Today I'll introduce my English learning story.. ^^
I started to learn English at junior high school, like many other students. Our teacher was a middle aged woman, and what a shock, she spoke in English ONLY in our first lesson!
But she had friends in the United States. And she introduced some American students to some of my classmates so that we could be pen friends. OOOOhh, it looked GORGEOUS! I was jealous! Ha ha.
Next year, I became a member of another pen pal club at school. I was expecting a friend from the United States, too,(just because I didn't know much about other countries in the world!!) Finally, I got a friend. But she was Norwegian. Norway??? I had no idea what to do.. if I should write her a letter...but finally I decided to become her friend. I wrote a letter and went to the post office at once!
It was very nice experience for me.
I didn't enjoy English lessons at school so much...ha ha because I had to learn many rules!
Of course, I know it is important to learn grammar and other rules, it is actually really effective to master any foreign language. Especially for grown-up people, it is good, because the brain structure is already different from the little kids who can learn languages without knowing the grammar...
because I had many friends who didn't understand Japanese and with whom I wanted to communicate. I was forced to use English. But I didn't hate it. It was great to find letters in my mail box every day. I needed to write back as soon as I can. Otherwise the letters would have been piled up immidiately.
I kept writing English day after day. It means I kept reading English every day as well.
Moreover, as I was so interested in learning languages and getting better, I watched the Sesame Street on TV, and concentrated SO hard to listen.
Those days this program for the US kids has no Japanese version. It was good, too.
Today, we have big choise to learn foreign languages, not only English. So many kind text books, CD's, DVD's, schools..... We can enjoy meeting new world. Listening to some unfamiliar sound is a good experience, indeed. (As my first pen friend was a Norwegian girl, I even learned Norwegian.)
Just try hard and keep trying. And enjoy it. I don't have much chance to use English in my daily life any more (I still keep friendship with some of my pen pals.. wow, more than 20 years!), but I enjoy reading books (like Harry Potter) in English. It's wonderful.