LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

23:49 (Tuesday, 15/11/16)

KNOWING CULTURES AND LANGUAGES

I’ve been learning my third spoken language since I was in my 4^th year in secondary school. I know there aren’t a lot of people actually wanted to learn multi-language and every single culture in this world. Yeah… it’s currently due to our limited youth. I, myself just started to learn mandarin. Somehow, I got the summoned to learn also Esperanto. (>o<)But, the spoken of Esperanto is really not a joke! I’ll get embarrassed just to pronounce the word. (T.T) Still, I wanted to get to know this language soon by getting some help from my dear bro. I heard some Esperanto words from the Google translate and it is seriously quite a harsh sound. I don’t know why, but come to think of it make me feel embarrass (*.*). Here, I’ll provide you with some ways how I learnt mandarin (the simplified one): 

1.  HAVING NATIVE SPOKEN LANGUAGE FRIENDS
-I think this would be the first thing you should have in your learning ‘tools’. This is because they will help to correct your pronunciation and grammar. Even though some books might provide you with grammar lesson… they aren’t really up to date. Even if your native speaker friends aren’t that good in grammar, still, you can have the latest ‘lit’ words commonly use in a native speaker community. Isn’t that great!?? 5 STARS! (>3<) 

2.  INSTALL SOME APPS TO GAIN NEW WORDS
 -I’ve been installing some apps. Yeah, it’s normal to have apps with glitches and bugs. You just have to keep trying more apps to help in your language studies. I’m currently using 3 apps to help me in various way through speaking, grammar, listening, and pronunciation. All of them are totally a free apps ($_$) which are GOOGLE TRANSLATE APP****, CHINESE SKILLS**** (WITH A PANDA ICON) AND HELLOTALK***. A Google Translate app got some functions like pronouncing words, translating, and got the transliteration, also helping you to translate words from a picture! (*o*). CHINESE SKILLS is a good app too… It comes with three different apps to provide you 3 different focuses in learning (new words+ grammar+ pronounce), speaking (pronounce) and the last one I had forgotten its name but it consists of flash card. Hello talk is a real addict. It’s a platform where you meet friends from other countries and it almost have the same function like WeChat.

[Warning: don’t install Hello talk if you can’t resist to chat around especially when you aren’t done with exam yet. Also, this app required a big space to backup as the app have unpredictable bugs. Keep in mind to always remember your id’s.]

 3.  WATCH AND LISTEN TO MANDARIN SONGS AND DRAMAS
-        I numbered this method as three, but for real… I did this thing on the first place in my mandarin learning. Because I got indulge in mandarin through this method. I find out that China/Taiwan drama got an interesting story board,, and I really like it. The first time I watch the China/Taiwan drama, I found that they got a different accent compared to mandarin use in Malaysia. I would say that the accent actually comes from their real dialect which is Hokkien especially for the Taiwanese. I suggest you to watch either Taiwan or China (excluded HK) drama if you wanted to learn mandarin because… HK people doesn’t speak mandarin. THEY ONLY SPEAK CANTONESE. Got that?! ~.~And, if you wanted to learn the traditional mandarin, it would be better for you to learn from the Taiwanese. 

4.  HAVE THE SAME WAY OF THINKING and KEEP ON PRACTISING -OMG, THIS IS HARD 0_0…no la! You just have to keep on trying thinking how their language work. For example like mandarin,,, they ought to use ‘le’ , ‘de’ and ‘ma’. This three things aren’t just a basic word,,, but these word would actually help you to be more like them. Feishanghao!
Try to get to know their culture,,, by then you can share some good topics when you were having a chat with your native speaker friends. Apart from that, you can also gain some slang that a dictionary couldn’t have translate it for you. It’s a BONUS! I have no regret have an intermediate English level (even I only scored Band 3 in MUET BUT d difference is only 5 points from Band 4,ok?)

Last but not least… When you are learning a language/things that you don’t even have a basic,,, you need to have patience, courage and the most important element is INTEREST! If you learn something without interest, it’s going to take time for you to understand the accent and the way it works itself. And for sure, it might be easier for you to lose hope when you can’t master some of the learning process. I enjoy learning languages,,, so, I tend to learn the language slowly. With this, I can strengthen my basic and keep on learning various way on how to express it in a different way (with slang). SO, GOOD LUCK ON YOUR PROCESS TO GET TO KNOW LANGUAGES AND CULTURES. zaijian!