How I would approach learning languages
中文版：
Dear my future language partner,
Very happy to meet you - my name is Yuji.
About myself
Well, let me tell you about myself just shortly.
I'm Japanese, born in 1982, and brought up in Kobe. Currently I live with my wife Keiko in Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture.
We love hiking, and sports (especially indoor soccer and badminton).
I used to travel a lot - not in the last 3 years because of the pandemic though. :(
My job - I am an English coach. You can see how I'm speaking here. I'm talking both in English and Japanese here.
Having regular video chats is the key for learning languages
The best way for me - and also for you is to schedule regular video chats (maybe once a week or two weeks?) with a language partner.
I know, I know… you might feel shy, or feel a bit dangerous to talk to stranger like me. But give me 2 minutes to explain why video chat is way better.
The reasons are below.
1. I really want to focus on learning language, and not "just chatting".
What could easily happen on Tandem is that you end up with "just having chat in easy English (or Japanese)".
With that, I am not learning anything - and actually you're not learning anything either. If you would like to improve your English or Japanese, you would need some pressure.
How to give some pressure? What I do is to give myself homework/training, at the end of each video chat sessions, that I can work on everyday, until the next session. Then I would ask my language partner (you) to check my homework after one week! I will come up with many questions to ask, and you can teach me. And I would do the same to you.
In your case, since I am an English coach, I could give you some structured lessons if you're interested.
By doing this way, we can improve our language together.
And this can't be done through text or audio messages, because that would be too much information. Also, sharing the screen is important. Therefore, I normally use Zoom to do the video chat.
Me: So… what is the pronunciation of "Shi"? Is this correct?
You: You mean… "Shi" or "Shu" or "Zhu?"
Me: Ehm… I mean the… "Shi Syun Liao Tien"
You: What…?
It would be much easier to show "視" or "ㄕ‵"
2. I would like to help you, too! That's important for a fair exchange.
In order to help you improve your language, I need to know the following:
1. In what level you are able to speak English / Japanese, in terms of your pronunciation, how quickly you can react, the out-put vocabulary you have.
2. I can suggest several ways to approach for you to learn languages, using the material that I am using for teaching English.
3. Arranging the homework for one week, looking at your personality, and also depending on how busy you are.
These things, again - exchanging messages would too inefficient.
3. Stay real.
My goal of learning language is to use it with real people.
And I am guessing you have the same goal, too.
So it would also be good for you to get connected with real people. :)
(Oh but if you don't want to show your face, I understand! You can hide your face in your way!)
And one good thing about having a video chat also kicks out the scammers - the bad guys don't want to turn on the video. :D
4. Enjoy communication.
This is just my way - I get motivation through communication with real people. If you have the similar feeling, I guess we can be good partners with each other. :)
So whenever I have a video chat with a language partner, I impose myself a homework, and I would tell him that. And I would also encourage you to work on your homework.
And because I make kind of a promise, I can force myself to do the homework. This works really well for me - and for a lot of people, and most likely including yourself, too.
So, hopefully you're convinced to create a schedule for a video chat with me!
My level of Chinese
As of 1st of September 2024, This is what I can do. (I started leaning Chinese on the 8th of July 2024, so about 50 days!)
1. I went through all the 注音, and able to pronounce them more or less correctly.
2. I am able to create simple sentences, but very much limited vocabulary.
i.e.
很高興見到你。
我想自然地說中文。
如果你有興趣，我們可以先安排視訊聊天的持間。
3. I can type them with the ㄅㄆㄇㄈ keyboard. It takes still a little time though. It took me 2 minutes to write these 3 sentences above. That's like 4 seconds to type one letter.
And here's how I would like to proceed my learning:
How I would like to work on the improvement of my Chinese
So This is how I am working on my Chinese with some Tandem partners.
1. I would like to create some natural sentences that I would use, through a consultation over the video chat.
2. I will practice them, and show them to you in the next session - and you can correct them.
3. Time to time, I try to have text exchanges in Chinese. Feel free to correct them.
4. With the correction, I will come back to you with more examples on the next session.
So… hope to be in touch with you soon!! :)
This is actually much more fun than the video chats!
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