Free Essay On Learning A New Language

Learning a new language can prove to be very challenging especially if a person has no prior basic knowledge of the language. Different languages have different methods of expressions depending on the event, time, occasion or the person. This includes difference in sentence construction and the changes in expressions and tones during the actual verbal communication. The most common problem that hinders effective learning is the language barrier in terms of pronunciation of terms that could be totally different between the native language and the new language. This paper is therefore a reflection of the success factors and the challenged I have experienced in learning English as a new language. It is mostly influenced by the major differences in the verbal, grammatical and contextual differences that exist between English and Chinese language which is my native language.
One of the most challenging issues that affected the process of learning English is language barrier. English is the first language of almost all the people in the United States and thus, communicating with them is difficult especially at school and at work. However, I had managed to establish a brief mode of verbal communication although the sentences contained grammatical errors due to the differences in sentence construction and phonologies as used in Chinese and in English language which has to follow strict subject and verb conjunctions. The most difficult situation is learning to pronounce English words in regard to the way alphabets are arranged which is totally different in the Chinese language. This can be challenging at workplaces communication where one is required to be fluent and concise in sentence construction.
Tone variation is a challenging thing to overcome as high and low pitch is a common thing used in the native Chinese language during verbal communication. For instance in any form of interaction, raising and lowering pitch is the common used phonology in Chinese language verbal communication to portray different meanings of different words and this is different in English language where the pitch notion in a speech is used to express emotions of the speaker. Uses of high tones when communicating at the workplace should be minimal as the formal English language is supposed to be calm and mostly accompanied by use of polite words such as excuse me, sir/madam, and thank you among others in a calm tone. This can be different in a social communication with friends where the tone may vary and the polite words are minimal. Also words such as ‘I would like’ are commonly used in a formal communication as compared to a social chat where it is not necessary to use such words in the United States. Example in a sentence is ‘I would like to go home’ while in a social setting, one can say ‘I want to go home’. This was however difficult since the social interaction with colleagues and fellow students was hard to understand whereby the sentence construction is informal and some sentence structures learned in class are different from the actual words used in day to day communication where most sentences have slangs.
The way words are pronounced can also be confusing in English whereby different words with different meaning can have similarity in pronunciation. For instance the words ‘full’ and ‘fool’ are pronounced the same and when used in a sentence which is not grammatically correct, then they can be confusing and insulting when used in a social form of communication. In addition, being a native Chinese speaker, it was difficult to differentiate ‘l’ and ‘r’ in pronunciation and this proved to be difficult in pronouncing different terms in a verbal communication.
Tenses are also challenging as they result to grammatical errors especially when communicating in an official setting. The present, past and future tenses have to be adhered to in a verbal communication so as to correctly convey the message. For instance, ‘I was working’, and ‘I worked’, are two sentences expressing the past events but the first one is used in indicating an ongoing action in the past while the latter indicates an action I did in the past. Therefore it is essential to observe the correct tenses in an official setting especially in writing resumes, job interviews and in the actual job place where verbal and written English language should follow the correct tense either, past, present, future and continuous tenses among others.
The process of learning English as a second language is interesting and yet difficult since use correct grammar and pronunciation is necessary in establishing an official job communication. The important factors to consider in order to successfully communicating in English language are the tenses, adjectives and subject-verb agreement in various sentence structure so as to efficiently establish a communication pattern and sentence structures in various situations. This is further aided by the use of various polite words in a sentence as well as tone variations. For instance the sentences ‘open the door please’ and ‘could you kindly open the door’ could have the same meaning but the second sentence is more polite while the first one could be regarded as rude.