Learning any kind of language at an adult age is hard for everyone. Our language acquisition doesn't work the same as it did when we were younger, so I thought these characters were doing a good job. I liked Kaplan. He created a unique system in order to at least get by. Some non-native speakers of English told me that the easiest way they learned English was by trail and error. If they didn't know what a certain word, phrase or idiom meant, they would simply ask. Sometimes they were too embarrassed because they don't like to make mistakes.
How did you guys feel or what did you guys think about the characters learning English? Also, what did you guys think about Mr. Parkhill?
Growing up, I was always told that English is the hardest language to learn due to all of the phrases, contractions, and synonyms we use. I thought this book showed that in a sense. Mr. Bloom seems to fully understand the language but when faced against Mr. Kaplan, Kaplan seemed to come out on top, despite his lack of understanding. I'm not sure if that shows that Kaplan's language is supposed to be superior to English or not, but I got the impression that he may have been poking fun at the language. But, I liked Mr. Parkhill. He seemed to like Kaplan as well as seemed to appreciate the way he did things, even if they weren't conventional.
ReplyDeleteI understand how english is the hardest language to learn because we do have so many meanings for the same word. I thought the characters were realistic. They were learning but still having struggles with the difficult parts of english. Mr. Parkhill was also very realistic to me, I found myself sympathizing for him as he tried so hard to teach Kaplan. You could tell he wanted to make sure he left there more fluent in english then when he arrived but he was struggling with how to get through to him. I think a lot of teachers can probably relate to that.
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