Make it fun

We have or wanted to learn a new language. It could be because our job demands us to speak it if we want something better; in some school is a requirement, because we want to move to another country seeking a better life or just as a hobby.

We´re clear that is going to be a long demanding process and one we have to dedicate time to it if our goal is speak it correctly or in an acceptable way that allows to communicate with others. And more importantly, is which language we want to learn.

Some learn Japanese because they liKe anime or they want to travel to Japan. Others learn Korean because they also want to visit Korea (South Korea, obviously) or because they´re influenced by the wave of K-pop, or they learn French thinking that is a “romantic language”; sometimes is just because they like it; but, what about English?

It happens that many people are predisposed to choose another language rather than English, why? One reason could be that English is always related to school subjects and no one likes to learn something for work or for any reason if it always reminds them to school, as we mentioned in another post: people are tend to avoid anything related to academics, thus the process will be tedious and boring. It shouldn´t be like this.

Even though every process is tedious, we can make it enjoyable and more fun taking as an example the same things people surely do when they learn those other languages: who studies Japanese watch anime series to practice phrases. Who studies French listen to French music like the Belgian pop singer Stromae and his most popular song “Papaoutai”.

Those who learn Korean (young girls mostly) may watch interviews from their favorite Korean artists or Korean dramas. But despite of all these material, it is limited to the culture it comes from. But, in English we have even more of that same stuff.

But is not only just watch a movie and that´s it or just listen to this song and ready to go: what the songs says? Which phrases do they use? What does this phase means? What situation is going on in this scene and which phrases do they say? In other words, what is the context?

And after taking all those phrases of that song, we have to see if they use them to express rage, sadness, joy, or if in that scene somebody make a question or ask something from another character: how they´re making the question? Formal? Informal? Aggressively? Is the person baging? What modals verbs is the person using?

You can play with all these materials and the learning process more fun, even so we can imitate those same situation and practice them as real life situations. Learning English doesn´t have to be related to school or something boring, as long as you know how to use this material correctly. And it will always be necessary that someone guides you and explains you certain things we don´t know yet or seen before.

By Juan Andrés Contento S.