I don’t say I'm not saying that every native English speaker is mean, and there are a lot of people who encourage me to learn English, but sometimes it pisses me off when some native English speakers take it for granted that I speak English just because English is spoken all over the world.
Another long sentence that might sound better in 2 sentences.
Your English is great!! I used to think the same way toward foreigners in the US until I moved to Japan and realized how hard it is to pick up a new language, especially as an adult.
Welcome to the Lang-8!
On the other hand, I've never been told by a Korean that my Korean is bad, even though my Korean is worse than my English.
ddom's suggestion is also good, although I don't think you really need the word "is" on the end, since the word "English" does not inflect for case. (It IS good to add the verb when using a pronoun after "than" -- e.g., "than I am", "than he is" -- so that you can use the subjective case to satisfy the grammar nazis without totally weirding out everyone else. With a noun, however, that isn't necessary.)
They encourage me to learn Korean, probably because they know how hard it is to learn a foreign language.
If "probably" is too strong, you could say "perhaps" or "possibly".
I don’t mean to say that every native English speaker is mean, and there are a lot of people who encourage me to learn English; but sometimes it pisses me off when some native English speakers take it for granted that I speak English, just because English is spoken all over the world.
Personally, I don't think this sentence is too long at all. Perhaps it just needed a little more punctuation.
English speakers tend to assume that speaking and listening are easier than reading and writing. After all, young children learn to speak before they learn to write.
However, for a native Japanese speaker learning English, speaking and listening are fairly difficult, due to the large number of phonemes and phonetic combinations in English that are not found in Japanese (several consonants, closed syllables, clusters, twenty-some different vowel sounds, etc.) You have to learn to hear things that your native linguistic background has not prepared you for. That's hard.
Yes, listening and speaking English is definitely difficult for us.
Yay, just leave them behind. Those who don't know the difficulties of learning language, never understand the happiness of the adventure of learning foreign language^^. I do believe your English really good! Way to go!!
I admit that my English was so terrible, when they said that my English wasn’t good behind my back.
It’s true. I knew that.
But it’s also true that I was very shocked and hurt.
I know. English-speakers are often times arrogant without realizing it themselves. Many people from US, UK usually never want to learn other languages and hate doing so. They think everyone should speak their language, the international language.
"Most Japanese people don't speak English well. Why?"
This question in particular, I think they're being honest, although too blunt and rude.
It's a real and serious problem. Non-English speakers (eg. Chinese) also find Japanese people hard to understand when they try to speak English.
I think it's because of the accent and possibly also because there are no good English teachers in Japan.... I thought about this a lot since I try hard to help my Japanese friends with their pronunciation.
One example. When Japanese see "vowel+L", they pronounce it as "vowel+ル". That's totally wrong. Few people can understand it.
It should be "vowel+ォ". You don't even need to roll your tongue.
eg. will
✕ ウィル
○ ウィォ
That's why I write 英語講座 here. I really want to help you all ^^
I was surprised that it was hard for me to understand what a Japanese student in Harvard University say in English on TV, because his pronunciation wasn’t good.
My pronunciation of English is terrible, too.
So I can’t laugh at him.