Thursday, February 10, 2011

Learning English: What's the Secret?

A student told me that it was her goal to talk like a native speaker. I asked, "Are you sure that is a good idea?" Why do you think I responded that way? What is the secret of learning a language better? Share your ideas.

Randall

10 comments:

  1. Who starts learning a second language in adult age, will never speak as well as the native speakers. The accent will always remain.
    I think if my goal were speaking as nativ speakers, I'd put too much pressure on myself and would always be frustrated in case I'm not able to learn it as I'd wish to.
    I enjoy English and am happy when I can understand others and when I'm being understood.

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  2. Hi Randall, I´am Juan Carlos from Chile, I want to congratulate you for this Blogger.
    Well to answer this question I´ll say that it is too dificult to speak like a native speaker, basically because we have to consider many aspects such as the country where the student is learning english etc, we can learn engling as a second language and as a foreing language, the influence of the mother toungue is also another point we have to take in to consideration.
    my advice for those who want to speak like a native speaker, is to be very patient, to study every day and step by step we can master the english language.

    kind regard
    juan carlos toledo

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  3. maybe ´cos a person that is learning this lenguaje could reach a better level studying the grammar than a native speaker that uses only a limeted vocavulary and a incorrect pronunciation.

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  4. well news flash im one of the ppl who acheived that !! all you gotta do is practice ,practice and pratice...think of english as a feeling that you express by using simple structure and words n dont translate from your native language to english.

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  5. I have seen many non native speakers speak as good as native speakers, though....

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  6. Hi everybody! My name is Mikael and I come from Paris in France.
    Since 2 months I study English with EnglishTown, it 's not free (but not expensive). I thing I progress.
    Some web site like EF or ESl are very good to learn english quickly.
    (sorry for my bad English!)
    Kind regard

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  7. In my point of view its really difficult to speak like native speakers. Speaking like native speakers is depend on the environment ,age plus some practice .

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  8. Hello Friends around the world.I'm Hector from El Salvador. Basically, I think it depends on how you push yourself to achieve what you want, it means you have to look for all the resources available to increase it... I'm just learning it... and I'd like to be good at...

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  9. it depends on what you want to use it for. if you want to be good at speaking skill you have to speak-listen-read as much as you can not to focus much grammar .if prefering good at writing you must read and write much .finally i think it's not important if you speak like native speaker but most important thing is the native language understand what you said .This is probably good
    enough ...from new learner Thailand

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  10. I think that sounding like a native speaker is too high of a goal for adult learners (even if it can be achieved by some), and I like the goal mentioned by some of being understood.

    However, you can have a goal in between these two, and that is to sound fluid and comfortable, with an accent that is light and easy to understand--and may even be distinguished & interesting!

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Thanks for posting a comment. I appreciate your interesting in sharing your ideas.

Best,

Randall

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