The different way to study English from Vietnamese and Spanish
Thien Nguyen
Professor Hinds
English 1153
September 15, 2013
The Differences between Learning English from Spanish and Vietnamese.
Reading, “My English”, by Julia Alvarez somehow reminds me the process of studying English. Unlike the author, I was born and grew up in a place far from the United States, Vietnam. Generally, English is our second language. Yet, the way we achieve it consisted of both similarities and differences.
First of all, Vietnamese and Spanish use the same Latin alphabet that English does. However, in Vietnamese some special marks were added to make new characters. Some of my American friends thought it was easy for me to learn English because of the similar alphabet. In fact, the writing was not hard but the speaking was much more difficult to me because when I saw the words in English, I naturally spoke as my home language. In that way, I could not pronounce words correctly. On the other hand, Alvarez claimed that English was the harder version of Spanish. Then, she could guess of the meaning of English through face expressions; and, she might know some words. Therefore, I thought that Spanish is similar to English.
Secondly, Alvarez began studying very soon. She had a chance to meet American friends in her school, the Carol Morgan School, when she was very young. Moreover, her mother’s family has tradition of studying English. Her grandfather, for example, was a United Nations representative, and he usually had conversation with her. On the contrary, nobody in my family was interesting in English. My brother was good at all subjects except one, English. Because of that, he missed becoming an honor student. Then, to help me avoid that mistake, my parents forced me to study English early. Thus, I approached English in grade six. Although English was my second language, there was no way to meet English people in my hometown. The only thing I could be good at was grammar. Thanks to it, I always got high scores in the test. Then, in the
Professor Hinds
English 1153
September 15, 2013
The Differences between Learning English from Spanish and Vietnamese.
Reading, “My English”, by Julia Alvarez somehow reminds me the process of studying English. Unlike the author, I was born and grew up in a place far from the United States, Vietnam. Generally, English is our second language. Yet, the way we achieve it consisted of both similarities and differences.
First of all, Vietnamese and Spanish use the same Latin alphabet that English does. However, in Vietnamese some special marks were added to make new characters. Some of my American friends thought it was easy for me to learn English because of the similar alphabet. In fact, the writing was not hard but the speaking was much more difficult to me because when I saw the words in English, I naturally spoke as my home language. In that way, I could not pronounce words correctly. On the other hand, Alvarez claimed that English was the harder version of Spanish. Then, she could guess of the meaning of English through face expressions; and, she might know some words. Therefore, I thought that Spanish is similar to English.
Secondly, Alvarez began studying very soon. She had a chance to meet American friends in her school, the Carol Morgan School, when she was very young. Moreover, her mother’s family has tradition of studying English. Her grandfather, for example, was a United Nations representative, and he usually had conversation with her. On the contrary, nobody in my family was interesting in English. My brother was good at all subjects except one, English. Because of that, he missed becoming an honor student. Then, to help me avoid that mistake, my parents forced me to study English early. Thus, I approached English in grade six. Although English was my second language, there was no way to meet English people in my hometown. The only thing I could be good at was grammar. Thanks to it, I always got high scores in the test. Then, in the