John (仮) 's note

I started this blog without deep strategies.

Just started.

It's IS a good thing.

"Just do it!" What a sweet phrase is that?

However, I believe I need to come up with a plan now.

Otherwise, how can I avoid being lost?

Time is precious, so I started without a plan, and I make my plan now for the same reason.

What my goal should be?

How will I achieve that?

To finish my long run, those questions should be answered.

2 goals

There are two goals I want to achieve.

1. Be able to read a self-improvement book for 1 hour with ease

2. Have enough skills to communicate with native speakers at forums in English 

Why those goals?

Because I want to sustain English skills I will obtain.

The true test that await us starts after we improve our skills.

As long as we keep learning, our skills increase, which means they will decrease when we stop learning, and we don't want to keep spending time on learning for the whole life.

This dilemma is perfectly solved by using those skills.

We don't have to spend extra time, and we can still sustain the skills.

Therefore, I want to have clear ideas of how to use skills I'm learning.

In Japan, the easiest and most helpful way to use English is to read.

There're so many books and websites that I want to read so one of my goals is "be able to read with ease".

The second goal is to maintain my writing skill and to access to more information.

I will be writing in English everyday for this month, but I'm not sure whether or not I will write after this month.

That is why, I will start practicing another usage of my writing skill before it starts lusting.

How to achieve that.

To be able to read a serious book easily, I'm going to do following things.

1. Read at least 1 hour everyday.
I will start with easy books(or even comics) first to keep reading for 1 hour, in the meantime, I write down(or copy and paste) phrases and grammars I don't get.

2. Check phrases and grammars I wrote down.
This is the technique, I've been wanting to try.

3. Write a blog post using things I learn from the books
Here's where this blog comes.

I'm gonna try those 3 steps to achieve the 1st goal.

For the 2nd goal, I think I will start commenting on forums or blog-like websites, like Medium.

I'm not fully sure what I'm gonna do about it yet, but like everyone say "Just do it!"

I keep track of this plan.

Hope I can tell positive news at the end of the month.

Thank you,
John（仮）

Once we understand English a little, it's wiser to learn it in English for 2 reasons.

1. If we use more, we learn more!
2. Any activities have more options in English.

That's why I'd like to share nice websites today.


FLUENT iN 3 MONTHS

Do you remember the video i showed in another post?

The guy from that video runs this website.

It seems pretty sophisticated.

You can find many language hacks, useful resources, and interesting articles.

To bloggers, I think it's a nice text book for blogging too.


Urban dictionary

It's a online dictionary people can edit like Wikipedia.

I don't think the idea itself isn't really fascinating.

But when it comes to slangs, this is the best, I reckon.

I mean, where else can you find a dictionary that shows you an ESSAY for a word "noob"?

Okay, this is what Google says about "noob" when you ask him.

noob

nuːb/

noun

informal

noun: noob; plural noun: noobs

1. a person who is inexperienced in a particular sphere or activity, especially computing or the use of the Internet.

noob meaning:Google

Clear and short, right?

This is what Urban dictionary

noob:Urban dictionary

Please, check it yourself. It's a way too long....


italki

Do you like RareJob or DMM Eikaiwa?

Then let me introduce the pioneer of them, italki!

This company was established in 2005, while Rarejob was started 2 years later.

In terms of the lesson fee, it's little expensive, but the website allows students to practice not only English, but most of languages, which means WE can be a teacher too.

It might be interesting to get connections with native English speakers while earning money.

Before the end

Actually, there're more websites i want to share, but I need to take a bath.

I think if we use English, things get more interesting.

There are sooo many options available in English because of a simpl reason.

Over 800 million people use English while only 127 million people speak Japanese.

It's a huge difference, right?

On top of that, we can FEEL our skills by suing it!


Thank you,
John（仮）

To Japanese, and some native English speakers who didn't have to learn, learn a new language can be scary.

It takes long time and huge costs.

Or maybe not.

Perhaps people live in the shadow of fear that learning a language is a scary thing.

Whether or not that's true , be a bilingual is a good thing.

It doesn't only increase our potential income, but it also clearly improves our brain.

On top of that, learning may not be as hard as we fear.

Benefits of learning

If you can speak more than one language, you can travel easily.

But that's not the only benefit you can get.

Your brain will be better.

Memory, Concentration, and task switching are few of them that get better.

Some article points out that bilinguals in the U.S earn 20% higher than monolinguals in average.

How the Brain Benefits from Being Bilingual:Lifehack

It is HARD, but not impossible 

In this video, Chris Lonsdale told us we can learn a language in six months.

Do you think it's impossible?

You think like "hmm, he seems smart. Maybe he can, but..." or something like that?

Then how about this?



He says we can be fluent in 3 months!

3 months!

And he doesn't seem too smart to learn(No offence!).

Of course, they require us to spend a lot of time during those months.

But if we can really learn a new language in several months, the whole world look different.

If we want go to Netherland and enjoy chatting with locals, then have some time beforehand.

What we need is correct and intense learning time.

Focus on it for 6 months, then we are all good.

What is REALY scary?

When we play sports seriously, coaches are supposed to know the basics of muscles.

But English teachers don't know how brain learn a language.

THAT makes learning SCARY and inefficient.

If we learn what we need by ourselves and implement a learning plan accordingly, maybe learning a new language isn't scary.

Since I started this blog, few days have passed.

And you know what?

I'm enjoining it.

Why?

Because while I'm writing in English, I don't become a perfectionist!

Truth be told, it was radically hard to write a blog post in Japanese before.

The gap between 2 skills

Since i was child, I read a lot as if I was addicted to books.

Thanks to that I can distinguish good writings and bad writings.

On the blight side, I can tell who's a good writer.

On the other side, I can tell I'm not a good writer.

With out enough amount of training, no one can write well.

So do I.

Of course, the only way to be a good writer is to write, but while I was writing, those words I wrote made me unhappy.

It is the unhappiness that arises from compering a post I wrote to the post I want write.

After I'd posted several posts on LifeEngine, I gained both confidence and writing skills; therefore I'm quite okay to write fancy posts now, but it was not super easy at all.

Forget perfectionism! I don't get it anyway!

The best thing about writing in English is that I am unskilled.

So unskilled that I don't get the beauty of words.

Due to my lack of reading skills, I really don't care what I write.

It's like a beginner painting freely while an expert, despaired at his skill, envy the beginner.

Both my writing skills and reading skills in English are almost equal.

I'm gonna sooo enjoy this feeling

After I read the post I wrote yesterday, I found it very hard to read.

Probably, my lack of writing skill is the main reason, but long lines of those alphabets also make it harder to read to non-native English speakers, I think.

In another words, those alphabets look boring.

Of course, that only proves lack of experience.

Native English speakers find them exciting.

...At least, some of them.

・How to make it better?

However, a post must be attractive and unique to be read.

This is one of the basics, we all know.

Then the question is how can I make it better?

Color some of them to make it distinguished?

Write in 7 colors like a rainbow?

Gee, this looks like a 8 years old girl who loves magical unicorns wrote this.
(No offense, girls!)

・Is blogging too old?

To improve my writing skills, I will continue writing this for at least 1 month.

However, I need to find a good place to fight or maybe I should learn how to draw.


Thank you,
John（仮）