Tuesday, January 22, 2013

How my English improved so far during my internship?


Listening comprehension
It’s a lot easier for me to understand the people I work with since from the beginning until now of my internship I’ve been alert of my surrounding. That really helped me to improve fast because I listened to the way they speak, the vocabulary they used and the expression and their meaning.

Accent
My English accent from the beginning of the internship to now has changed a lot because I got to listen often to true English speakers and to have the right pronunciation. A few days ago my friend asked me how we pronounce the word ‘’sheet’’ she said: ‘’sh*t’’ instead! And it made me aware that many people when learning a new idiom don’t let go of their first language accent because from a language to another it is really hard to let go of what we teach us. This brings me to another point that I already speak 3 different languages and this since childhood (French and Spanish in my family) (English in high school). In French, English and Spanish ‘’e’’ is pronounced but when we only know one way to say as for a single lingual speaker, we pronounce it with our first accent. That is why for me it is easier to switch from a language to another and let go of my different accent.

Fluency
I think my fluency is more accurate I can speak about almost everything nut I know I still have to improve my switching to French when I’m faced with some difficulty. I still did improve my fluency because I don’t let it get in my way like before. Per example when I don’t know how to say something I try to describe it and when I’m really hesitant I ask in French how we say English.

I don’t have new word but I have an anecdote about expression:
Once I was going back home and was thinking about new words I might have learned and then two ladies walk past me I heard one say to the other: ‘’I’m not going to break my head’’ just from that I figured that she was an French speaker because she tried to translate it from the expression: ‘’je ne vais pas me casser la tête ‘’.  

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