10年経ったので、タイトルも「40歳からの英語学習」から「50歳からの英語学習」に変更します。
その間に、TOEICのスコアも960点まであがりました。満点を目指して頑張っていますが、TOEICだけに拘らずに英語の学習を進めたいと思います。
最近は仕事で英語を使う機会が減ってしまったこともあり、意識して一日に少しは英語に触れるようにしています。
自分への備忘録を兼ねて、前と同じように、自分の学習記録とそこから他の方にお勧めできる学習法などを公開していきます。
Original word → Possible alternatives
(an) absence of → no, none
abundance → enough, plenty, a lot (or say how many)
accede → to allow, agree to
accelerate → speed up
accentuate → stress
Overall difficulty
I rate this language as **, that is, quite easy to learn, because of its ubiquity, and grammar. Almost everyone will tolerate a bad English if they still understand you, and anyway they will have heard so much of it by the time you talk to them that they won't mind. In most parts of the world, you only have to go to the cinema, open the TV or buy newspapers to have the language imposed on you so there's really no excuse for not speaking it at least decently.
Time needed
The big question, I think that two years of moderate study should be sufficient for all but the most lazy people, and you can definitely learn it in 6 months. As to the number of hours, I think that 250 hours is a safe estimation.
Many Japanese do not speak English at all, and those who do are often not all that fluent. This gives the foreigner who speaks Japanese immense advantage when dealing with the Japanese, both for business and tourism in Japan. The entry it provides in the sophisticated Japanese culture can be its own reward. All who visited Japan report a highly interesting country whose main default is high costs of travelling. Those who with to practice Japanese in the confort of their home can rely on a wealth of movies, books, mangas and websites (see below for more). Finally, if you work in the tourism industry, a command of Japanese is an invaluable asset when dealing with the large flow of Japanese tourists.
I rate this language as ***** - very difficult, mostly because of the writing system. Japanese is difficult to learn, but perhaps not as difficult as you would think. Whilst it may take a while to come to terms with the huge differences between Japanese and English, the spoken language is actually pretty simple, and the written language can be learned very successfully with a little hard work and logical planning. Obviously more difficult than most European languages, but probably easier than other exotic languages, the lack of tones is a blessing for westerners.
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