Learn English as a second language better through your Mother Tongue Guys!!
By Any Name
@ritwik17c (387)
India
July 10, 2016 3:46am CST
Friends, while learning the English language my mother tongue always helped me. There was a time we were asked by our teachers to translate from our mother tongue to English and vice versa. Still in a few vernacular medium schools that must have been going on. But in many schools the learners are missing that benefit of learning this foreign language through their first language. Mother tongue, I suppose, is never a barrier in learning another language. On the contrary, it helps in many ways. Do you agree?
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2 responses
@Tierkreisze (1609)
• Philippines
10 Jul 16
It depends. Most modern languages come from different rules. Sanskrit, for example, has rules different from greek and japanese.
2 people like this
@ritwik17c (387)
• India
11 Jul 16
@Cruz, I am surprised that you are talking of Sanskrit in Philippines. Is it popular there? Is it taught there?
I believe that, of course I am saying this from my experience, when you know your mother tongue perfectly well, it helps you learn other languages better, however different those languages may be from your mother tongue. Of course you will be able to learn a few of them with a lot of similarities to your MT faster than the others. Even linguists believe that language learners learn a new language through analogies and differentiation with respect to their MT.
I believe that, of course I am saying this from my experience, when you know your mother tongue perfectly well, it helps you learn other languages better, however different those languages may be from your mother tongue. Of course you will be able to learn a few of them with a lot of similarities to your MT faster than the others. Even linguists believe that language learners learn a new language through analogies and differentiation with respect to their MT.1 person likes this
@ritwik17c (387)
• India
11 Jul 16
@MALUSE Thank you. It is a new thing for me to learn. Really interesting. I learnt Sanskrit for 1 or 2 years at school. I found it rather difficult because I had to learn by heart so many grammar tables. I found Hindi rather easy. But here in India, we keep chanting Sanskrit Shlokas, which are part of Hindu scriptures..
@Tierkreisze (1609)
• Philippines
11 Jul 16
@MALUSE What I meant to say was that different languages were meant to be spoken in different ways. Sanskrit is different from japanese and greek and so on. So a person who's mother tongue is one of those would actually have a hard time studying others if they were only focused in their local language. Much like how some languages would start with a noun while others start with a verb. :)
1 person likes this
@else34 (13515)
• New Delhi, India
10 Jul 16
@ritwik17c,I learned English in school.I was committing some grammatical mistakes.A teacher told me that I could learn English better through English medium,but my experience has been that I can follow rules of the language better through my mother tongue Hindi.
1 person likes this
@else34 (13515)
• New Delhi, India
11 Jul 16
@ritwik17c I understand your problem.Don't you have the facility there in Banglore to learn English through your mother tongue Asamese?
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@else34 (13515)
• New Delhi, India
11 Jul 16
@ritwik17c I thought your mother tongue is Bangla.I was wrong,but can't you study English through Bangla [Bengali]?
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@ritwik17c (387)
• India
11 Jul 16
@jaishankar, that is my experience too. 
That's why the English teachers in India, instead of going by what they learn in B.Ed Colleges to be the modern approach, should simply listen to their hearts and help the learners out through their mother tongue, if that is possible. I know that the students from different regions, having to keep shifting their residences due to their parents' transfer across the country suffer the most. As your mother tongue is Hindi, you are fortunate enough to learn English through your mother tongue. But just imagine a case of an Assamese boy having to stay in Bangalore because of his parents' transfer. Won't he badly miss out on it?
That's why the English teachers in India, instead of going by what they learn in B.Ed Colleges to be the modern approach, should simply listen to their hearts and help the learners out through their mother tongue, if that is possible. I know that the students from different regions, having to keep shifting their residences due to their parents' transfer across the country suffer the most. As your mother tongue is Hindi, you are fortunate enough to learn English through your mother tongue. But just imagine a case of an Assamese boy having to stay in Bangalore because of his parents' transfer. Won't he badly miss out on it?1 person likes this
