8 things I uncounciously acknowledged while trying to dominate the English language.
How have you acquired the English language? Has it been through reading? By paying attention in English class since you were little? Perhaps through video games, or another audiovisual medium. In my personal experience, I've earned it mostly empirically, by living in an English speaking country in southeast Asia. However, it hasn't been just by facing the obvious, the fact that I had to communicate myself, but I have also had to fall in love with it, with its differences in usage and personality from Spanish, my original language.
I have been exposed to English for seven years now. My entire degree was under this language, and I worked for a while in an Australian company based in Malaysia, which gave me the chance of working with people from either Taiwan or Canada using only English. I do feel comfortable in my usage of grammar, but I am fully conscious that I still have troubles with past tenses in general. An expert will notice that. I am currently studying at Cambridge School of Languages, and I am planning to sit my Cambridge Advanced Exam (CAE) next July. Studying with Cambridge has opened me a whole new chapter for understanding and mimicking this beautiful language, and such adventure has encouraged me to write these lines.
After some time of being exposed to English, I realized that to feel comfortable with a new dialect you have to change as a person, inevitably. You are not immune to the cultural tradition of any language, and everything, from the words you will use to curse to the ways you'll convince somebody of something, will be different from the usual methods you would have to use with your mother's tongue.
That might be what I have enjoyed the most while getting the English language, the chance of expressing myself differently, having a whole different world where to exist. At the same time, English is too one of the most spoken languages worldwide, offering not only the chance to express your mind across borders but the unique chance of multinational connections, getting you close to people from all over the world just by sharing one alphabet.
In all these years, there were eight crucial things needed for me to dominate the English language. I want to revise those eight completely unconscious things that were there omnipresently. Learning English is not easy, and there is much frustration to it, but opening your mind is the only way to succeed.
When I arrived in Malaysia, the country where I spent seven years of my life, I did not know how to speak any English. I naturally knew how to say "How are you?" and reply "I am fine", but I did not know anything else, and when I saw the path ahead I panicked and I thought "I will never learn".
The truth is that I never saw the need for speaking other languages. However, once I arrived in Malaysia I did not have to face the need, I had to face the fear of not being intelligent enough for my brain to manage two languages, and at the same time, I had to face the worst fear of all; making mistakes. When you are frightened, you can't move on, and at the very beginning of becoming a bilingual person, your worst enemy is your unconfidence.
You can only destroy such fear by connecting with yourself and finding a mobile. In my case, for instance, it was as simple as wanting to express myself eagerly. I was craving to be the outspoken and at times annoyingly opinionated person I was with Spanish; I wanted again to gain control over my speech, I needed to be as precise and clear as I was with my original language. I couldn't easily find myself within this -by then- weird language, but within that urgency for being myself I found the mobile to learn; I needed to speak English for me to interact with people the same way I used to in my original language. There I took off.
I had a Spanish speaker friend that played an important role back in my days of being a beginner. She used to hang out with middle eastern people, and since she was my housemate, I inevitably had to spend most of my time with them. It is situations like this that pushes you to speak English.
The stress will always be there to annoy you, and you may be more than prudent when wanting to take part in the conversations, but making mistakes with the right people will also bring joy, an opportunity to laugh all together. Ultimately, to learn a new language you need to make friends; when there is no common language with others, the vibes of the people you surround yourself with is what matters the most. Missing much of what it's said in a conversation might be frustrating, but do also remember that you might never have that experience again when dominating the language in the future.
When you go deeper into English, you realise you don't only have to understand the language roughly, but you also have to master the forms of expression. I will never forget how literal English used to be. Someone asked me once "How do you find Malaysia?" and thinking with my Spanish brain, I thought the question was referring to how "did I know about it", so I replied to this person; "From a friend of mine". He insisted emphasising "how do you find it?" and I started thinking in Google Maps. In Spanish, you would have directly used "Do you like Malaysia?", because the 'finding' will instead be more of a "How do you find yourself? (How are you feeling?)".
From there I became aware of the fact that I also had to modify the way of thinking, the way of using the language. I understood it was not about replacing Spanish words with English ones, but about closing the Spanish door while having the English door open. Although I was making progress, in class I couldn't get the simplest things like "have/has", where the "been" was coming from, or how to use "than" or "as". In the beginning, everything looks like separated puzzle pieces without apparent pattern. However, I do remember what I first understood; superlatives and comparatives, the adding 'er' or 'est' to a word, and I remember I loved it because that is the kind of shortcut you don't have in the Spanish language, when you want to say something goes or is 'faster', you necessarily have to say 'more fast'. Ultimately, little by little the brain understands that the mindset of expressions needs to change and that to dominate a new language you must close the door to your original one.
Within the process, I started listening to the people around me more carefully, and I used to "hunt" grammar points, comparing that with whatever I was seeing in my classes by the time. My brain started doing connections, becoming the learning a matter of language epiphanies; listening and thinking "that's what we were talking about in class two weeks ago" ...a particular sentence in the other used to turn on some lights in my brain. I was learning after all. 70% of what happens when learning a new language appears to be an unconscious act. At some point, the brain begins to make so many associations that you lose track, and eventually, your discourse earns it automatically.
I achieved my primary goal of expressing myself after year and a half or so. I remember the first time I felt comfortable enough to write something in English, and it was primarily my impetus for complaining. Actually, for beginners, that's what I would recommend the most, to look for 'confrontation', to share a point of view about topics or issues that require not the language but analysis.
Being critical about something is crucial because those states of mind give us an imminent need for expression. You'll stop thinking in the language, and you will concentrate on making your point. The first stage is interacting with people, and the second is to defend your ideas. When you realise your thoughts can be displayed universally by using English, you'll feel like having a linguistic passport with free -oratory- Visa to anywhere.
I started polishing my English when I was flirting. The more advanced the English of the girls I liked were, the more I had to come with a better word arrangement. Later on, I started writing poetry -a poor one, that is for sure-, but I have always written beautiful lines in Spanish, and I wanted my English to flourish the same way. I now know that my English poems were more creativity than language. I've realised that you also have to be creative, because the time will come in which you want to express yourself more profoundly, and that usually happens when you feel you don't need to learn anything else because you're already writing and talking well.
So you have to create, to build. You have got to have your sources of synonymous and antonyms, your trusted dictionary, and do always write trying to use new words and expressions for them to get stuck in your mind and use them eventually. At times, even finding a meaning for a word you did not know, you could copy the word on Google and read articles on the websites which are using the word, to make sure how it is used commonly. You can use words or expressions you don't even know how to use just yet, because eventually, they'll be beneficial; you can seduce someone, you can get the job you want, you can make your point in class.
To read it's crucial, but in my experience, I won't suggest it from the very beginning. When you are a beginner, and you take a book, you will come across a bunch of words and expressions your brain won't be able to process, and you will feel like giving up every two paragraphs. Later, much later, you can be back to the books, when you already have the basement built. Then yes, that tremendously helps to polish and growth your English. Some people might memorise, some others, which is my case, learn without the conscious intention of memorising. It's almost like a wordless concept on the inside of the brain, you can't see its code, but it's there.
If you still can't speak English, and you're one of those who feels like you'll never learn, I envy you, because you have a wonderful path of discovery ahead, a very beautiful one. Some experiences will never be back once you are advanced. You'll see how gracious it feels when you can fully use it, and you'll realise it's deeper than you think. Your personality will play a massive role, and you'll eventually be different when having two languages. I tell you, be frustrated and lose your patience from time to time. That's how it works.
I have been exposed to English for seven years now. My entire degree was under this language, and I worked for a while in an Australian company based in Malaysia, which gave me the chance of working with people from either Taiwan or Canada using only English. I do feel comfortable in my usage of grammar, but I am fully conscious that I still have troubles with past tenses in general. An expert will notice that. I am currently studying at Cambridge School of Languages, and I am planning to sit my Cambridge Advanced Exam (CAE) next July. Studying with Cambridge has opened me a whole new chapter for understanding and mimicking this beautiful language, and such adventure has encouraged me to write these lines.
After some time of being exposed to English, I realized that to feel comfortable with a new dialect you have to change as a person, inevitably. You are not immune to the cultural tradition of any language, and everything, from the words you will use to curse to the ways you'll convince somebody of something, will be different from the usual methods you would have to use with your mother's tongue.
That might be what I have enjoyed the most while getting the English language, the chance of expressing myself differently, having a whole different world where to exist. At the same time, English is too one of the most spoken languages worldwide, offering not only the chance to express your mind across borders but the unique chance of multinational connections, getting you close to people from all over the world just by sharing one alphabet.
In all these years, there were eight crucial things needed for me to dominate the English language. I want to revise those eight completely unconscious things that were there omnipresently. Learning English is not easy, and there is much frustration to it, but opening your mind is the only way to succeed.
1. Connect with yourself; find a mobile.
When I arrived in Malaysia, the country where I spent seven years of my life, I did not know how to speak any English. I naturally knew how to say "How are you?" and reply "I am fine", but I did not know anything else, and when I saw the path ahead I panicked and I thought "I will never learn".
The truth is that I never saw the need for speaking other languages. However, once I arrived in Malaysia I did not have to face the need, I had to face the fear of not being intelligent enough for my brain to manage two languages, and at the same time, I had to face the worst fear of all; making mistakes. When you are frightened, you can't move on, and at the very beginning of becoming a bilingual person, your worst enemy is your unconfidence.
You can only destroy such fear by connecting with yourself and finding a mobile. In my case, for instance, it was as simple as wanting to express myself eagerly. I was craving to be the outspoken and at times annoyingly opinionated person I was with Spanish; I wanted again to gain control over my speech, I needed to be as precise and clear as I was with my original language. I couldn't easily find myself within this -by then- weird language, but within that urgency for being myself I found the mobile to learn; I needed to speak English for me to interact with people the same way I used to in my original language. There I took off.
2. Push English into your life by connecting with others.
I had a Spanish speaker friend that played an important role back in my days of being a beginner. She used to hang out with middle eastern people, and since she was my housemate, I inevitably had to spend most of my time with them. It is situations like this that pushes you to speak English.
The stress will always be there to annoy you, and you may be more than prudent when wanting to take part in the conversations, but making mistakes with the right people will also bring joy, an opportunity to laugh all together. Ultimately, to learn a new language you need to make friends; when there is no common language with others, the vibes of the people you surround yourself with is what matters the most. Missing much of what it's said in a conversation might be frustrating, but do also remember that you might never have that experience again when dominating the language in the future.
3. Changing the mindset and avoiding translation.
When you go deeper into English, you realise you don't only have to understand the language roughly, but you also have to master the forms of expression. I will never forget how literal English used to be. Someone asked me once "How do you find Malaysia?" and thinking with my Spanish brain, I thought the question was referring to how "did I know about it", so I replied to this person; "From a friend of mine". He insisted emphasising "how do you find it?" and I started thinking in Google Maps. In Spanish, you would have directly used "Do you like Malaysia?", because the 'finding' will instead be more of a "How do you find yourself? (How are you feeling?)".
From there I became aware of the fact that I also had to modify the way of thinking, the way of using the language. I understood it was not about replacing Spanish words with English ones, but about closing the Spanish door while having the English door open. Although I was making progress, in class I couldn't get the simplest things like "have/has", where the "been" was coming from, or how to use "than" or "as". In the beginning, everything looks like separated puzzle pieces without apparent pattern. However, I do remember what I first understood; superlatives and comparatives, the adding 'er' or 'est' to a word, and I remember I loved it because that is the kind of shortcut you don't have in the Spanish language, when you want to say something goes or is 'faster', you necessarily have to say 'more fast'. Ultimately, little by little the brain understands that the mindset of expressions needs to change and that to dominate a new language you must close the door to your original one.
4. Listening to people carefully.
Within the process, I started listening to the people around me more carefully, and I used to "hunt" grammar points, comparing that with whatever I was seeing in my classes by the time. My brain started doing connections, becoming the learning a matter of language epiphanies; listening and thinking "that's what we were talking about in class two weeks ago" ...a particular sentence in the other used to turn on some lights in my brain. I was learning after all. 70% of what happens when learning a new language appears to be an unconscious act. At some point, the brain begins to make so many associations that you lose track, and eventually, your discourse earns it automatically.
5. Discussing topics that require not language but analysis.
I achieved my primary goal of expressing myself after year and a half or so. I remember the first time I felt comfortable enough to write something in English, and it was primarily my impetus for complaining. Actually, for beginners, that's what I would recommend the most, to look for 'confrontation', to share a point of view about topics or issues that require not the language but analysis.
Being critical about something is crucial because those states of mind give us an imminent need for expression. You'll stop thinking in the language, and you will concentrate on making your point. The first stage is interacting with people, and the second is to defend your ideas. When you realise your thoughts can be displayed universally by using English, you'll feel like having a linguistic passport with free -oratory- Visa to anywhere.
6. Be creative with the tools you have at hand.
I started polishing my English when I was flirting. The more advanced the English of the girls I liked were, the more I had to come with a better word arrangement. Later on, I started writing poetry -a poor one, that is for sure-, but I have always written beautiful lines in Spanish, and I wanted my English to flourish the same way. I now know that my English poems were more creativity than language. I've realised that you also have to be creative, because the time will come in which you want to express yourself more profoundly, and that usually happens when you feel you don't need to learn anything else because you're already writing and talking well.
So you have to create, to build. You have got to have your sources of synonymous and antonyms, your trusted dictionary, and do always write trying to use new words and expressions for them to get stuck in your mind and use them eventually. At times, even finding a meaning for a word you did not know, you could copy the word on Google and read articles on the websites which are using the word, to make sure how it is used commonly. You can use words or expressions you don't even know how to use just yet, because eventually, they'll be beneficial; you can seduce someone, you can get the job you want, you can make your point in class.
7. Read English, not at first.
To read it's crucial, but in my experience, I won't suggest it from the very beginning. When you are a beginner, and you take a book, you will come across a bunch of words and expressions your brain won't be able to process, and you will feel like giving up every two paragraphs. Later, much later, you can be back to the books, when you already have the basement built. Then yes, that tremendously helps to polish and growth your English. Some people might memorise, some others, which is my case, learn without the conscious intention of memorising. It's almost like a wordless concept on the inside of the brain, you can't see its code, but it's there.
8. Be frustrated and lose your patience from time to time.
If you still can't speak English, and you're one of those who feels like you'll never learn, I envy you, because you have a wonderful path of discovery ahead, a very beautiful one. Some experiences will never be back once you are advanced. You'll see how gracious it feels when you can fully use it, and you'll realise it's deeper than you think. Your personality will play a massive role, and you'll eventually be different when having two languages. I tell you, be frustrated and lose your patience from time to time. That's how it works.
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