[Music]
hello everyone my name is howard chan
i'm a chinese english conference
interpreter i interpret english into
chinese and chinese into english
as a native chinese speaker i spent
years learning english to become a
fluent speaker of the language
today i'd like to share with you three
fatal mistakes taiwanese people make
when learning english and how we can
avoid those mistakes and improve our
language proficiency
first of all the most fatal mistake
learning english
as a subject instead of a language
many people study hard only the night
before the exam
unfortunately it's exactly the case when
it comes to english learning in taiwan
oh i'm taking toeic next weekend i'm
gonna study super hard to ace it
and then what happens after the test
back to my normal life without english
that's not the way you learn english if
you want to use it
language is feeling the most efficient
way to learn english
is to feel it make english part of your
life
listen to english songs watch english
shows and movies
maybe on voice too read english news
give english printations talk to people
in english
keep your diary in english switch your
phone and facebook language settings
into english
even you can feel the groove of the
sentences
the second mistake is cramming vocab
word
without pronouncing them think about it
you
memorize a word but you don't really
know how to pronounce it
when you need to use it you try to say
it but you can't
or you get the pronunciation wrong and
people don't get it
isn't it obvious that it's not a good
way to expand the size of your active
vocabulary
check the pronunciation before you
memorize a word when you know how to
pronounce it
it's actually easier for you to remember
it well
you might still pronounce words
incorrectly sometimes
yourself right away and remind yourself
to get it right the next time
the last mistake is relying heavily on
subtitles maybe because a great deal of
taiwanese shows and almost all movies in
taiwan are subtitled
people rely on subtitles so much that
they sometimes just
read and don't even listen it is a huge
problem because people understand the
material
based on their reading comprehension
only and ignore the audio input
that is to say they're not improving
their listening or speaking skills
which is the main purpose of using
multimedia materials
to learn english watching videos is not
a reading comprehension activity
it's okay to watch anything with
subtitles to help you understand the
content
but always remind yourself to listen to
how the words and the phrases are
pronounced
you can even imitate the speaker or the
actor in the video
remember you're not just reading the
subtitles out loud
but challenging yourself to sound like
the speaker as much as possible
and then you're finally really listening
and that's a wrap i hope you like my
video check out
my facebook page from the link below if
you're interested in english learning
translation and interpreting bye