20.The importance of learning languages
The Importance of Learning Foreign Languages
It is obvious that knowledge of some foreign language is becoming unnecessary for everybody who wants to get a god job,study at universinty or travel abroad. We live in quite a small country and all around the world is not more than 12 milions of Czech language speakers, comparing with English taht is spoken by 740 millions of people (310 of them are native speakers). It means that outside of our country live just a very few of people we could understand to without knowledge of any foreign languages.
There are great personal reasons why to learn languages. Learning of foreign language helps us to develope our intelligence. Children who learn foreign language at an early age are usually better in writting and reading and their overall results at school are better than those who don´t learn it.
Our first president masaryk said „As many languages you speak, as many times you are a human“ and his words are wise. Knowledge of foreign languages opens to us a whole new world. It enables us to understand other cultures much easier. We gain new horisons and reinforce our identity.
Other reasons could be economical and political. Knowledge of foreign languages as English, French or German improves our chances on job market, because most f employers require their future employees to speak at least one foreign language, usually English. As the Czech republic became a member of the European Union, knowledge of foreign languages become to us more importan than ever before.
Language studies in Czech schools
Czech children usually heve their first experience with learning foreign language at the age of eight or nine. They usually lean this language during next five or six years of their life. This is at least what the law says. At our school we take second foreign language at the age of thirteen , some of us teo years later. By this time we also take Latin.
My oppinion about school and languages is tgat we should start with learning them at our early age, it refers to when we are three or four years old. Because this is theage when is learning the easiest . Older we get, learning becomes harder. Another thing is that I consider as a problem is the way how children are thought languages. There are only a few of teachers who can make learning interesting. Without a good teacher children lose motivation to learn and their future attitude towards the languages could become negative. Children like toplay and they learn through it. It depends mostly on teacher wheather their students will love language or not. In my oppinion there is also lack of conversation during the lessons. We are mostly just sitting, listening and illing the gaps, while conversation is much more important for live.
Where you can learn languages
I already mmentioned the school as one place where we can learn anguages.There is also a lot of language schools where people can learn it as well. Especially here in Prague there are hundreds of these schools but their quality vary a lot. Not all of them are good. We need to be carefull while deciding where to learn languages. It is good to know several details about the course. For example: how many students are in class (maximum should be twelve), when there is too many students teacher cannot focus on each of them easily. In smaller groups we usually learn more. It is also good to know wheather our teacher is native speaker or not. Native speakers are mostly better for those who already know the language.Beginners should have teacher who can speak their first language.
Good way how to learn a language is to go abroad and stay there for a while. There is usually a great offer of language schools and places where to stay. During the lessons we can learn grammar and at the same time we use language everywhere (while shopping, sightseeing, meeting other people or staying with the host family). I consider this as a best way of learning languages.
What helps you the best in learning languages
I would definately say: motivation and practice. It is easier to learn something when we have a good motivation why to learn it and like it than when we have a bad attitude.
When we want to learn tohe language effectively the best is just to use it as much as possible.Read the books, listen to music, talk with native speakers.Just dont be afraid to speak.
What do you find the most difficult?
It depends. Every language is different. One have a really comlicated grammar, other language is hard to spell, some are hard to pronunce. Some languages are hared to learn, some are arsy.Especially if they are similar to our language.
I find usually most difficult to understand people with accent I am not familiar with.