Teach English in Xinxing Jiedao - Tianjin

Problems for learners in KoreaPeople all over the world are learning english. Depending on what one?s first language is one will face different challenges when learning english. For example, if one?s first and only language is Korean, then learning the english alphabet will be an additional challenge on top of learning the language. For spanish speaking individuals, the alphabet will offer few problems however, other difficulties will arise. First of all, the spanish language uses punctuation a bit differently from the english language. For example, when writing a question in spanish, the punctuation would look like this: ?¿Where is it?? The use of the exclamation point is similar, having an upside down exclamation point before the sentence and a right side up exclamation point at the end of the sentence. spanish learners of english would have to get used to using only one question mark and/or exclamation point at the end of the sentence. Another difficulty that may arise for spanish speaking learners of english is pronunciation. The english language has 12 pure vowel sounds and 8 dipthongs, whereas the spanish language only has 5 pure vowel sounds and 5 dipthongs. As a result, two different sounds in english may sound the same to someone who speaks spanish. For example, while an english speaker can easily tell the difference when someone says ?pool? and when someone says ?pull?, a spanish speaker may not even be able to hear the difference. Difficulties may also arise with consonants. Certain sounds and consonants may be difficult for spanish speaking students to pronounce. As a result, these sounds may get swallowed, mispronounced, or not emphasized enough. For example, when aiming to say the word ?wink?, students may be saying the word ?wing?. In the spanish language, word order within a sentence is much more flexible than in the english language. Therefore, learning the correct order necessary for an english sentence to be understandable would be another challenge for a spanish speaking student. In addition, spanish will often put adjectives after a noun rather than before it, which does not happen in english. Therefore, a spanish speaking student might write ?I have a car green.? Translated directly into spanish, this sentence would make perfect sense. However, in english it sounds a bit odd. This would be another challenge for spanish speaking students to face when learning about word order. Comparisons are also done differently in spanish than in english. For example, where in english one would say ?Joe is shorter than Stan?, the direct translation would look more like this: ?Joe is more short than Stan.? Cognates are words that are descended from the same language or form. spanish and english have many cognates. For example the word ?general? in english has the same meaning as ?general? in spanish (though they are pronounced differently). While these cognates offer an advantage to spanish speakers learning english, they can also cause some confusion. While words like ?general? and ?color? and ?actor? mean the same thing in both languages, some words look very much the same, but have different meanings. For example, the english verb ?assist? looks very similar to the spanish verb ?asistir?. However, if a spanish speaking person were to look at the word ?assist? and assume it meant the same thing as the spanish word ?asistir?, he/she would be wrong. The verb ?asistir? means ?to attend? or ?to be present,? whereas the english word ?assist? means ?to help?. Therefore, while cognates can be helpful to spanish speaking english student, they must learn to be careful of these ?false cognates? as they may cause some confusion. These are only a few of the problems that spanish speaking english students would have to face in their english classes. However, with patience and practice, they can overcome confusing rules and irregularities within the english language and become fluent speakers of english.