Learning a Foreign Language

With the development of the world and the raising level of education, learning a foreign language has become a compulsory subject for every student. At the same time, the problem of learning foreign languages is extremely crucial. Foreign languages are socially demanded especially at the present time when the progress in science and technology has led to an explosion of education and has contributed to an overflow of information. Foreign languages are needed as the main and most efficient means of information exchange of the people of our planet.A second language can be applied not only to science and technology, and sometimes it also used in people’s daily life. We all know that, whether you travel or business to another country, it will make your trip more relaxed and enjoyable that if you know the local language. Of course, this is just a basic purpose of learning a foreign language. I interviewed one of my friends about this topic, who called Flo and is a native English sp eaker and have been learning German for four years.I interviewed her about her experiences and viewpoints of learning a foreign language from many aspects, fortunately, I got some now ideas. There are many reasons to learn a foreign language, from studying and working in another country to communicating with foreigners, through travel, emigration and maybe just interest. When I asked Flo what is her purpose of learning German, she said that she had a trip in Germany when she was a child. At that time, she felt that German is a beautiful language, its pronunciation, and the way people speak it were deeply attracted her.So she began to learn German when she was in high school, and now, her major is German Business, so the purpose for her is changed. She said it is different from before when she studied German in high school, she studies German here is for learning the economic situation in Germany and also for looking for a career in Germany after graduation. As can be seen, reasons o f learning a foreign language are diverse. Sometimes you began to learn a foreign language just because it sounds good to you when it is spoken, and sometimes the information about the subject you chose s published mainly in a foreign language. Learning that language will make it easier to get the material you need. Learning a foreign language is useful but not easy. Its grammar, pronunciation, writing and vocabulary are always plagued language learners, they are totally different from your mother tongue, so there are a big deal of difficulties have to face for language learners. My interviewee said that the first big difficult she met is grammar. German grammar is more complex than English grammar, it has a lot of the old rules need to keep in mind, and it is less flexible than English.Although in some aspects, these two languages are similar, for example, the subordinate clause. But it is still not easy to master German completely for her. What’s more, the pronunciation is also a big problem for Flo. She showed me that in German letters, in addition to the A(a),O(o),U(u) and? , other letters written look not much different from English letters, but the pronunciations are totally different, she always confuse the pronunciation of two languages.Obviously, learning a foreign language is not that easy, we need to learn its grammar, writing, pronunciation and vocabulary, or even need to known about the culture and history of the country that speaks this language. This is the only way to fully grasp a foreign language. When we understand the purpose of learning a foreign language and what difficulties we will face when we study this language, the most important thing next is how to learn a new language. Because as long as you have a correct language learning method, you can quickly, completely and high efficiently master a language without fool’s errands.Flo told me that, at the beginning of learning German, she didn’t know how to learn it, ju st blind to see some German movies and news on TV, so during that time, her German level of progress is very slow. Though classroom learning, she began to know some correct methods of learning a new language. The best way for her is using the internet resources after classes, as we all know that the resource on the Internet is infinite, most of the time, we can get anything we want from the Internet, especially for language study, we can find some language learning audios, videos, articles and even online courses.So making good use of network resources have a negligible effect on people when they are studying a foreign language. And we cannot ignore that, at the same time, the way to learn a language is to practice speaking it as often as possible. Language is diverse. In people’s day-to-day conversation, we prefer to speak informal language with some slangs, it makes people communicate simple and not binding. Language is a collective human creation, reflecting human nature, how we conceptualize reality, how we relate to one another.Said by STEVEN PINKER, the author of The Language Instinct. Language is for the exchange of ideas, for the communication, so language is the most crucial tool for people to communicate, but only one language is not enough, form my point of view, learning a foreign language is necessary if you want to know more about the world. As long as you want to learn a new language, learning foreign languages should be fun.