Hello it’s Lise, today let’s talk about my English, after one and a half months, I can say that the language has become easier and easier every day. At the beginning, I understood half of what people told me and it wasn’t very clear. Moreover, I had a little troube to express myself and all of my ideas, it was very fustrating. I think after two weeks in Canada, I started to understand the majority even though some ideas weren’t very clear. It was still a bit hard to express myself but not as much as before. Now, I am halfway through this experience and I can say that I understand almost everything, I can express my ideas quite confidently, I use simple sentences and basic vocabulary, but people can understand me. When school started, I really noticed an improvement of my English and especially in my ESL course (English for international students).
If you are going soon to another country with a new language, I would like to give you some advice that might help you. Firstly, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, I think the first weeks I was here I used the wrong tenses or wrong words for sure, but I just continued to talk even with the mistakes and I learned from them. When I arrived in the country I realized it was hard and fustrating to cannot express my ideas clearly, some people couldn’t understand me, I didn’t lock myself up and I tried different ways to communicate and learn. Next, I noticed Canadian people talk more or less slowly and I wanted to answer too fast when people ask me a question, so now I take my time to answer, I think about the entire idea that you want to express, which tense is the good one and so on…
Finally, when school started I went to the library to borrow a book because reading in English helps me a lot, I try to understand and I also see the word, to maybe avoid future mistakes. I also have a vocabulary notebook that I have with me all the time and when I see a word that I can’t understand I try to find the translation and I write it down in my notebook.
Well, I hope all this advice could help you in the future.
Thanks for reading.
Lise