Why Do I Like English? - A Guest Post by Maru Talavera

This is a very special post and the first of many, I hope. This is a guest post - this article has not been written by me but by one of my students, Maru Talavera. Maru has been a student of English for a number of years now and recently got the opportunity to use her language skills on a trip to England this summer. I was very interested to know her story about what motivates her in her English studies, so I asked her to write this article to share with all of you. I was very happy when she said yes and this is what she provided. Thank you very much, Maru!

Anyway, here are her opinions and her analysis on her passion and enjoyment of English. There are a couple of her ideas that I thought were so good that I highlighted them!  Please feel free to give Maru your comments.

Why I like English

While being a student you find many people that ask you “Why do you like English?” However, I think the answer to this question only gets complicated when you ask yourself, “Why do I like English?” As an advanced student I guess I should have figured it out much earlier but considering I’m seventeen it (kind of) makes sense that I haven’t yet.

I took up English because my parents thought I would need it at some point in my life.  They were aware of the importance of knowing another language to not only broaden your mind but also push your limits.  However difficult the start was I instantly felt comfortable.  The atmosphere was wonderful, and by atmosphere I mean the warmth of teachers who – I bet – knew how difficult it can be for a little child to start something new.  They made English look like an easy game to play since, as we all know, if you enjoy what you do you give your best.

English also has opened my mind to new perspectives because by reading books or listening to music I realize distances are nothing, we’re all part of the world which turns out to be pretty small as we can feel something similar no matter where we are.  For me, English is that bridge that can lead you to see that there are a lot of people who have felt or are feeling in the same way you feel.

Further to the points I highlighted before, English is considered to be the lingua franca (language people use to communicate when they have different first languages) and companies which are trying to make it to worldwide success are looking for people that have English among their various skills since it’s a great way to enter other markets.

Photo from Wikipedia

Nowadays, English doesn't belong to one place, it’s everybody’s world language.  And I think it would be great if it were taught to children as they’re little because it’s the best time to learn as it’s easy.

Having English as a lingua franca doesn’t mean we have to have an English lifestyle as well.  This is the best of it, we can have a mixture... making our culture evolve in a different way, acquiring new things but preserving out essence.  It’s all about opening our minds and trying to see that others are not that different and that we can get to know them better if we share a common language.

Other ways of learning English

As I grow up (Yes! I’m still at it!) I discover that it’s not always easy to keep on working on my English as I have less time to study but in a way this has helped me realize there are fantastic ways to learn, improve and use your English.

• Watching series or films online: the Internet can be something more than just a way to gossip or keep up with Hollywood trends, it can also be a place to catch up with your favourite series or movie.  At times it’s hard to understand the dialogues so I suggest starting with series you are familiar with, and it’s great when you add the subtitles so that you know exactly what they’re saying.  Free online films and series are available online and you don’t need to be registered.  (Gordon's Note: I agree with this idea and I know there are some free films online but also remember that iTunes is a great and legal way to do this get movies and TV shows.)

• Reading from books to magazines, you will find a wide range of useful vocabulary and phrases.  Although sometimes it seems difficult to get an English book in a country like Argentina it is not impossible, indeed there are several bookshops where you can get them.  There’s also the possibility to download the book you want from the net. (Gordon's Note: I love my Amazon Kindle and you can also get Kindle apps for computers and smartphones.)

• Music: I think this is my favourite way of learning English.  There’s nothing better than listening to a good album with meaningful lyrics.

To sum up, I would say English has a very important place in my life.  Indeed, I can’t imagine my life without it and I think the world helps that.  I like having it in my life since I have developed a kind of love for English because it has made me discover a whole new world that has always been there but I didn’t have the key to enter.  This tool also leads me to independence and sharing my knowledge, feelings and ideas with people from all over the world.  When I went to London this July,  English also helped me to make friends with people who were foreigners just like me, who were also still unsure and adjusting in a different country and we ended up creating a bond which I hope will continue to grow day by day.

During my life I’ve encountered people who encourage me every day to go on in this way, learning around the things I enjoy is certainly the easiest way to progress.  On the other hand, I also find people who try to bring me down, saying that no matter how hard I try it is pointless to try to acquire another culture that’s not mine.  However, as with many things in life, it is important to follow the way you think will make you happy, because none of the people who discouraged you will come to repair the damage of having made a bad choice.  People that think English is boring, unnecessary or just a waste of time is because they don’t know, they have no idea of the vast world that hides beyond their ignorance.

Anybody having problems with the Present Perfect?

The present perfect is tricky. What do I mean by ‘tricky’? I mean it is sometimes difficult to understand and, in fact, it is used for a lot of different reasons. Many students learn these reasons but sometimes this means students can answer the question ‘What are the different uses of the present perfect tense?’ but they still can’t actually use the tense comfortably or accurately.

This is because students need to understand 3 things:

1. Don’t worry, the present perfect tense is not the most common tense in English... but sorry, we still use it a lot! So this is a very important part of communication in English that you... can’t... ignore! 
2. Making mistakes is good. If you are not sure how to use the present perfect then don’t, don’t, don’t avoid using it! We learn from our mistakes because mistakes = experience. 
3. If you are not comfortable with the present perfect tense, then you need more experience with it. 

For this last part, I have a short activity for you.

1.  You are going to listen to a poem (in fact, lyrics to a song) that uses the present perfect tense a lot. Listen once and while you are listening make some notes about what verbs you hear. 

listen to ‘Present Perfect Poem’ on Audioboo

2.  Now listen one more time and see if you can add more to your notes. REMEMBER, these are notes... you shouldn’t be writing down every word. 

3.  Now with the help of your notes and this slide show, see if you can rebuild the whole poem – the final slide has the answers.  Each slide is visual help for one line of the poem.

You might know this song. It is by U2 and it’s called “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. If you want a final challenge and a little bit more practice then do the interactive gap fill with a YouTube video of a live performance.

“Still Haven’t Found What I’m Look For” at Lyrics Training (remember to select a game mode: beginner, intermediate, advanced or expert)

or, just enjoy the original video below... :-)

A Short Piece of Advice... Look Again

Learning new things is good, but it is surprising how quickly we forget things.  I am the same.  During my 1000 Challenge for Charity I had to learn 1000 new Spanish words and phrases and it is surprising how quickly I am forgetting words that I thought I had memorized completely.

Remember, those notes will not help you unless you
actually look at them! (Picture from Flickr)

So my advice is very simple; look again at notes you wrote a few months ago, look again at worksheets from your previous classes, look again at previous chapters of your coursebook that you have already done, even look again at online lessons or exercises you think are too easy for you – you might be surprised by one or two small things you forgot about.

Learning new things is good, but re-learning those things you forgot is very important as well.  Looking again at your notes and old work does not take a lot of time but I guarantee it will make your language much stronger.

Holidays

I've talked about repetition; the 75 times you need to really acquire new language (see previous post).  Well holidays are a perfect way to use some of your English again and again and again.

If you are studying in an English speaking country, this might be especially useful for you.  Think about the questions you are asked when you return from holiday or just a long weekend.  They are always the same:

“Where did you go?  What did you see?  What did you do?  Did you enjoy it?  Who did you go with?  What was your favourite place?  Oh, I’ve been there, did you visit ______?  What did you think of ______?”

What a wonderful opportunity for your English!  You know what questions to expect and you can learn, prepare and rehearse your answers.

Let's look at a few phrases you can use for each of these questions.  Remember, vocabulary is good but learning and acquiring complete phrases helps with fluency.  To make this post prettier, I've also included some photos of a recent holiday I had on the border of Argentina and Brazil.  Enjoy

The ruins of a Jesuit mission, San Ignacio Mini, Misiones, Argentina

1.     Where did you go?

I spent a few days in… (you stayed in one place)

I spent a few days travelling around… (you stayed in one general area but visited a few specific places in that area)

I went/travelled up to… (if the destination was north)

I went/travelled down to… (if the destination was south)

I went/travelled over to… (if east or west)

I went with some friends up to…

In the background is Paraguay, on the right is Brazil and I am standing in Argentina!

2.     What did you see?

Well, where to begin? (a rhetorical question for yourself, which gives you more time to think and explains you have a long story to tell)

I saw lots of stuff actually.  I saw… (then give a list)

The waterfalls at Iguazu on the Brazilian side.

3.     What did you do?

What did I not do? (a great reply that explains you did a lot of things – make sure you really emphasise the ‘not’ and say it with a smile on your face)

I did a bit of… (climbing, shopping, sunbathing, kayaking, hiking, waterskiing, reading… the list goes on and on and on)

I actually did a lot more than I expected.  I… (then give details – this is if you did more than was in your original plan)

Not as much as I’d wanted.  I… (then give details – if you did less than was in your original plan.

4.     Did you enjoy it?

Definitely!  It was exactly what I wanted.  (it was a perfect vacation and it is what you excepted)

Definitely!  It was exactly what I needed.  (it was perfect and helped you to relax)

Immensely!  (100% brilliant!)

Very much so, yes!  (90-100%)

Hmm, not that much because… (30-40%)

Yeah, more or less, but I think _______ could have been better.  (your vacation was 50/60% and there are one or two things you didn’t like – for pronunciation help with this, take a look at this previous post)

The Iguazu waterfalls on the Argentinian side.

5.     Who did you go with?

I just went by myself (no travelling companions; alone)

I went with…

I was going to go by myself but I ended up going with _________. (the original plan was to go alone but this plan changed and you went with another person)

6.     What was your favourite place?

Well, I particularly liked… (you want to talk about a specific thing that you liked on holiday)

________, without a doubt. (a tag at the end of the answer to explain that one place was much better than all the other places)

That’s a difficult question.  I guess I’d have to say… (if you are not sure about your answer or there was more than one really good place)

I probably enjoyed ______ more than anything else. (this is not as strong as ‘without a doubt’ and shows that there were a few things that you really enjoyed)

Breathtaking and spectacular, isn't it?

7.     Oh, I've been there.  Did you visit _____?

Yeah, what did you think of it?

Of course! (an obvious place to visit that would be impossible to miss)

No, we didn’t have time to go there.

No, we didn’t have the opportunity to go there.

No, I really wanted to but…

8.     What did you think of_____?

I thought it was spectacular.  (amazing)

I thought it was breathtaking.  (very impressive)

To be honest, I wasn’t very impressed with _______ because...  (under 50%)

It was alright but not as good as everyone was saying. (50-60% but people told you that it was 100% amazing)

It would have been great but it was spoiled by… (a good place/event was much less fun because of something that happened – bad weather, for example)

How much time do I need?

How long is a piece of string?

This is a question that probably every language learner thinks about when they start a new language: ‘How long will it take me?’ or ‘When will I be able to have a conversation?’

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. There is an answer but it is different for each person. Fortunately, we have a phrase in English to reply to questions like this: “How long is a piece of string?”

The answer to both of these questions is ‘It depends’.

What does it depend on?

Many, many things such as opportunity, motivation, how you learn, as well as what the best way is for you to learn personally. However, I will mention one thing specifically: learning doesn't and can’t happen all in class.

1:4 Ratio of Time

First of all, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers. If I spend 1 hour preparing dinner and 1 hour eating dinner that means the relationship between preparing and eating is 1:1. However, if I spend 4 hours preparing dinner and only 2 hours eating it, then the ratio is 4:2 (or better to say 2:1) because 4 hours preparation equals 2 hours eating. (Don’t worry, this is NOT a blog about mathematics.)

Recently I read a post about 10,000 hours on another teacher’s blog: “10,000 hours of hard practice to achieve mastery of one’s given discipline.” This basically means 10,000 hours of practice to be really good at something.

This started me thinking about 10,000 hours to learn a language. Maybe we can ‘break this down’ (divide this) into the four parts of language and communication: speaking, reading, writing and listening. Speaking is chatting with friends, talking to colleagues, speaking on the phone, etc, etc. Listening is also chatting with friends but can also be watching TV, watching youTube, listening to podcasts or audio language lessons, listening to music or listening to the radio. Reading can be done with a website, a blog, Facebook, a newspaper or a book – I recommend trying a book. Writing can also be on Facebook, writing on a blog, posting a comment on a blog (hint, hint, see 'Post a Comment' below), writing emails or even writing a journal.

So 10,000 hours is a lot of time but there are many different ways you can use that time.  Remember, it's not all work - a lot of the time it can be a lot of fun!

Now, I saw an infographic about how many hours of class an native English speaker (like me) needs to learn another world language. The shortest time (for similar European languages) was about 600 class hours. However, the hardest languages for native English speakers (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean for example) need 2200 class hours. These numbers are obviously averages but they give a general idea.

The information did not talk about learning English, but we can assume that English will be between 600-2200 class hours.

So I hope you see the importance of practice outside the classroom. Here is my last piece of mathematics, I promise:

2000 hours of class + 8000 hours of practice outside the classroom = 10000 hours 

This is a 1:4 ratio. For each hour you are learning English in class, you need four more hours of practice outside class… if you want to be proficient.

What do you think? What do you think your ratio of class:outside English work has been this year so far?

No Magic Please, part 1 (Learning Vocabulary)

There is no magic trick to learning vocabulary.  I’m sorry.  Maybe you want to stop reading now. :-)

Like all language learning, you have to do some work but there is certainly efficient work and work which is mostly a waste of time.

There are nearly 7 billion people in this world which probably means there are nearly 7 billion different ways to learn vocabulary!  Everybody is different, everybody remembers different things and everybody has different priorities about what words are useful to know.  BUT, there are some methods which are good ideas for everyone. 

L1 to L2 and L2 to L1

(L1 = Your native language, L2 =Your foreign language, English, for example)

When we studied Beginners Spanish at St Andrews we were given a goal by the professor.

“You must learn 30 new words a day.”

You have to learn twice.

Now you might think that is a lot, but actually, it wasn’t that bad and all I needed was 5-10 minutes maybe three or four times a day.  But that wasn’t the only thing we had to do because he also said,

“You will have to learn it twice.”

What he meant was that anyway we learned our words, they would need to be learnt English to Spanish and Spanish to English.  Understand?  I'll explain.

You can’t just learn in one direction because if you just learn L1 to L2 then only your Speaking and Writing will really benefit.  If you only learn vocabulary L2 to L1 then you will improve your Reading and Listening skills but your Speaking and Writing will not improve very quickly.

You need to do both.

Index Cards (I used them and I think they are great!)

I wrote 5 or 6 words on each card, one side in English, the other side in Spanish.  Then I would look at the English and try to remember the Spanish.  If I got it right, good, if I didn’t remember correctly, I put a tally mark next to the English word.  I then when to the next word and did the same thing.

With 6 cards I had my 30 words for that day.  I looked through them four times a day and quickly I knew which words I needed to focus on.  For every time I remembered the word, I could rub out (erase) one of my marks.  Once the word had no more pencil marks, I would highlight it.  Once the car was clear of pencil marks I would turn the card over and do the whole thing again, this time looking at the Spanish and remembering the English.

It worked very well.  Remember you’ll need to recycle these cards over a few weeks before you have completely memorized these words – remember the 75 times! ;-)

English side (the marks show how many times I forgot the Spanish)

Spanish side (these marks show how many times I forgot the English)

This method can work with phrases as well as individual words.

Learning in Categories

Another important thing… try to keep your vocabulary together in categories.  You see all the words on my cards are computer-related.  These things are already connected in your brain.  It helps to learn things in groups – it is how our brain works.

Last week I recommended blog article by Berni Wall, 10 ways to increase your vocabulary.  This is from the article,

“…for example animals, can you, hand on heart, say that you know the English word for all the animals? Think of all those you don’t know and look them up in your own language. Do the same for other [groups of things].”

To help you get started look at this website, Language Guide, and select one of the groups.  Try to record the words you don’t know on some index cards and see how quickly you can learn these words.

Vocabulary Circles

If you are studying on a language course right now, you could try Vocabulary Circles.  I must credit this idea to Caroline Gwatkin and I think it is a great way to learn groups of words from groups of people!  The benefit of this way of recording vocabulary is you immediate see what you already know (good for confidence) and see what you can learn from the other students in your class - you don't always need to learn your English from the teacher.

That’s all for now.  There is plenty more think about when we learn vocabulary and I’ll talk about that more in part 2.  I look forward to your comments and opinions.

Gordon

Calm Down and Relax

How do you feel at the moment?  Calm and relaxed?  Do you have a cup of tea next to you while you look through this?  This would be the best way to feel in an English class.  Do you feel like that when you are studying English?  If you used to be in classes, did you feel like that?

I’m reading a lot at the moment about how important feelings are when we try to learn new things.  Specifically, I am reading a lot about anxiety and that anxious learners learn less than relaxed learners.  Do you think this is true for you?  Do you think this is true for the classes you have been in?

The research shows that it is important to have a relaxed atmosphere when you are try to understand something new – you will “pick it up” (understand it) much faster like this.  Some people work well under pressure (I think I am one of these people in general) but there is a big difference between work (doing a task) and learning (understanding something new) and I know that I don’t learn well under pressure.

We will look at my attempts to learn Spanish again.  My Spanish improvement is prevented by two things: anxiety and distractions; sometimes both depending on the situation.  Every time I am in a Spanish conversation where there is new language for me, I know I am much too anxious to learn or remember any new words.  In fact, learning vocabulary is the least important thing to me in the conversation because I am focussing on the communication.  My priority is to understand the person talking to me or to make sure the person understands the idea I am trying to say.

My students also try to teach me words in class but obviously I am too distracted by teaching and learning priorities to stop, take some time and think about the new word they want to give me.

So an environment free of anxiety and distraction is essential for learning a new language. However, relaxed does NOT equal bored, and no distractions does NOT equal boring. You need to be engaged and paying attention – which usually means having a good 8 hours of sleep the night before. :-)

Reading for Pleasure

This post was inspired by Jez Uden's British Council presentation on reading for pleasure.

Important Note: This is a long post but if you are learning English and you want to enjoy reading more and you want to improve your English, then this might help you a lot!  Keep reading, thanks.

So this week was going to be part 2 of Favourite Websites for English Practice, this time looking at reading, but I have postponed that until next week.

I was watching a British Council seminar last week and it started me thinking about reading for pleasure (if you are interested, here’s the link to Jez Uden’s presentation and his blog).  Personally, it is something I have to make myself do because I never feel that I have the time for it… but… when I do “get into a book” (really have an interest in the story) it is all I think about and I actually start fantasizing about the next opportunity I’ll get to pick up the book and continue the story.

I’ve recently got a Kindle and I love it and that has “re-sparked my interest” (re-started my interest) in reading.

But is this possible with another language?  Yes.  The problem that many people have is when they try to do too much when they pick up a book.  Think about how you read in your native language and think about these questions.

Is it a challenge?  No.

Why do we usually read a story in our native language?  For pleasure!

What do you do when you are reading a book which is difficult to follow and therefore uninteresting?  I usually abandon it and move on to something which is more fun.

Now think about some possible answers for why we read in a second language.

Is it a challenge?  Yes.

Why do we read a story in a second language (English, for example)?  It is not available in my native language / I want to improve my English reading skills / I want to improve my English vocabulary

What do you do when you are reading a book which is difficult to follow and therefore uninteresting?  I usually keep reading it and finish it but it was difficult / I give up trying to read the book and feel depressed because I my English was not good enough to finish the story and enjoy it.

Do you see the difference?  You are focusing on trying to finish the book, learning vocabulary, improve your reading skills, etc. but you are not reading for pleasure and you probably feel disappointed if you don’t finish the book.  If you finish a boring book then you have done well… but then how do you feel about reading in English?  Your experience was negative.

So, how can you change this?

Cambridge English Readers!  These are original (new) and adapted (already famous) stories for learners of English.  There are lots of different levels and the brilliant thing is they use high-frequency words a lot (high frequency words = words used a lot in English).

So what level should you use?

Well actually, you should NOT try to challenge yourself with a high level book!  The goal here is to enjoy using the English you already have, not improve it (don’t worry, it will improve naturally if you do this).  So really you want to have a book where you already know all the words (or at least 99.9% of them).

So what is your level?

Upper Intermediate, B1, Elementary, Advanced, Proficient, C2, Pre-Advanced, Beginner, IELTS 6.5, IELTS 5.0, TOEFL 103, etc, etc, etc.; what do all these names and grades mean?  What IS your level?  Well, Cambridge has a test for you to know what level of English book is appropriate for you.  Don’t worry if they suggest a level lower that you expect – remember, the goal is to have something that is easy to read. :-)  Just click on the link to go straight to the free level test.

And then?

Choose a book and start reading.  Maybe try to get a group of friends to join you.  You can all buy one book and then swap them around.  This means if you are reading a book you don’t really enjoy, you won’t have it for long.  Reading is something we usually do alone, but that doesn't mean you can't make it social.  If you have a group of friends who want to improve their English, try forming a book club (practise your speaking skills, perhaps!). :-)

And then?

Let me know how it goes! Post your reviews here on this blog if you want.

But Gordon, I don't have time to read a book!
Are you sure about that?  I never feel I have time to do anything but when I start reading a book and really get into the story I suddenly realize I have more time for it than I thought.

But don't worry.  These Cambridge readers also come with audio CDs if you want.  An audiobook to listen to instead of read.  On the way to school, work, at the gym, on the bus or train or even plane.  There are lots of opportunities.  For another opinion about audiobooks, take a look a Warren Ediger's recent blogpost about them.

As always, I look forward to your comments,

Gordon

Cudunagonbeda

Well I was teaching today and the class couldn’t have gone better!

Oh!  That’s a difficult piece of language: “couldn’t have gone better”.   You might ask, ‘what does that mean?’  Well let’s look at it in two parts:

“gone better”

This is from the phrasal verb, “go well” which means if something is a success.  You want some examples?

“My IELTS speaking test went really well!  I think I probably got a 9.0!  Really, it couldn’t have gone better!”

“Portsmouth beat Manchester United 4-0!  What a result!  It was a brilliant game!  It couldn’t have gone better for Portsmouth!”

“couldn’t have”

This is the part that tells us it was basically perfect.  Think about it like this.

“It was a good party and it went well.”  (It was 80% but it wasn’t 90% or 100%)

“It was an excellent party and it couldn’t have gone better.”  (It was 100% and there is nothing better than 100%)

Okay.  Are we happy with this?  I will assume the answer is yes.  But how do you say it?  If you want to sound natural you certainly don’t say “it… couldn’t… have… gone… better”.  No, we say it like this:

“it couldn’t have gone better”

“it couduntav gonebetta”

“it cudunav gonbeda”

“it cuduna gonbeda”

“i cudunagonbeda”

These are NOT the spellings but how you should say it.  For those of you who know your phonetic alphabet, it looks like this:

/ɪˈcʊ̈dnəgɒnbedə/

For these more difficult grammar points (this is a present perfect modal of speculation or deduction) I think it is more important to know how to say it and use it than to understand the grammar of it.

You see the words, you see the context, you hear the sounds, and you produce!  Let’s look at some others:

“James had a job interview this morning but I saw him at lunch time and he looked pretty down.” (*pretty down = very sad)

“Oh dear, his interview couldn’t have gone well.”

Do you remember how to say it?  Practise the phrase five times before you continue reading.  Okay.  Let’s change the sentence.

“Oh dear, his interview must have gone badly.” 

Don’t worry, this sentence means almost exactly the same as the previous sentence.  But how do you say it?  How about this:

“must have gone badly”

“mustav gon badly”

“musta gon badly”

“musdagon badly”

In the phonetics, this ‘musdagon’ looks like this (well, it looks like this when I say it):

/məsdʌgɒn/

Okay.  I've done most of the work now.  I will leave you with a few situations and a few phrases.  See if you can see what the words are and build the sentence because I will only give you the modal + have + past participle (e.g. must + have + gone).  The situations and the speculations are in the same order.

Situations

Maria looks really tired.

Michael’s face looks bruised.

Benjamin isn’t here.

Andrew’s iPhone is missing.

Kathleen and I were talking on Skype but she suddenly disappeared.

Speculations

cudabeen = /cʊ̈dəbi:n/

mayabeen = /meɪʌbi:n/

mydamist = /maɪdʌmɪst/

mydaleft = /maɪdʌleft/

cudalost = /cʊ̈dəlɔst/

Good luck.  Let me know if it goes well for you.  Now with all the examples you saw, all the times you repeated those words and sounds, you have a lot of those necessary 75 times.  :-)

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Gordon

P.S.  Remember, if you are interested in learning more about the phonetic alphabet then go here where you can select the sounds and listen to examples.  Or just click here to download the small program onto your computer.

P.S.S.  I’m reluctant to put links to this song because American Country & Western music is NOT my cup of tea.  However, if you want to hear some examples of “couldn’t have”, you might want to listen to Johnny Duncan’s ‘It Couldn’t Have Been Any Better’.  If you want more reading practice then simply try doing a Google search for “couldn’t have gone better” or “must have gone badly” to see how people use it.  Alternatively, try the British National Corpus.

75 Times

Yes.  In this case 75 is the magic number.  It is believed that a learner needs to hear a word about 75 times before they have acquired it.  If you don’t believe me, look here (http://langwitches.org/blog/2011/03/30/listening-comprehension-podcasting/).

First, let’s look at learned vs acquired.  There is a BIG difference.

Learned - How many times have you learned about the rules of the present perfect?  How many rules have you written in your notebooks?  How many times have you got it wrong when speaking?  How many times have you needed to stop and think if you should use present perfect or past simple?

Probably you have had LOTS of lessons about present perfect vs past simple.  You’ve learned it and you know the rules but you still need to think about it and sometimes you know you get it wrong.  That’s because you haven’t acquired it.

Acquired – Ok, now if I say to you, “Hey, how’re you doing?” then you will probably say something like “I’m fine thanks.”  Now, were you thinking about the grammar? 

Were you thinking, “Is it ‘I fine’ or ‘I am fine’?”   Probably not.  You don’t need to think about that because you have acquired it.  You have heard it so many times, from so many different people.  You don’t think about it, you just do it, you just know it, you just have it.

That’s the difference between learning and acquiring.  I never really learned English, I simply acquired it.  We don’t learn our native languages, we acquire them.  Yes, of course, we learn about our languages at school but we already know them because we have already acquired them.

So how long does it take to acquire new words and phrases in English?  75 times, more or less.  You need to hear the word, the phrase, the context approximately 75 times before it is comfortably part of your English.

But remember this is not only passive hearing.  It is active listening.  You can help yourself and speed up this process by actively listening.  I know lots of students who don’t have very advanced English, but they know every single exact word to their favourite English-speaking songs.  How many times do you think they listened to those songs?

It is important to learn the rules of a language we want to use well.  It helps our understanding.  However, you also need to make an effort, use the language you’re not sure about a lot, make sure you are corrected a lot and make sure you do lots of active listening for what you want to understand better.  Past tense verbs, phrasal verbs or conditionals, for example.

So, that English podcast you listened to, that TV show you watched, that IELTS listening practice you have… have you listened to them enough times?  Almost certainly not.  Just listen to it one more time, go on!

What do you think and what is your experience of learning and acquisition?  As always, I look forward to your opinions.

Gordon