I doubt that anyone in another country can improve their English with an English crossword puzzle. Let’s look at some examples from last Friday’s NY Times crossword:
16 across: “Exchange something you really want?” (8 letters)
This meets 7 down: “gather” (7 letters)
How about this?:
22 across: "Grooming brand introduced in 1977 (4 letters–the guy is trying to get into high school in Japan…why would he have any idea of this?)
How about 44 down: “Tree with double-toothed leaves and durable wood” (six letters).
How in the world is someone going to learn English by doing these puzzles?
I agree with others that your writing skills are very good now, though you might consider breaking up your sentences into shorter ones. But academic writing has a bias toward longer sentences with lots of qualifiers and specifers in them. IMO, your OP was completely clear and understandable, which is far more important that stylistic nuance.
If I was pressed, here is how I would re-write your original;
The original:
The re-write:
Methods and ways is redundant; study and learn is somewhat redundant, in the sense that as a student who wants to learn, the idea of studying is already implied, IMO.
Oh, and I wanted to add-- when you are living in an English-speaking country, do not live with friends who speak your language. Live with an English speaking family or other English speaking roommates. Orchestrate your entire surroundings so that you have no choice other than to use English-- because believe me, you will try to get out of it before long. It’s hard to constantly speak another foreign language–after a while you feel like your brain is going to explode!
guizot, crossword puzzles are excellent for building vocabulary. Not only will you probably have to look up words in the clue, you will also have to WRITE OUT the answer, which is going to improve the odds you remember it. Additionally, you can learn something about the culture through the clues. I think they’re a great idea – just hard.
You are asserting that the language used in solving a crossword leads to cultural learning. In fact, it goes the opposite way; you need to have the cultural understanding ALREADY before you can answer the clue.
I would think that my post above made this clear. Try this clue: “Wexler who made a documentary in 1968.” (Five letters.) How is that going to help some kid in Japan trying to learn English??? He can look up in his dictionary Wexler (proper noun, no go) or documentary, “a film that is not fictional, etc…” Or “1968.” Only with google is he going to find something, and that something isn’t going to help his English much at all.
I can’t believe that anyone is making this assertion. Haven’t you seen the NY Times crossword puzzle? You don’t learn about unfamiliar culture by doing crosswords–you use your PRE-EXISTING knowledge of culture to solve them. That is the most basic concept of crossword puzzles.
Twickster, where are you when we need you?
Also the notion that, if someone has to “write out” an answer, they will learn it better, is ridiculous. It makes me think about Bart Simpson writing some stupid sentence over and over again, as if that would make him change his ways. When you write the answer to a crossword clue, you’re simply filling in the blanks on a purely lexicographic level. You ALREADY know the word. They’re not teaching you anything.
Well, all I know is I learn things much more easily if I write them out. I enjoyed doing Spanish crosswords and thought they were a fun language challenge. Sorry to offend your crossword-doing sensibilities, man.
As a student of foreign language, I found the most natural and effective learning technique was conversation with native speakers, composition, soaking up as much Pop culture media that was feasible (music, magazines, literature, TV.). Throw in some solid reading for comprehension in well respected classic literature and you should have no problems conversationally.(I would sometimes spend a day on a page in grammatical research, definitions, and etymology just to thoroughly understand the nuance.).
You seem to speak and write very well in English, so you probably are half way there. Well done.
Indeed. Apparently, we’re to presume that anyone trying to improve their command of the English language would settle for nothing less than the Sunday NY Times crossword puzzle.
I agree with you there. Many people learn a second/foreign language better when they can write things down–but not all.
You didn’t offend me. I just don’t want the guy to think that he can learn English by doing the NYT crossword. It would just demoralize him. I have no idea what kind of crosswords you do in Spanish. But good for you. Perhaps you are very familiar already with the vocabulary and culture; perhaps they’re just really easy puzzles (and for an English speaker to use Spanish is nothing compared to a Japanese speaker to use English). A crossword tests what you already know; it doesn’t teach you new things. The OP wanted to know what he could do to learn NEW things–not enjoyable experiences. In any case, I myself often can’t solve the Friday puzzle completely, and I’m a native speaker (and ESL is my trade and graduate education).
It’s not the same cognitive process as learning a NEW language (and culture).
Sorry to be coming to the thread late, but just wanted to emphasize that language is not something you learn by memorizing rules and words. The human brain is hard-wired to learn language, it just needs to be exposed to a particular language so it can absorb it. In my experience, the best way to do that is to find a lot of material in that language that you’re truly interested in. Magazines, books, blogs, whatever. In my case it was science fiction novels and American TV series.
That said, Japanese school exams are notoriously bad at measuring actual language skills. If passing exams is your sole goal, you may be better off just going to a good juku (“cram school”) and learning test-taking skills. I spent 7 years in the US before going back to Japan for graduate school, but I did very poorly in the English section of the grad school entrance exam. I just didn’t have practice with the type of tests they use in Japan, and I hadn’t bothered to practice.
I’ve heard that watching TV actually helps people pick up the language. No cite–just my impression after hearing various interviews with immigrants. Interviewers will ask how the person learned the lingo, and they’ll say “I watched a lot of sit-coms.”
What better way to get a feel for a culture? Even if the program in question was, say, “Barney Miller”*, you’d still get a sense of the American “types”. Of course this theory goes right out the window if someone was to watch "Dexter"or “Weeds”, or “24”.
*Jeez, that show was on THIRTY years ago!
Take a linguistics class as soon as possible. This will speed up the process greatly, although considering that you’re probably about 13 and you’re already pretty competent, you probably shouldn’t be too worried.
Re: crosswords – agree that NYT wouldn’t help, for the reasons guizot suggests.
OTOH, there are a lot of very, very easy crosswords out there, that rely much more on synonyms, etc., and thus would be helpful to someone trying to learn and get comfortable with basic vocabulary.