Nowadays I restarted leaning English. To get used to it more, I try to write a diary in English. This is just a diary for leaning.

First of all, I don’t know well about my English level. It may be A2 or B1. https://www.europassitalian.com/blog/cefr-levels/

I used to learn English in middle school, high school and university. So I have minimum skills to read and write something in English. But, other skills, such as listening and speaking, are not familiar to me. Because I didn’t have to focus those skills in Japanese educational system. To pass a bunch of examinations, I just have to read and write in English. Most of Japanese student were in the same situation. Maybe recent students are too. I’m sorry I don’t know well about recent ones.

Anyway, my English skills to read and write are not bad (probably), however the skills to listen and speak are definitely weak points for me. In particular, I’m bad at listening. Actually, listening were not ignored at all in school and some university applied it as their entrance examinations. Of course I took them and had studied to pass them. Despite my effort, I never got good score in listening examinations. If I read the subscriptions of them, I could understand. But my ears couldn’t detect the English sound well. To be honest, I mostly gave up it and tried to focus reading and writing skills to pass the examinations.

I used to think I don’t have an ability to listen English at all. By the way, “used to” is my favorite expression. It’s pretty convenient. Let’s get back on the track. I used to thinks so and the best way to overcome it is relying on subtitles! Great subtitle systems exist on the Internet and the can help us a lot. Using those systems are easier and more efficient than improve my skill!

It may be correct. However, I noticed a fact one day. The fact is that listening and speaking skills are totally physical skills. If I wish to obtain more muscles, what I have to do is training my muscles. There is no other way to do. Besides, the important fact is that training my muscles must give me more muscles. We know muscles must not betray us. We can say the same thing about English skills. Why did I not recognize this simple fact? Certainly, knowledge is an important part of those skills. On the other hand, training physically is much more important. Training my body is one of my hobbies, so I don’t have any reason to avoid it. I can improve my listening and speaking skills by training my body. The truth is always simple. Just do it.