@sakkikoyumikishi

5 months ago

This video shows a very interesting phenomenon in language learning: Japan and many other countries in (Eastern) Asia focus almost entirely on spelling and some reading. You don't usually say anything in class (in your target language) and listening practice is hardly ever done either. So they are often very competent at spelling things or gathering meaning from text, but barely able to express themselves verbally or understand other speakers. They often tend to learn formulaic phrases by heart (whole sentences or at least sentence elements like phrases). So when something only roughly fits their situation, they can have trouble changing the details of what they're saying to truly fit their situation. You may find a Japanese learner of English who has studied the language for ten years and can express himself flawlessly in work emails about highly technical and complicated topics, but struggles to do something as basic verbally as ordering at a restaurant. Most (Central) European countries on the other hand choose a more well-rounded approach with a stronger focus on communication. You can easily find first-year learners of English who will already have had enough practice in speaking and listening to carry on a (simple) conversation with someone. School typically teach in the target language from the start, so you may walk into your first ever English class in a German school and the teacher will communicate exclusively in English. Their learners' vocabulary is usually less deep and much broader, meaning that they know fewer words over all but can generally choose the best words for their specific situation, making communication, especially rapid spontaneous production of verbal output, fairly easy. You may find a German learner of English who has studied the language for ten years, can hold a verbal conversation about everyday topics at a level near-indistinguishable from a native speaker (accents notwithstanding) but will struggle to write a text on very specialised technical topics.

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