Reading and Pronouncing Textbooks of the Past - My Progress 18
Reading and pronouncing slowly. These are activities I'm especially into when I'm learning English.
As to reading, as well as books I'm interested in and I got for my Kindle, I'm reading back textbooks of high school. Years ago, I thought that textbooks of high school and junior high school were things of past and they weren't worth while reviewing. I have known that I was wrong, taking advice from experts of English, interpreters, translators, and teachers of cram schools for English tests. Every time I read these textbooks I have a few things to discover. When I learned in school, it was knowledge for exams which I doubted if it is useful in my real life. When I'm reading again, I find some expressions useful to express what I have in mind or I describe things most likely to see and hear in my real life. Changing in the way of seeing texts of textbooks, they give me a lot of incredibly new ideas. The important thing may not be the level of the texts, but the level of we perceive them. Reviewing textbooks slowly for the first time in about 20 years tells me this.
As to pronunciation I pronounce words as slowly and as carefully as I can. I haven't have paid much attention to pronunciation, because it has little effect on better results on tests. I changed my thought recently, when I was rethinking of my purpose of learning English. Now I may have little chance to speak in English in a face-to-face communication. Because of my shy characteristic, I even want to avoid an opportunity to have such a communication. On the other hand I have begun to think that if I have such an opportunity, I may want the person I talk with to be happy and I may want to help a lot him or her. How my speech sound to them may matter to these goals. Now I'm struggling with the habits of pronunciations strongly connected to those of Japanese. Well pronouncing my own language is really important in my real life. But understanding a different language goes with a different pronunciation system, a system to make sounds with your mouth. When I speak only in my native language, I spoke without much reflect on how I make sound with my mouth, but when I speak English, I need to care about how I make sound with my mouth, because I realized that I have to use almost completely different way to make sounds with my mouth when I speak English from when I speak Japanese.
My goal now is not clear and it is not clear either if what I am striving for now make any difference, but I'm making slow progress because these are the only things I can do now.
As to reading, as well as books I'm interested in and I got for my Kindle, I'm reading back textbooks of high school. Years ago, I thought that textbooks of high school and junior high school were things of past and they weren't worth while reviewing. I have known that I was wrong, taking advice from experts of English, interpreters, translators, and teachers of cram schools for English tests. Every time I read these textbooks I have a few things to discover. When I learned in school, it was knowledge for exams which I doubted if it is useful in my real life. When I'm reading again, I find some expressions useful to express what I have in mind or I describe things most likely to see and hear in my real life. Changing in the way of seeing texts of textbooks, they give me a lot of incredibly new ideas. The important thing may not be the level of the texts, but the level of we perceive them. Reviewing textbooks slowly for the first time in about 20 years tells me this.
As to pronunciation I pronounce words as slowly and as carefully as I can. I haven't have paid much attention to pronunciation, because it has little effect on better results on tests. I changed my thought recently, when I was rethinking of my purpose of learning English. Now I may have little chance to speak in English in a face-to-face communication. Because of my shy characteristic, I even want to avoid an opportunity to have such a communication. On the other hand I have begun to think that if I have such an opportunity, I may want the person I talk with to be happy and I may want to help a lot him or her. How my speech sound to them may matter to these goals. Now I'm struggling with the habits of pronunciations strongly connected to those of Japanese. Well pronouncing my own language is really important in my real life. But understanding a different language goes with a different pronunciation system, a system to make sounds with your mouth. When I speak only in my native language, I spoke without much reflect on how I make sound with my mouth, but when I speak English, I need to care about how I make sound with my mouth, because I realized that I have to use almost completely different way to make sounds with my mouth when I speak English from when I speak Japanese.
My goal now is not clear and it is not clear either if what I am striving for now make any difference, but I'm making slow progress because these are the only things I can do now.
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