Essay: To know others ＆ To know myself !

First of all, learning languages is very interesting! I know everyone think so too, don’t you? Of course, it never easy for me, but “No effort, no pleasure!” I often have to say it to myself! Anyway, our topic for this time is the language learning. I think the encounters, aims, incentives are especially important.

When, where and how I encounter a language is important, I feel. Now, I would like to talk about my first one. I began to learn the first foreign language when I was a junior high school student. Of course, it was English. Although native speakers sometimes came to my junior school, I was not interested in English. In the junior high school, I probably liked English, but I could not understand the grammar, especially be-verbs. For example, “I am swim.” is a sentence that I made in those days. That’s why I think the encounter of English and I was not so good. However, I had traveled abroad, so I thought English is a very important language, and I hoped that I will communicate people who live in countries where I will visit. In other words, I had an aim to learn it. Fortunately, I could understand English grammar at last in a high school class, and I got impressed and began to study harder. And! I am here. I am planning to stay other country for a month in summer in stead of studying abroad, so it becomes an incentive for me. I think it is also important to take tests, like TOEFL and TOEIC. The score is helpful to see whether we improve or lose our skill concretely.

Now, I am enjoying learning other languages. One of them is Chinese. I think that Chinese is the most close to me in my present circumstances. My friends also study Chinese. One of them has lived for five years in Taiwan, and she introduced me to Taiwanese friends and a Chinese teacher who lives here in Kumamoto. This is the encounter with Chinese. I have friends in Taiwan and sometimes write letters in Japanese and English and Chinese. Although some of them are good at speaking Japanese, my aim is to communicate with them in their mother tongue. I take a private lesson of Chinese every week, and it is very beneficial for me. These two points are incentives.

Besides, what I realized is the importance of learning Japanese. When we learn foreign languages, it gets us to see our own language in a different and objective view. Now I a little understand differences between Japanese and other languages and think of differences of thinking from them. It is also an interesting point. My Taiwanese friends are very eager in studying Japanese. It became an encounter for me to teach Japanese. This year, I take a course to learn how to teach Japanese to foreigners with my friend. I knew how difficult it is. However, I want to improve my teaching and teach my foreign friends. It is my aim, I think. Besides, I hope that this experience serve to live in other countries someday. This is an incentive for it.

As a conclusion, the encounters, aims and incentives are important to me. I am really glad that I could come to this foreign language department. Here are my friends trying to study languages together. I am encouraged by them and other friends to keep trying. I would like to continue learning in this university and after my graduation.♪

[588 words ― total 10222 words!]