Ron's ESL Blogs

No doubt, English is the most important language in the world. Therefore, having great English skills will have numerous advantages. Luckily, I have realized the importance of learning English and worked hard on it since I was a child. However, 13 years of learning English experience didn’t lead me to success, but being a person who can hardly communicate in English and definitely unable to write an essay. Once I came to the USA, I knew that I had made too many mistakes in learning English. Those mistakes are translating English into different languages, don’t learn vocabulary as much as I can, and don’t read and write enough.

First of all, every language is unique. They usually have different grammar and use of vocabulary, which means learning English by translating it into different languages will lead to an inevitable defeat. For example, I have worked hard on learning a lot of vocabulary by translating them into Chinese. I thought it was a good idea to build up my vocabulary in order to read and write better. However, those translation processes were hugely disappointing. At that time, I failed to express my idea accurately by those translated vocabulary. As a consequence, good grade and improvement seemed untouchable. Also, when I either wrote or read, I had to use Chinese to think about the passage. As a result, I didn’t do it well and did it very slowly. When I came to the USA, I desperately and completely stopped translation. Just a year of time, my English was obviously and generally improved. I attribute my success to the stop of translation.

Second, I would like to show about how best we can utilize our English skills by learning more vocabulary. When I came here, I bought a book about the Second World War. The book is very thick and has too many new words for me. While I started reading, I could only read 5 pages per half an hour. However, I had never been frustrated. Whereas, I worked hard on it and learned 10 new words from it every day. Subsequently, I can probably read 12 pages per half an hour. On the other hand, the vocabulary can also help me in different aspects. Whenever I read a newspaper, a magazine or other books, they help me to understand more about the context. In addition, they also work when I write. They enable me to write in various ways for the same meaning and provide me with more word choices to write accurately. So my essay is generally improved. In my opinion, my reading and writing improvement are partly from the extension of my vocabulary.

Finally, I am going to talk about reading and writing. They are undoubtedly the key element to learn English comfortably and effectively. In the past, I put majority of time on doing grammar exercises, but improvement is near invisible. Once I put my heart into reading and writing, I can feel my English is leaping over many steps. On the other side of the coin, let’s talk about soccer. If I just tell you how to control and shot the ball, but don’t give you any chance to practice. Do you think you can still play it well? Improving English from only doing grammar exercises is usually inferior to reading and writing practice. Only practices can help us to react to the reality. Therefore reading and writing are crucial to our English.

In conclusion, stopping translation processes, learning more vocabulary, reading more, and writing more are the most effective way or even the only way to improve our English. The advice is invaluable and learnt painfully. If I have learnt them before, my English must be much better than now. Anyway, I hope you guys can pay heed to me and have a good future.

My name is Anita and I came from Armenia. Armenia is a small, but a beautiful country. It has huge mountains, fast rivers, deep forests and wonderful weather. Armenia has an old and tragic history. Furthermore it has more than 5000 years of history. Armenia had many fateful moments in her history and like miracle it survived from abolition. In ancient times kings managed the country. The borders were starting from Caspian Sea to Mediterranean Sea. It was a pretty big country. During the centuries it became smaller and smaller, because the neighbors many times attacked and surrendered most of the land. Now it has 30,000 km length and it is surrounded with Russia, Turkey and Iran.

There are many similarities and differences between Armenian culture and American culture. When it comes to culture and customs there are a lot of things to talk about. I observed in U.S. that family ties are not that strong as in Armenia. In the U.S. I have seen that marriage is not taken seriously and divorces are too common. Therefore, more then 30% of kids grow up with one parent. In my opinion it has strong impact on any child and makes his or her psychology weak.

In the U.S. people are extremely individual and they don’t understand the important role of neighbors. They don’t even know their neighbors’ names and people never trust their neighbors. This relationship is completely different from my native customs. The Armenians are very close to their neighbors. They are always together, no matter in what situations they are, sadness or happiness. There is a saying “It is better to have a good neighbor then a far relative, whom you usually don’t see oftenâ€?.

In my opinion Armenians, just like Americans, love to celebrate the Holidays. In Armenia, the whole family comes together and they make a big party. Everybody has his own task. The men make barbeques outside of house. Women prepare everything else for dinner. They make those testy desserts, salads, appetizers, cookies and of course cakes and sweets. The ones who don’t have any responsibility are children. They play as much as they want. It is very crowded. I know the Americans also like to celebrate the Holidays but their parties are usually calm and quiet.
In US with this big racial and ethnic diversity of population people live with great harmony. Every one is equal, no matter where you came from and what color is your skin or hair. I like it, because I feel free with my thoughts and opinions. I felt accepted by community from the first day when I came here. I think this is very important for someone, who came from another country, who left his or her family, home, customs.
After living in US for two years I have realized that this country is truly a land of opportunity. This country gave me a chance to educate myself and become what I want to be. In US there are many opportunities to success in your life. As long as you have curiosity and of course you are working hard you can start your carrier any time you want, it doesn’t matter how old are you. This is an extremely huge and new country, with national diversity, contrarily my little, old and one nation Armenia. Even though US is a big country, it is also very organize country with high technology. Here in US the government caring for the people and gives the benefits to the people and makes lives more comfortable.
I love this country and I want to be a part of this big community. I want to build my own home and raise my children here. But there is one think that I will miss that is my homeland; my Armenia. And this feeling will stay with me until I die.

Hello everybody! I have already talked about one of the differences between U.S. and my country Mexico, but this time I’m going to say more about this topic, because I think it is very fun and interesting for us to learn about other cultures and here in U.S. there are too many we can learn about.

First of all, I had never imagined sitting in the classroom and taking some classes with Armenian, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Korean, and even other Latin-American people because in Mexico the majority, of course are Mexican people, and is very strange for me to live in a country in which there are so many people from other countries. We all know that every country has its own customs and they are very different from mine.

When I came here I didn’t know how to talk and how to communicate with people from other cultures because you never know if your actions sometimes can offend other person, for example when you make eye-contact to others maybe it is OK with you, but maybe it is not OK with the other person because in my culture like here, is very common to look at someone directly, that means you are being friendly, but in other cultures it may mean you are being aggressive.

Other different custom is that in Mexico you can say “hi!” to anyone else even though you don’t know him/her, or if one of your friends introduces to you other person, you can kiss him/her, obviously, in the cheek, which is very normal. I didn’t know that in other cultures it is not normal because people from other countries don’t do that, they say that it is not usual in their countries.

In Mexico we are very warm people and we are friendly but when you come here from any other country you have to be very careful because of the differences between cultures. Actually, Mexican culture is not too different than American culture but the only big difference is that here it is not just one culture, here are too many.

Another difference between U.S. and Mexico is that in Mexico we are more conservative people. In Mexico we love people who have values and principles. One example is that in Mexico it is not common to live with your boyfriend, because most of our parents would like that we leave home only when we get married. And also, in Mexico it is more common to get married over 25 years old or something like that, because it is supposed to be when you already got your bachelor’s degree and you can already afford yourself and in the future your family. This customs in Mexico are common, but not all Mexican think like that.

At first, it was a little difficult for me. I suppose for all of us, but now I enjoy very much sitting in my class and listening to other languages and also to talk about another customs. In my opinion this is a great opportunity because I don’t have to travel around the world to know a little bit about other countries.

Have you ever driven along the California coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles? If not, you should try, it is worth trying.

Driving along the California coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles is one of the most beautiful trips you can take. The scenery is engaging and there are lots of interesting places to visit along the way.

From San Francisco, get onto Freeway 1 south to Monterrey. From there, take the scenic Seventeen-Mile Drive and get ready for a view you will never forget – to your right the Pacific Ocean, and to your left the Del Monte Forest and the Santa Lucia Mountains.
Freeway 1 south from Carmel is quite narrow in some places, with lots of turns, no place for nervous drivers. But if you just take it nice and slow, you will find the spectacular view of ocean, sky and forest is worth a few anxious moments. A little further south along the coast you will come to one of the most interesting sights in all of California – San Simeon, sometimes called the Hearst Castle. San Simeon was built by newspaperman William Randolph Hearst in the 1920’s as his personal residence. It includes La Casa Grande, an enormous building with 130 rooms – three guest houses, a 104-foot swimming pool, a small airport, and more than fifty miles of private beaches.

Continuing south along the coast, take Route 101 through the beautiful town of Santa Barbara and then head on into Los Angeles, or simply “L.A.� as it’s called by most Americans. Of course, there are countless things to see and do in Los Angeles itself but, if you have time to take the ocean route south along the coast from San Francisco, getting there can truly be half the fun.

The most important thing is about knowing the differences between two cultures Arminas and American culture. The way the English people talk is the way Arminan talk to their elders. For example, whenever we have to do somthing we have to ask first our parents some American do that some don’t becaus ethere is freedam of spich .Also when we go out with a guy the personhas to come and nock on the door and ask permishtion from your parent if they can go out with you ,befor you go out the parents start asking the guy if you have a car do you have a house do you smoke it very sad but American the just say im going out with this person the dont need to ask does question like our armina cultuer ask to the guys.I nthe old day girls were not alowd to see the groom intil the walk down the aile ,but alice now thing are slowly changing and you get to chowes the husbend i dont that fare to some people the 50% of theme getting divored because of that.However whene someones kidget born they oredy redy to tall howis about to marry how is te grow up the parents sayit not wort looking for a right guy because we oredy agred one marring you to this porsonbefor you were born ,but atlise now thing are changing littel buy littel so i hope i dont have to do that to my kids like that .In regards to raisingof children ,my grandparents belive kids shuld not be outside after dark.The Arminans culture has a tradition about food .Whene they wated to eat dinner,they have to wait for the entire family to be seated at the dinner table .When people get sick usually older women look after theme by using a different method,if one day a baby had a caugh ,they put a honey reebbed on the chest or black pepper with the oil ,we also dielivery of the baby they use to bring the kid in the bed room they would not go to the ducter alist that change now we need to go the ducter to see if the baby is healthy or not but most of the American dont have to go throw all that they go t the huspital for dilevery ,and they dont need to what for there perentes to be sitted on the talbe for theme to eat there dinner because they dont care maby most of theme do i dont know it that well so i can’t judge theme with out knowing about it .One mor e thing when you don’t get marred intil 21they thing that your to late to get marred and you will stayhome you have to get marrid when your 19 and up to 21 so after that it is to late and you can’t sleep with any one intil your marred you will rowen your reputation and every one will be a shame of you and your parent name is rowend becaus of that mistake and no kids intil your marrid.The American teenagers are very indepandent .They usely go with out permition and they dont even thing of talking a permition to do anything they just do it .About marrige we have striked an siresly rule that we have to get marrid in to nashinality we most keep that and we will continue antil next generation ,we are not alowed to go out with a nother nushinality exeped Arminans ,when a teenagers yous slang languege it is very bad way to talk to your family or friends because they need to respect and falow our tradition and manerse i nothis that most of the children live seperetli from the perents the prefer to live there life free but in my contry we must not seperate in intil we get merrid.When we get payed we should give the 1/2 amount of the selery to the parents so they could pay the rant and other biless.
In conlution Aminans have to gow buy there parents rules and they can’t live intil there merrid and the most A