8 posts tagged “learning english”

My score of the last TOEIC test wasn't good. The reading part's score was better than before, however the listening part's one was worse than before! Oh my God!!

I tried to improve my listening skill for a year. I think this TOEIC score indicated my way to improve it was something wrong. So I decided to reform it a little. I read on a website that reading aloud and shadowing are the best way to improve listening skill. I think I have to read aloud more than before.

I like walking, and I always listen to some English contents while walking. They were some English podcasts, some parts of Anne of Green Gables, some conversations from LingQ's store. I supposed they were little hard for me to listen. I don't think listening to them is waste. However, I changed the contents I listened to while walking to easier, like VOA and Spotlight programs. And I decided that I read aloud along listening to them while walking. There are always a few people on my regular walking course, so no one will feel like I am strange! 

As I wrote a few days ago, I bought some English books for this summer vacation. However, I am reading "Charlotte's Web" which I bought before.
It is written by plain English, so I can read easily. There are a lot of unknown words about farm, though.
The chapter I am reading now is perhaps the most important chapter, I think. I found an expression which I'd never known. It was "some pig". This phrase is the most important in this story, however I couldn't understand it at first. I looked it up in my dictionary, and found what "some" meant.

It is my summer vacation from 11th to 15th August.

At first, I was going to go to Hiroshima for sightseeing, and made a hotel reservation.

However I canceled it. It seemed to be more interesting for me to learn English at home than going to travel. So I ordered some English books on the website of Amazon. I am going to learn English with them during my vacation.

The following books are study materials which I bought for this vacation.

I

I am tend to get into have negative thought.

Recently,  I took part in a discussion of at the Linguist. I always couldn't speak and understand very well, ; however, then I couldn't spoke worse than usual. I was very disapointed.

I tried a practice examination of  TOEIC yesterday, however, this result was very bad. ( After Afterward I noticed that this examination was more difficult than the TOEIC so that we had to estimate the real TOEIC score to be higher than that of the examination.)

I was terribly disapointed, and I was afraid that my efforts of learning to learn English was were no use. I even wondered if there were something wrong with my ability of to study.

However, I tried to change my negative mind.

Other great Linguist members have been learning English for a longer time than me. I have spent only half a year learning English again.

I tried a practice examination of TOEIC in last December too, then I couldn't finish it. I stopped it until after the first 10 minutes. However,  I could finish it yesterday, and this score wasn't so bad( but not so good)!

I believe that my English is actually improving.

I have listened to a daily English learning program of NHK radio since March. I have never missed it so far.

I had tried to listen it everyday many times. However I had failed each time.

But in this time, I have known how interesting learning English was through The Linguist, so I can listen to it everyday.

I was glad to find that my English text of this program was shabby. Formally, my English text had been new for long.

 

 

I have consulted a dictionary on paper or web for long time. However all fellow workers of my new office have an electronic dictionary, I bought one.

I bought SR-E8500, made by SEIKO. It was a little expensive for me, however it seemed to be popular on websites, especially by people who use English in their business. 

It is the first time that I use an electronic dictionary. I haven't gotten used to use it, but I think it is very nice electronic dictionary for me.

I found an a message by an American teacher in a website. This said that his college students who were learning Japanese wanted to talk with Japanese using Skype.  I'm interested in it so much I was so interested that I got in touch with him and told him to want I wanted to talk with them.

He said that we would talk in Japanese for 20 minutes, and after that, we would talk in English for 20 minutes. It seemed to be very interesting!

I signed in Skype at a scheduled time. After a short while, An American girl called me.

She was 19 years old and had been studying Japanese for 2 years. We talked about various things in Japanese.

For example, She she asked me what movie I liked. I answered "The Lord of the Ring" ( I thought it was a safe answer.)  She asked me if I liked Legolas, and I answered I liked Aragorn better than Legolas. She seemed to be very excited to hear that, and cried, "Me too, Me too!"(Watashi mo, Watashi mo!!)　I thought she was very cute.

After 20 minute's a 20 minutes conversation in Japanese,  we talked in English. Strange to say, I was less nervous than before when I spoke English. I'd like to have chance to talk with such people.

I have been in UK for 4 weeks when I was twenty years old. It was lovely memory for me, but in those days, I made many mistakes.

I had bad pronunciation, and couldn't say "Thursday" at all.
If I said "Thursday", people asked me "Saturday?" or "Sunday?" and even"Tuesday?". I finally had to say even "the day after Wednesday".
Even after this, I had not known how to pronounce "th" for long time.

I lately bought the book named "GHOST ENGLISH". I happened across this book in the website of Amazon. People told that this was very good book, and I started reading with light feelings.
This book contains not only how to pronounce English but heartwarming story. It was much better book than I thought. I suppose this book should be read by junior high school students who just started learning English, or there will be many students who can't pronounce English well like me.