Tomáš Suchomel | Lukáš Ziebiker

Learning foreign languages

There are a lot of ways to enhance our mind, get better memory or be able to understand other
languages. The best one for me is learning the foreign languages themselves. The main reason of
learning foreign laguage is to understand people from other countries.

Learning is pretty simple. In the past the only way to learn a foreign language was to study at a
prestige school and you had to be from a very rich family. Most of the population could only speak
their native language. Today it is much more simple. The most common way of studying foreign
languages is in school as second or third language. Then there are courses which could be paid for.
Another way is to practise with someone you met who is originally from foreign country and meet
him online for example. And the cozy way today is also learning via a mobile app.

What do we need foreign language for? It is as simple as it sounds. We need it to communicate in

How I said in the past it was really hard to get some information and rules to learn about foreign
languages. It was nearly impossible, but today the information waits around every corner. We can
have it the old way and just visit the library or we can find everything useful online, where is of
course important to double-check the source. Modern classbooks are made so brillantly that you can
buy them for 500 czech crowns and learn a lot from them on your own.

I started learning English when I was eight or nine years old in elementary school. It used to be
really easy for the first couple of years. Later I did not give too much attention to learning and got
stuck a bit at my level of english. Progressing through the years it becomes harder and harder but
that is the point because we were learning new things. I have visited the United Kingdom twice.
Once I was in Brighton like 4 years ago and once in Scotland something about 2 years ago. It was
an awesome experience and I am glad I could be there.

THE BEST WAY TO LEARN LANGUEAGE

Learning English is really not as hard as many people think. The main problem could be that
English differs in the form from your mother tongue. The form of English is much easier than the
one of Czech but I personally find difficulties in speaking where u have to quickly think about what
you are going to say and match the correct words. This can be learnt only by practicing speaking or
reading aloud. The vocabulary is easy to learn since it’s all around us thanks to internet and other
technology. Actually I learnt most words from PC games and internet. The most important things to
learn are the form and the very vocabulary. On the other hand, I found learning perfect tenses
redundant. The pronunciation of English is a nightmare, basically when u are not born in an English
speaking country you are pretty much doomed and you will have to live with a strong accent.
There are varieties of English such as British, American, Australian, Indian or Globish English and
there are some differences mostly in pronunciation but there are some even in spelling such as in
the word centre/center which is written differently depending on the English. Australian English is
well-known for overusing the word “m8” or there is a special vocabulary for some things in
Australia.

English is a West-Germanic language. The history of the English language really started with the
arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the
Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern
Germany. Modern English formed from Old English (in which the Beowulf, the first English
writing, was written) and Middle English.
If I were to compare my experience of learning English to the other language I have been actively
 Tomáš Suchomel | Lukáš Ziebiker

learning at school, German, I would say there isn’t too much of a difference. There are surely some
things different, like rules and tenses, otherwise we could be all speaking one united language. The
hardest thing about German, for me personally are the articles (der, die, das). Every noun has one of
these three. They change the ending of adjectives, prepositions, and even change themselves, all
depending on the „fall“, in which you are speaking. German has 4 of these and Czech has 7,
whereas English has nothing like that.The other thing I hate when learning German are the verbs.
Some of them behave like they all should (normally), but some are super irregular and have
different forms depending on the tense you are currently using. I feel like learning German is also
harder for because of my lesser exposure to it, being a less spoken language, while almost everyone
online knows english.

For a short period, I also paid for a language course, I wanted to learn some Chinese. It was super
difficult. I imagine that it is similar with the other asian languages. They use symbols instead of
letters, so it is impossible to read anything, without prior learning. They also have 5 different tones,
which they can use with one syllable for 5 different words. These words would only differ in
pronunciation and written symbol. I stopped learning after half a year, since it was too difficult, I
was learning from a native speaker, who spoke mostly english and also I didn’t have a lot o free
time.