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Living in Japan, I can verify that there are two major types of English students here. Group one learns to speak casually, and often. Group two can be handed
by trainsplanes 5y ago
Living in Japan, I can verify that there are two major types of English students here.
Group one learns to speak casually, and often.
Group two can be handed a Shakespeare text and answer any question about it.
Group one will have a completely natural and fluent conversation with any English speaker. They can write casually and be completely understood.
Group two will be able to identify grammatical mistakes on a test. Many are incapable of even rudimentary conversation. These people did well on college exams and are responsible for the horrible, worse-than-machine translations you see on signs and government reports in this country.
- resonious 5y agoI'm also in Japan. While I don't have any formal English school experience, my experience with casually meeting people pretty closely matches this. Though, I've actually met some group one folks who can't write very well, despite being extremely proficient in conversation!
- ehaliewicz2 5y agoI have a Japanese friend in a third group. He learned English to a fairly high level almost entirely by reading English on the internet and watching English shows/movies. He's very fluent at speaking as well, but according to his account, his speaking fluency took a lot of practice (obviously), but didn't come until after he could already almost fully understand and enjoy those things.