12_Languages_and_language_learning

12. Languages and language learning

OSNOVA:

• introduction

  • importance of languages

  • reasons to learn

• language system - families, branches

• English

  • importance

  • British X American English

• language learning in the Czech Republic

• best ways to learn a language

• my skills and experience

First of all, I’d like to start with the importance of language learning. Language learning has been always important and it’s still important more and more. The countries have to communicate with each other and so they have to understand. It’s actually the type of „positive“ globalization. When we can speak foreign languages, we have more work opportunities, we can travel abroad and talk with foreigners or read foreign materials to get more information, especially in specialized areas like business or medicine. We can also learn languages for cultural reasons - we want to watch movies with neither dubbing nor subtitles, we want to go to concerts of foreign artists and understand them and their songs… The reasons are so many. Knowledge of languages is required mainly in tourism, international business, social service and education.

When I talk about languages, I should give some general information about them. To make order in so many languages, people divide them in groups, also called language families. For Europe, the most important family is the Indo-European family where the most of the European languages belong. This language family is divided into language branches, for example the Germanic branch including English, German and many more, or the Slovenian branch that includes Czech language.

Now, I would like to talk about English. English is the third most widespread maternal language in the world and it has become the language number one in business, sciences, communication and many more. It’s maternal for example in the United Kingdom, USA, Australia, New Zealand or Canada. English language is of Germanic origin. Nowadays, we can distinguish five main types of English which differ in pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary and sometimes also in grammar. These are British English, American English, Australian English, Indian English and African English. The most known ones are the British and American English. One of the differences between them is that the Americans simplify the grammar a lot, for example they use only Past Simple instead of all these Present Perfects and Past Perfects. But the main difference that can be noticed is the vocabulary and pronunciation. For example „the flat“ in British English is „the apartment“ in American English or the British „sunglasses“ are the American „shades“. As for the pronunciation, the British pronounce more „á“ (like „pást“) but the Americans say more „ej“ (like „pést“).

And now, I’d like to mention the language education in our country. The languages that are taught in the Czech Republic are mainly English and German, followed by French, Spanish and Russian. It’s possible to learn English from the nursery school. At the primary school it’s obligatory to study English and from the secondary school it’s usual to choose a second language. The second most taught language is German, probably because Germany is our neighbouring country, but I think it should be French, because it’s the second official language of the European Union. I would say that quality of the language education in our country is quite poor. We don’t have enough „good English teachers“ because during the old communist system everyone had to study Russian, but I think it’s getting better slowly. We can be taught by Czech teachers or by the native speakers. The advantage of the Czech teacher is that they can explain the grammar or some other problems in our mother tongue. But to be honest, they can never be as good as the native speakers. On the other hand, the native speakers sometimes use special accent that you don’t have to understand. Also the usage of slang can be advantageous, as well as disadvantageous.