Hello. My name is Duncan Brown and I am an English Facilitator, here are some of my thoughts about learning the English language.
A couple of challenges
There are many challenging parts of learning the English language; spelling and pronunciation are just two.
Spelling a word you hear is easy if it’s in Japanese; how it sounds can be only written one way in hiragana (almost one way; は/わ or お/を when writing particles) or in katakana.
Sound and…
In English, though, you can spell the same sounding word differently, each meaning different things too, two, to!
vision
The other challenge is, the spelling of the same word can be pronounced differently; bow (~おう sound) or bow (~あう sound).
Also, the same group of letters can be pronounced differently, too; tough, cough, though, ought, bough. All of these words sound different. This last point shows that hearing a word doesn’t mean you can spell the word. Tough, cough, though, ought, bough can be spelt incorrectly as; tuff, coff, tho, awt, bow (which one?!), however, they sound correct.
It’s as easy as エイ、ビ、シ
A common solution some of my students use is to write the sound of a word in katakana. Doing this is useful but not perfect. How do you write the word “long” in katakana? How do you write the word “wrong” in katakana? ロング and ロング? Which one is wrong?
For Japanese English language learners, they may think it’s impossible to remember these different pronunciations with their spellings, however, it is possible as native English speakers do it!
How do Japanese people learn kanji? Through study and practice, and it’s the same with English spelling. Once you have heard the different ways a word or group of letters sounds, practise it. Compare it to other words that sound the same or are written the same.
History spells it out
You can study further and look at the origin of the word to understand why it’s spelt that way. I find this very interesting; by the sound and spelling of a word you can guess which language it came from. Latin, Greek, French, Old English, German, and many more languages have influenced English over the centuries!
Having a good memory helps, having “good ears” helps but study and practice are the way to achieve this goal.
The final word
The final word is attributed to David Burge,
“Yes, English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.”
*****お知らせ*****
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【あなたの心が伝わるあなただけの英語】
英語でのコミュニケーションをあなたらしい英語で。一人一人のレベル、能力、
興味に合った教材や方法を用いたテイラーメイドの英語コミュニケーションプログラムです。
”あなたの英語”でコミュニケートしたい方は、まずは無料カウンセリングをご予約ください。
