Foreign Tongue

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May 13th 2012 15:02

My younger son has homework of reading aloud every day. When he was a first grader, his text book was very primitive-- large characters and only or mostly hiraganas. But he's a second grader now and his text book of Japanese language became much more advanced. See photo 1, which is his textbook. When he reads, either my wife or I check his reading and give scores—◎for good, ○ for OK, and △ for needing more practices--and signature.

Sometimes, if the new story is difficult for him, his reading on the first day may be awkward. But reading three times a day and five days a week improves his reading skill fairly quickly. I've been observing this since he was a first grader. And one day, I realized that I should do this myself--for my English practices. I silent-read English books, listen to English News and so on, and write emails at work. I do these nearly every day. But concerning practices of pronouncing English words, I've hardly done it so far.

So I decided to start with the very elementary one. Long time ago, I bought a book titled "Frog and Toad Are Friends" (see photo 2). I wanted my teacher or "mother" or "father" to do that. Because I can't have one already, I bought a CD in which reading voices are recorded.

Reading voice of the CD is very clear, relatively slow, and full of intonation. While I was "shadowing" after the reading voice one day, I realized I was using my mouth muscle and tongue differently from my speaking in Japanese. Tongue has a meaning of "language" among its many meanings. I felt that I understood the reason.