たぶん語学ってもっと自由で愉快なものだ！Learning second language is more free and fun than I thought! (this article is written in English)

大好きな語学系YouTuber Chinatsuさんの動画を今朝視聴しました。全ての英語学習者向けに、英語学習をする上でのマインドセットや実際の学習方法、そして英語学習の楽しさを発信してくれている方です。彼女の英語はもちろん、わたしはChinatsuさんの人柄もとっても好きなのでここでシェアさせてください☺️今日は英語でチャレンジです◎
(↓ChinatsuさんのYouTubeアカウントです)
https://youtu.be/A2ves30oKMo?si=EnPgw1p0k0JdlFJh

I watched Chinatsu’s YouTube video today and really impressed what she talk in the video. So I’m gonna talk about what she talked in the video and talk about my impression about it.
She talked about some principles how we can improve our English skill especially focusing on speaking English as second language speaker.

The first principle is it doesn’t matter where you live and where you work, the point is making effort to use the language in your daily life. Even though I’m living in NZ, I can chose the environment where I can speak only Japanese or chose friends who is from Japan as well. I mean if I really want to improve my English skill, I need to choose environment or make opportunity to speak English in daily ife. Even though if you have only few chance to meet or to work with native English speakers, I can talk with my Japanese friends in English, I can go to English cafe, I can start practicing English with tutor or have casual conversation with new friends using app where I can make friends from all over the world.

The second principle is speaking second language is related to your mind and body. When you speak your first language, you don’t care about your mistake like is this expression correct?, Is this pronounce bad? When you speak English by yourself or in front of your close friend or partner, you don’t care about your mistake too much. But When it comes to speak English with native English friends or someone who speaks English fluently than me, it seems like much harder and can’t speak as much as I speak before. So I have to feel safe and relaxed at first and then words will come out naturally from your mouth. If you practice more, it’s going to get easier.

The third principle is learning English is not about accumulating lots of knowledge. Especially Japanese tend to focus on just learning vocabulary and having lots of knowledge like “how to pronounce this sound” “set your tang at this position”. It might comes from our Japanese culture since from our childhood, we judged our English skill with just score or numbers. Of course input is really important, but more than that speaking English with your mouth and listening English with your ears and feeling English with our own skin is important. English is not just study, not having knowledge, it is more related to our body and mind.

The last principle is using the language as your communication tool. When we don’t have confidence with our language skill we sometimes think “my English is awful, I need to buy new text book, I need to change way to study...” And what we do is doing only input. So when will you speak English? After you finish your textbook, is your English getting better? The answer is actually no. If you learn something new, use it as soon as possible.

What I learned from this video is I don’t need to care about how much knowledge now I have or which level I am. Since when I started studying English, I have forced me to “study” English and get high score on English test, or have lots of knowledge like vocabulary or grammar. Now I have over 800 points on TOEIC, but when I think about how is my speaking level? is it getting better? Not really. Because of this experience of way to study English, I noticed that there is only few relation between having lots of knowledge and speaking English fluently.

So let’s think about how to improve my English level from the bottom. Here is my ideas:

1 Having opportunities to use English in my dailylife
I wanna enjoy English. So I’m gonna stop studying English from now. It’s kind of experiment.
What I’m gonna do is having friends and hang out or calling or texting whatever. I prefer to have meeting with my friend once or twice a week, but these days I’m little busy so try to call on hello talk or friends as much as I can. But don’t forget, it is for enjoying English! Not my tasks!

2 keep writing essay!
I’m into writing essay both English and Japanese, I don’t know why... but before I start writing essay, I sometimes wrote down my feeling and thought not only on my daily but on instagram, I think I’m kind of person who loves romantic things and poems... hahaha it looks like embarrassing... also I love represent myself like drawing picture, singing songs, and writing something or reading books whatever. I’m interesting in creative activities. I don’t get tired when I do some creative activities, especially writing. It seems like this is one of my talent. When I am writing what I am thinking, my idea, what I learned or felt these days, put something together by writing precisely, I feel really excited and being myself. Also, I can realize myself, new Nagisa ( I don’t know how to express it ). representing myself into words can lead to understand myself deeply. I like this emotion to explore myself!

3 learning how to talk not only English but Japanese
I noticed that I’m not big fun of talking about myself even though in Japanese. Maybe I don’t feel necessary to talk about myself to other people. I would rather listen to other’s talking since when I was a kid. But as I said I like writing and expressing my self with writing. So I mean I want improve my English skill not only for having conversation but for expressing myself. It might be my opportunity why I want to improve my English skill. Of cause I wanna speak English fluently, but I can’t fulfilled with myself even though even if I can speak only daily conversation in English.
I want to express who I am, I want to know who you are. I wanna get more deeply relation with others through talking.
So, what I need to talk with others more deeply is having expressions being related to my interesting. When it comes to study English, I need to study English comprehensively, but from now, I’m gonna change my mind. Language is not study, it is something more enjoyable. So I’m gonna do only what I like or What I’m interested in.
I like: watching video being related to mind set, psychology, social problem, global issues, religion, linguistic, art, history...etc.
Gathering expression which is related to these topics really useful since it lead to talking with someone who is interested in them as well. Also, It can lead to improve expressing about them in English if I write about them on my essay with new vocabulary that I learn from these videos.