Journal Entry 2

Journal Entry 2-10/15

  This week, I would like to talk about my English learning journey outside of school. If you have seen my last post, you would know that I have developed my English abilities significantly through my school learning (Hess). But another important aspect that I didn't mention enough is my learning outside of the English classroom, which helped me grew a lot too.

  Back when I was in the 4th grade, my dad introduced me to the world of video games. And the games he got me in were not the games that what typical 4th graders would play. They were violent (slightly bit too violent), actioned packed, and most importantly, they were foreign and in English. These games were developed by companies in the US. Aside from that, the games (like my very first game Crysis) were not that popular in the Taiwan market, so there weren't any translated subtitles or dialogues in the games. Everything is in English.

  Despite not having any knowledge of the games I was playing because of my insufficient English ability, I was having loads of fun with the games. In the game worlds, I got to battle strong villains, invading aliens, bad guys from all over the world and also went on some epic adventures. And I would never get tired of beating the games over and over again. The visual effects, gorgeous background, and blood-pumping gameplay could stick my face to the screen all day and I wouldn't get tired of it. And I did all lot without having a hint of what the story, the lore and the setting of the games were. 

  Since I played the games over and over again, I began remembering some of the dialogues that certain characters have spoken in game. Like some phrases or catch line they would always say when some events happen. But I didn't understand what those mean. And one day, after playing another time of a game that I have completed for several times, A line that one of the protagonist said stuck to my head for some reason. The line he said was," Was that really necessary?" And it may seem so simple for me right now, but at that time, the 10 year-old me just couldn't make out what the last word was. So after getting tired of being so ignorant, I decided to go on YouTube to search for the video clip of that scene when he said that and searched for the meaning. (there were YouTube videos of people playing the game, so I knew I could find it on the site.) 

  And there were downside and some great things that came with this search. Let's start with the good. So, after I searched up some videos, I learned what the word mean. Downside is that I became more addicted into the games then I intended. After finishing one video, I began clicking on more videos to watch, cause there were always more games and gameplays to explore. But this leads to many other good things that I didn't expect to happen. As I was watching more videos, I was also focusing more on the commentary of the people playing, who are often funny and charismatic YouTubers. It was difficult for me at first, that I could only understand around 30-40% of the things that they were saying. But it didn't bother me at all. Because listening was like a "side quest" for me, I was really there for the games. But from time to time when the players are explaining something about what they are doing or giving tips and tricks, I would have to pay extra attention and look up for some vocabularies to fully comprehend their meaning. And I spent a lot of times watching the gameplay videos, which in another word means that I had tons of opportunities to practice understanding the English speech (which isn't the goal of course).

  Gradually, I began to feel that my English listening, and the general understanding of English, both speech and text, became better. And I began to expand what I watch. I would watch YouTuber Vlogs, TV shows, even some speeches. All with or without English subtitles. And I knew that my English got better when I was able to get a lot of American jokes whereas my classmates; able to watch movies with English subtitles and search up most things in English. 

  So, if someone ask me a tip to get good at English, I would most certainly tell them to start with YouTube!

Brad Huang