The Difference of Learning a Second Language ~ Travel and Immigration 101

The way people learn a second language is much different from a child’s experience in learning a first language. Very few adults get to be as fluent in speaking a second language as the native speakers of that language. The reason for this is that anyone acquires his or her first language naturally. The individual gets exposed to that language, grows up with that language and solidifies the use of that language as a part of daily life.

Second language learning occurs because a certain situation or a certain goal calls for it. But, with an already solid foundation and familiarity with a first language—which anyone is already comfortable with—acquiring another language would be more challenging. Once a person is already conditioned to express and communicate with one mode of language, learning how to do the same in a new foreign mode means relearning expression and communication from top to bottom, albeit the similarities of the languages get revealed throughout the learning process.

A good analogy to pain this picture would be having a person conditioned to eating rice as part of his daily diet. Having to transition to a Western diet, which can be bread as the new staple for example, may cause much discomfort to a person. It will take time for anyone to adjust to this new diet and it will take much more effort to appreciate this type of nourishment in place of the previous one. In addition, the person would always seek and long to have rice instead of bread during the diet transition.

The inevitable end result, however, would be that the person can choose to have rice or bread as his diet in the long run. He can be comfortable in eating both, depending on what he wants or what is available. Nonetheless, he has learned to live with both—and he will even further appreciate the goodness of rice and the goodness of bread.

It is not always the best case to suddenly shift to eating bread over rice. Learning to love bread would take baby steps, until the appreciation of nourishment goes full bloom. The same applies to learning a second language: one can only learn to appreciate the value and the beauty of a foreign language when one is ready, determined or deeply interested in acquiring it.

The difference of learning a first language from a second language is that learning the latter is something that you will have to set your mind into. After that, everything else will fall into place.

If you think that the Japanese language is something you are looking to acquire, develop and master, you are already on the right track. By perceiving the learning of a foreign language as something that is going to be valuable to your personal growth and as something that is going to be substantial to your professional growth, do not hesitate to inquire at Jellyfish Education Consultancy. They’re dedicated to providing the most fruitful learning experience to the students of the Japanese language.