Hi Fediverse! I’m writing this post to ask you to share your experience on learning your native language through your fundamental education or your private life.
As a non-native English speaker but currently using it as working language, I can survive in my daily life e.g., technical terms, talks with customer services or so. But when I really try to watch movies, series or read literature books, it is so discouraging that many words, which are essential to native speakers, are strange to me. Let me show you some words that are recently added into my learning list: paranoid, cursive, intricate, ameliorate… There are thousands of them not even including words from fantasy novels or those D&D things.
I believe that a random six-year-old wouldn’t know those higher level words (in terms of comparing to ‘hello’ or ‘nice’) either. Even a native speaker acquires those vocabulary gradually. So I am curious what is your language education look like? Since when do you realize that you understand most content in your native language and what have you done before that?
I do have English as an example but any other language is also welcome. Feel free to share anything. Thank you in advance : )
You say that you watch movies and series. Watch them with subtitle in a language you understand well. However limiting yourself to only to this, may prevent you from learning English, as you’ll maybe just read the text and don’t pay too much attention to the sounds/words. Also careful with the platform you choose to watch on. Some have s* translation (amazon prime video in French. There is “context” but not always translated as expected for the wording).
This may help you for the speakers language, but not the text. Once your confortable enough to be able to understand good parts, try putting the subtitles in English. This will help you to associate sounds to written words.
And when confortable enough try removing the subtitles to see how you understand it.
When you read texts, and you get a word you don’t understand, try reading the context and try understanding it that way, and translate it immediately or search it’s definition.
I learned English in multiple ways :
There may also be tools to help to learn English. We had in class an app called quizlet for some time, and learned words, translations and verbs through that app (tho not only that one).
Another great way is writing and correcting. It can help a lot. However if you are correcting mistakes with other mistakes the effectiveness may not be as expected.
This would not be every way to learn English, but it may help you for your ideas.
Keep in mind that learning a language is hard and takes time. Even more if you don’t have the brains of a child (easy to create connections between neurons, which helps with learning anything).