Hello and welcome to Real Easy English.
In this podcast we have real conversations in easy English to help you understand.
I'm Neil.
And I'm Beth.
You can watch a video of this podcast and there is a free worksheet on our website, bbclearningenglishcom.
Hi, Beth.
How are you?
I'm very well, thank you, Neil.
How are you?
I'm good.
I tried to watch a film in a foreign language last night.
Oh.
Interestingly, today we are talking about learning languages.
We know that everyone listening is learning English, and we've both tried to learn some languages, haven't we?
So we're going to be talking about what it's like to learn a language.
Let's start.
OK.
So, Neil, what languages have you tried to learn or what languages can you speak?
Well...
At school, we learned French and also some German, but I don't speak those.
When I started teaching abroad, I tried to learn the languages in those countries.
So Czech from the Czech Republic, Spanish, and also Japanese.
Very nice.
Okay.
How about you?
Well, similar situation.
I learnt French in school.
I didn't really try.
I didn't really enjoy it.
But when I started teaching, I started learning Spanish and I was really motivated.
I'm definitely better at Spanish than I am at French.
Do you find learning languages difficult?
I think that when you start learning a language, it's quite easy, because you can learn a lot in a short amount of time.
But once you reach that sort of intermediate level, I think it can be very difficult to improve.
Yes, it's definitely difficult when you start learning a language and then, when you go to that country and try to speak, you realise, even if you think you're quite good, that actually you're not so good.
Yeah, yeah.
What do you think is the hardest thing about learning a new language?
I think listening is very hard.
But also speaking because you have to think and concentrate before you say something.
And then you also then have to think, concentrate to understand the answer and if you get lost you can feel really bad, you can feel embarrassed or awkward or anxious.
Yeah, I think sometimes you memorize, you try to remember words and phrases and then you use them to And you feel really good because you said a fluent sentence and then the person replies and you're so focused on yes, I said something good that you then don't understand what they've said back to you.
Absolutely.
Yes.
I think everyone studying a language has experienced that.
Yeah, definitely.
Have you ever done any exams, any tests in a different language?
Yes, I have.
I've done A-level Spanish.
A-level is the school exam you take when you're 18 in the UK.
I did a GCSE in French.
That's an exam that we take in school when we're 15 16, and i failed it.
Oh no, i'm surprised.
You've told everybody.
I know i don't know why.
Do you have any tips for memorizing things?
Because when you learn a language, you really have to memorize things.
So i find Writing things down and putting them in my house really helps.
And it's about seeing and practicing those words again and again, because the more you say them, the more they get into your head.
Yeah, we get lots of comments from our audience saying, asking how to be more fluent.
What does that mean?
So fluent is when you're able to speak a language without too many pauses.
We are both English, so we can speak English fluently.
But I can't speak Spanish fluently.
I can speak it okay, but I still have to pause and think quite a lot when I speak it.
Let's recap the vocabulary we heard in this conversation, starting with memorise.
Memorise is a verb which means to learn something until you can remember it.
We also had exam, which is a test of a student's knowledge.
If you are fluent in a language, it means you can speak it easily without having to think too much.
And we heard anxious, which means nervous or worried.
People are often anxious when they speak a foreign language.
And we've made a brand new series all about how to feel better when you're speaking English.
There are short videos with tips to help you and longer podcasts about why learning a new language is so difficult.
Head to our website to find the latest episodes, bbclearningenglish.com.
And that's it for this episode of Real Easy English.
See you soon.
Goodbye.
