CUE CARD: LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE

Đề: Describe a language you would like to learn.

You should say:

• What the language is

• Where it is spoken

• Why you are interested in this language

And say if you think you will ever actually have the chance to learn it.

Model answer:

Let me tell you about a language I’ve always wanted to learn, which is Russian. It’s spoken in Russia, obviously, but also in many other countries which have been influenced by Russia including places like Mongolia and Kazakhstan. It’s quite a difficult language to learn because the alphabet is not the Roman one, which means that you have to learn to read and write from scratch, a but like studying Chinese or Japanese. Well, the reason I would like to learn Russian is that the energy industry is huge and there are lots of jobs. A lot of my country’s oil and gas comes from Russia so it’s really useful to be able to speak that language if you want to work in the energy field. I have actually been to Russia before so I know from experience that a lot of Russians can’t speak English very well, so that’s another good reason to learn their language. The only problem is I’m already thirty years old and I’ve spent more than fifteen years learning English. I don’t know if I would ever be able to learn Russian successfully because it’s a difficult language for anyone to learn, especially someone older like me. But it would be really great to try.

TỪ VỰNG CHỦ ĐỀ “LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE”

• The best way to learn a foreign language is to immerse yourself in it: cách tốt nhất để học ngoại ngữ là đắm mình vào môi trường mà mọi người đều nói ngoại ngữ đó

• Study words in context: học từ vựng theo ngữ cảnh

• Seek out opportunities to use new words: tìm kiếm cơ hội để ứng dụng những từ vựng mới

• Take a moment to guess the meaning before looking it up: hãy thử đoán nghĩa của từ trước khi tra từ điển

• Visualize the meaning of words: Hình dung ý nghĩa của từ dưới dạng hình ảnh

• Commonly spoken languages: những ngôn ngữ được sử dụng phổ biến

• A global language : ngôn ngữ toàn cầu

• Translation apps: các ứng dụng dịch ngôn ngữ

• Bilingual /baɪˈlɪŋ.ɡwəl/ (adj): song ngữ

• Multilingual /ˌmʌl.tiˈlɪŋ.ɡwəl/  (adj): đa ngôn ngữ