You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
In order to learn a language well, we should also learn about the country as well as the cultures and lifestyles of the people who speak this language. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer:
Learning a language can be easy but being able to communicate like a native speaker and having a well-grasp of that language are quite hard as it takes more than learning words and grammatical rules of a language. It is scientifically proved that people often mean completely different things than what they actually say and even the slightest variation of our tone alters the meaning. I quite agree with the viewpoint that to learn a language really well, someone has to learn about the country where this language is spoken and without knowing the cultural, historical and people’s lifestyle someone cannot truly master a language.
First, in order to speak a foreign language people need to learn the grammatical aspects and vocabulary of this language and then practice it for at least a year. On the contrary, we learn our mother tongue from our surroundings, parents, teachers, relatives and through life experience. We know when to use an expression, when to use sarcasm, when to shorten a vocabulary and when to avoid a word. This all seems natural to us only because we have learned it from our experience, not from books. However, in the case of a foreign language, we must learn the people and their lifestyles in order to properly learn this language. From instance, I had many Spanish speaking friends in my school and I had three courses in this language. I am capable of communicating in Spanish and express my ideas but if someone asks me how far I know about this language, I would say almost nothing. This is because I do not know the cultural and historical aspects of the Spanish people at all.
Second, people learn to communicate in a different language when they migrate to a different country. I personally know many who can fluently speak English after they have migrated and stayed in an English Speaking country. Some of these people were even less educated and since they had the exposure to the culture, people’s lifestyles and environment of an English speaking country, they learned the language. From my experience, I can say that learning process of a language can be accelerated when someone has the disclosure of the country and its cultural aspects where it is spoken.
Thus knowledge about a country, its citizens, history, lifestyle, cultural and traditional aspects are quite important to learn the language spoken there. We learn better by doing something than reading about it and this is also true while learning a language as well. A language is better learned when we know about the people and the country who own it.