All about copying (Lesson 407)

I think when we learning a second language, we should focus on copying. As the author says, copying is a most effective method for learning the language or any new skill. I agree with this viewpoint.

Even through the principle of every language is same. But the language forms are different. For example the tones above in Chinese or English. Some tones are in English, but not in Chinese. Then the next what can we do? Yes, we have to learn the specific pronunciation. What matter is how to do that. Of course, copying! At this time, we would learn from the pronunciations of the real person. We looked at how they pronounce it, then mimiced the mouth movements. Sometimes,the sounds are right, but sometimes the sounds are wrong. We practiced more and more time the tones through the copying. Until we have learned the new pronunciation. I think this is a littel moment to learn a language with replication.

In fact, when I look at my surroundings, everyone learn a skill through copying. Now let me tell you about my experience of learning to swim. I lived in the south of China. There are many rivers and the East China sea beside my lived city. So swimming is always an basic skill for the local people. I’ve been studying outside before, until I am 18 year old I would learn to swim. To learn to swim quickly, I found a swimming coach. The coach demonstrated a swimming action firstly, I looked at the action then copyed it. I trained myself with the movement that he taught me. It’s just like the learning language. Give me a method and I copyed it, then more practice. Obviously, I finally learned to swim. So English, I will also be fluent in the end.