Learning foreign languages

Maturitní téma z anglického jazyka

Gymnázium F. X. Šaldy

Hana Kyselová

4.A

As Goethe wrote, "Wer keine fremde Sprache kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen" (Whoever knows no foreign languages, knows nothing of his own). Only by learning how other languages manage to express themselves differently from our own native language can students understand the unique qualities of their own language's words and grammar.

Studying foreign languages is important for everybody. We have many reasons to study them. We need it for travelling abroad, for reading foreign materials, for business communication and so on. The most important language for the communication is English. English is a world language. It is spoken by around 350 million people. It is used as a first language in countries such as Australia, Canada, GB, Ireland, New Zealand, the USA and many of the countries in the Caribbean. In other countries it is used as a second language, it is a way in which people who have different languages communicate with each other. This is especially true in many parts of Africa and India. In these countries and former British colonies English is an official language.

Importance of studying foreign language:

For Czech it is important to learn foreign languages, because only a few people abroad can speak Czech. And when we can communicate with people from other countries, we have to know some of world language. The most favourite foreign language at Czech schools is German, because we border on Germany and Austria. But the second favourite language is English. It is easier than is Germany and also Germans and Austrians can speak English.

History of English:

English is a member of a language family that includes ancient languages like Ancient Greek and Latin, some Asian languages and Slavonic and many European languages, for example French, Spanish, German. These languages have the same original root. The family of languages that English belongs so is the Indo-European family. English began to develop in about 450 AD when Anglo-Saxons came from Germany. Before this invasion the language spoken in England was a form of Celtic, similar to modern Welsh. Old English was clearly a Germanic language, more like modern German and Dutch than modern English. It was affected by the languages of other invaders such as the Vikings who came in the 9^th century, and the Normans who came from France in 1066. Normans used Latin for official business, but spoke French in daily life, so at this time there were three languages used in England. Because the rulers used French and Latin, many specialised words, especially those connected with government, law, learning or the army, have come into English from French or Latin, while words for more everyday things are from old English. From the 14^th century onwards, many English words were borrowed or invented from other languages. Some borrowings are very recent. Others nave been in the language for centuries.

English as a world Language

Why is English called the world language? There are several points which speak for it. For example that there are the large number of people who speak English all over the world. That is why we can make us understood better. But also English has its own dialects and differences. So we can hear many kinds of the same language. The most known differences are between English and American English. The differences can be in grammar or only in using some words. So for example when you are in America you should say drugstore instead of chemists, movie theatre instead of cinema, or vacation instead of holiday. But there are many other kinds of English, for example English which is spoken in Scotland, Wales, New Zealand, Australia, Texas India or Jamaica.

People who speak English fall into three groups: those who have learned it as their native language; those who have learned it as a second language in society that is mainly bilingual; and those who need this language for a practical purpose.
Today, when English is one of the major languages in the world, it requires an effort of an imagination to realize that this is a relatively recent thing - that in Shakespeare´s time only a few million people spoke English.

English is very strange language. Old English had many inflections to show singular and plural, tense, person and so on, but over the centuries words have been simplified. Verbs now have very few inflections, and adjectives do not change according to the noun. Without inflections the same word can operate as many different parts of speech. Many nouns and verbs have the same form, for example: swim, drink, walk, kiss, and so on.

Approximately 350 million of people speak English as their first language. About the same number use it as a second language. It is language of business, technology, science, internet, sport and pop music. It is official language of 44 countries. The future of English language is relatively clear. Because of the fact that English is the language of world communication. This will no doubt continue, although the proposition that all other languages will die out is absurd.

My experience in studying foreign language:

I started to study foreign language at the 6^th class of elementary school. But the results were not as good as I would like. My knowledge of grammar were quite good but I had problems with speaking. I do not know whether it was my mistake or my teacher's mistake. Maybe both.

Then I made an entrance examination to Grammar school and I began to study German and continue in study English. I can say that English is much easier than German. First it has no cases. In German there are four cases. Of course it is less than in Czech, we have seven cases, but it made me a lot of troubles, especially because German cases are not same as Czech ones. And not to lie I have to say that I don't like German for its sound. It sounds me very sharply. In the second class at Grammar school I started to study Russian. Cyrillic alphabet (“azbuka”) is a special type of writing, which uses different letters for vowels and consonants. I thing that this knowledge is quite useful because sometimes when I get to Bulgarian or somewhere else, I can read writings an guess what it means because these languages are similar to Czech.

In my opinion, the most difficult parts of English grammar are tenses. In Czech we have only past tense, present tense and future tense and a special category, which is not in English. In English there is also past perfect, present perfect and future perfect tense and other confusing categories as a present conditional, perfect conditional. All this tenses can be passive or active, simple or progressive. When I was studying English for some years I realised, there are no emotional nouns. If I want to express my feelings I have to use different ways than I use in Czech. I thing, that learning how to express feelings is the most difficult part of studying a foreign language. If you want to speak good English or German, you have to learn not only vocabulary and grammar but also the mentality of the people that speaks these languages as a mother tongue. Of course, vocabulary is the most important. I have some methods of improving it. I write new words into my wordbook, write the pronunciations and then I find Czech equivalents in a dictionary. Sometimes if the word is irregular I note there also plural or past tense. I read this list of words and try to remember them. Another method of improving my word power is reading English books in originals. But it is so difficult because I cannot concentrate. According to me the most effective way of learning is by using it. The best way is going to a foreign country. Nowadays it is not impossible. Young people can go there as au pairs to families, help them with looking after children, cooking and so on. They can go for three months or two years. It is also a very good experience. There is another problem for me - I am afraid of going abroad and spending much time with strange people and looking after their children. It is a big responsibility and I am not sure if I would managed it.

Indo-European languages

Indo-European language is about 6 000 years old and has origin in southern Russia. It is extinct now but it was the ancestor of many modern languages. The Indo-European tribes travelled to the north-west into Europe and to the south-east into Iran and India. The languages of Europe have been taken across the oceans to America, Australia and Africa.

Summary of most important Indo-European languages (native speakers - in millions):

• Germanic:

• west (German): German (118), English (420), Yiddish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Flemish etc.

• north (Scandinavian): Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish

• Celtic: Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, Breton

• Romance: Portuguese (164), Spanish (296), French (114), Italian (63), Rumanian

• Slavonic:

• west: Czech, Slovak, Polish (41), Kashubian

• east: Russian (285), Ukrainian, Belorussian

• south: Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian

• Iranian:

• east: Patho, Osettic

• west: Persian, Kurdish

• Indian: Bengali (171), Hindu (300), Sinhalse, Nepali

• Baltic: Lithuaian, Latvian

• Greek, Albanian, Armenian

vetřelec, nájezdník

převzaté slovo

vyžadovat

snaha

uvědomit si

mluvnický pád

samohlásky

souhlásky

realise (BrE) - uvědomovat si

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