さて、日常会話程度では英語が使えるようになり、買い物をしたり道案内をしたりするには、まあ大丈夫だろうというところには到達したように思います。一年、二年前の自分自身と比べればだいぶマシという感じで、ベルリッツでのレッスンは意味があったなというふうに思っています。

しかし、自分自身からどんどん喋っていけるようにはなっていません。ほとんどはリスナーになってしまうという場合で、質問ができても筋道立った回答をできるようになっていないのが現実です。何をしなくてはいけないのか、というところを抜け出して、「いかに語学力をつけなくてはいけないのか」ということを真面目に考えなくてはいけないなと思うようになりました。

先月末に受験したTOEICのスコアが発表されました。結果は…730点。予想していたほどではなかったですね～

私としては未知の単語などもあんまりなくて、リーディングは易しい回なのかなと感じていました。リスニングセクションが伸び悩んだようです。途中で上の空になったりして、あんまりちゃんと聴けなかったしたのが点数に現れていますね、残念ながら。

もう少しちゃんと試験対策をしておくべきだと感じました。

As I've already described, an English speaker seems to show that one's opinion is better than the counterpart's one in the discussion. The fundamental form of his/her communication is that they he/she has an argument based on an objective evidence and tries to make a counterpart understand the advantage of its thought. On the other hand, most Japanese people seem poor at speaking based on such evidences but they somehow tend to make stories around emotions and ethics. The fact, as a barrier to Japanese people, remains in the global communication to understand one another. The point is not how to express in English, either.

Facebook is getting more and more exciting for me now. I feel I can learn English and make foreign acquaintances on Facebook more easily than on mixi. After all the service of mixi is too localised for Japanese people. Also the Japanese online culture is some strange than in other countries. First of all we usually don't show our real names on the net. This specialty might create some interesting contents like 2ch. However, such a nature of Japanese net culture has a certain limit in developing its possibility in the future.

Anyway, comunicaions on Facebook is not only interesting but useful especially for me. I prefer British English to American English. I like BBC better than CNN. If I had a chance to go abroad, I would go to the UK, not the US. Actually, American English is considered as the orthodox English and British English is just an option especially in Japan. The US exports its language as well as the wars and the pop culture but I don't like such a stream in language learning and the cultural fashion. Why people have very little respect for the history?

Let's get down to today's point. I want to be able to talk logically enough to persuade more and more people. To do so, I have to study how to make a quick speech which has sufficiently supporting ideas.