Learn English as a second language better through your Mother Tongue Guys!!

@Tierkreisze That's an exotic way of looking at things. Sanskrit doesn't have 'different rules' from Greek and Japanese, The languages you've mentioned have nothing to do with each other. They belong to different families of languages. In case you're interested in the topic:

@MALUSE Thank you. It is a new thing for me to learn. Really interesting. I learnt Sanskrit for 1 or 2 years at school. I found it rather difficult because I had to learn by heart so many grammar tables. I found Hindi rather easy. But here in India, we keep chanting Sanskrit Shlokas, which are part of Hindu scriptures..

@Cruz, I am surprised that you are talking of Sanskrit in Philippines. Is it popular there? Is it taught there? I believe that, of course I am saying this from my experience, when you know your mother tongue perfectly well, it helps you learn other languages better, however different those languages may be from your mother tongue. Of course you will be able to learn a few of them with a lot of similarities to your MT faster than the others. Even linguists believe that language learners learn a new language through analogies and differentiation with respect to their MT.

@MALUSE, that's what I too used to believe before reading some articles and listening to some video clips, generated, of course, by educators involved in teaching English as a second language. They are of the opinion that in an input rich environment, adult learners can learn a language (may or may not be perfectly) better than in 'English through English' approach, in which, the mother tongue can play a crucial positive role, provided the instructor knows the mother tongue of the learner. Even I completed my school from an Assamese medium school. Whatever little English I learned, I learned through Assamese then. Later I struggled myself to remove errors from my use of English with the help of my friends and teachers. Moreover, in India, in most schools English is taught as a 'library language', meaning, if you are able to read and understand, the objective is considered to be fulfilled. However, there are also many, who have made the English language their source of living. Many of my friends write English quite well. Some of them are working in the print and electronic media. Of course, I can't comment on how English is taught and learned in other countries...

@ritwik17c Obviously there are different opinions on how to teach foreign languages. In Germany, English isn't taught only in English but as far as it's possible. The German language is only used to explain grammar structures. When this is done, it's back to English. @else34 You may be interested in this, too.

@MALUSE That is rather sensible. Surely different methods will work for different groups in different situations. Learning can't be that linear that it has to be done only this way or else it can't be done. I have heard that in German Universities Sanskrit also is taught. Some of the textbooks are written by Krishnakant Handique, who is an Assamese.

@ritwik17c I understand your problem.Don't you have the facility there in Banglore to learn English through your mother tongue Asamese?

@ritwik17c I thought your mother tongue is Bangla.I was wrong,but can't you study English through Bangla [Bengali]?

@jaishankar, that is my experience too. That's why the English teachers in India, instead of going by what they learn in B.Ed Colleges to be the modern approach, should simply listen to their hearts and help the learners out through their mother tongue, if that is possible. I know that the students from different regions, having to keep shifting their residences due to their parents' transfer across the country suffer the most. As your mother tongue is Hindi, you are fortunate enough to learn English through your mother tongue. But just imagine a case of an Assamese boy having to stay in Bangalore because of his parents' transfer. Won't he badly miss out on it?

@ritwik17c Good luck is 'Viel Glück' in German. The German alphabet has four more letters which are the three umlauts ä,ö,ü and the letter ß which is more or less the same as double s (ss).

@MALUSE Thanks for correcting me. I like those peculiar sounds. But yes, those make German what it is !! Probably in the US keyboard we don't find these letters...

@MALUSE, Ma'am, as I am new, your advice is going to be of great help. Moreover, I am lucky that I am talking to you, a German. This is the first time I am talking to a German lady. I know 1 or 2 German words.. such as guten gluck (good luck).. please correct me, if I am wrong... I heard that the German alphabet has more letters than the English !!