Tuesday, November 28, 2006

A novel approach for the study of various aspects of learning languages

K. Bisar
Blogger community, Yokohama, Japan

Abstract-This paper presents a comprehensive study of studying languages and its effects on the day to day life. The paper also proposes some new theories based on the modification of some old theories with some simulation as well as experimental results. The paper concludes with some novel techniques for studying new languages without forgetting old ones.

With the recent advancements in the reading and communicating ability of Japanese, the author has observed that that the rate of improvement in Japanese skills is proportional to the rate of decline in English skills. Furthermore, recent observations reveal that excessive reading of English technical or journal papers and lack of observing English movies and dramas can result in limiting the vocabulary to that found only in bulky technical papers. This can be proved by the sentence pattern found throughout this text. Writing graduation thesis or dissertation creates additional complications. Consequently, the speaking or hearing ability is also affected drastically and as a result the day to day communication takes the form of the technical paper text.

It has been proven periodically that the rules of mathematics cannot be applied to languages. However, as a science graduate, the author cannot avoid the temptation of relating a law of physics to human's ability of learning languages. Based on the Law of conservation of energy [1], it can be proved that
'in human brain words from one language can take form of other language. However, the total amount of words of all languages in human brain at any time is always constant.'
This can be called as 'Law of Conservation of Languages' or LCL©.

The author has studied five languages extensively including his mother tongue. Initially, from simulation and later with some experimental results it has been observed that learning languages can be frustrating at times. It can be evident from the immense pain required for the author to recollect the spelling of as simple word as 'tongue' in the above sentence. The readers can imagine intuitively the amount of pain involved in recollecting the characters and their stroke order in the Asian script. From experience, it can be further proved that at the time of recollecting word from one particular language, words from all other languages with similar meaning are popped up in mind except the one that is needed. With a little variation, it can be proved that this is true for all languages and all persons.

Present work discusses various theories and techniques for improvement in English (since it is not a language of majority in this region). Many theories have been proposed so far for the improvement of English reading, speaking and writing ability. Some old theories that are proven over time, such as reading books, newspapers or hearing news, require hardwork and patience and are not practiced by many people. Another studious technique requires appearing for some competitive exams such as TOEFL or GRE or TOIEC. But again, very few people are ready to compromise their happiness for learning English. Some of the theories invented by some lazy people include taking English book as a pillow while sleeping believing that the knowledge will get transferred in sleep (These fellows do that for other books too). But this theory has not been proved yet. Watching Hollywood movies is one of the proven way for improving communication skills, but it is not a 'cost effective' solution and may limit the communication ability to 'excessive slang'. Having an English speaking girlfriend or boyfriend is another effective way, but most of the times it turns out to be a liability than asset. One of the novel, 'cost effective' solution can be downloading illegal (or so called 'pirated') movies or dramas from the internet [2]. However, this should be done at one's own risk and some people think of it as unethical. From intuition, it can be seen that each of the above methods has it's own advantages and disadvantages.

Adapting one particular method still remains a challenge for the scholars all over the world. One way proposed earlier by the author[3] is starting writing a blog. Simulations results have shown that it can improve language skills as the blog can be checked by people all over the world and some suggestions can be obtained. However the effectiveness of this method has not been tested yet and remains the topic for future work.

Conclusion:
A comprehensive study of various aspects of learning a language is presented. Law of Conservation of Languages(LCL©) is proposed based on simulation and experience results. Finally, classification of various theories and techniques for improving English is presented. It can be concluded that there is always a 'trade-off' involved among the adoption of different methods for learning English and the best method can be selected depending on one's own requirement and interest.

REFERENCES:
[1] A. Einstein. "The law of conservation of energy: The total amount of energy in the
universe is constant, although energy can be transformed from one form to another."

[2] Y. Lakexiang, K. Bisar "A novel approach to download movies, dramas and software content free from internet " International piracy and hackers conference, 2005.

[3] K. Bisar "How to start a blog in a language without knowing it fully" International symposium on blogging and orkutting, 2006.

Author’s Biography:
K. Bisar: Received his B.S. and M.S. degree in 2001 and 2006 respectively and currently pursuing Ph.D. degree. He has studied five languages; English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Japanese including his mother tongue Marathi. His research interests include learning new languages without forgetting old ones and blogging in them. He has published various articles in Marathi, English and Japanese on the blog and also in leading Marathi newspapers. Since Aug'2004, he is an active member of various Social Network Systems and an associate member of blogger community.

Friday, November 24, 2006

週末プラン

写真取りに出かけるか、ブログ書くか、あたたかいコーヒを飲みながら日本語の小説読むかそれともこの前描いたスケッチに色つけるか。
今ライフカードのCM「どうする俺?」みたいな感じ。

(^_^) 最近テレビ見すぎかな。


 でも、「それより学校言って勉強や研究やればどう」と誰かに言われたら、本当にどうする俺?

Monday, November 13, 2006

Autumn Sonata

HIHの贅沢な暮らしを終わってもう3ヶ月。そして、T.O.終わってもう3週間。T.O.の後で色々やろうと思ったんだけど、ずっと怠けで何もやりなかった。先々週軽井沢にドライブに行って来ました。それの写真もまだアップロードしてない。T.O. の所為で2ヶ月何もできなかったので ”Photo Expedition”にどこかへ出かけようかなと思っていた。軽井沢が日本に一番行きたい所のリストに結構上にあったのでそこにいくことにした。週末に車を借りて三日間のドライブに出かけた。ナビがついていたのに、最初の高速入り口をミッスして戻るのは面倒くさくて東京に入ってしまった。この前東北で運転したことがあったんだけど、東京の複雑な道路で初めてだった。でも、インドに比べると全然O.K.!!  

軽井沢というと自然な所のイメージがあったが、実はRoyalな所。しかもテニスコートが多い。三日間いっぱい写真取ったり、温泉入ったりのんびりしたりいいものを食べたり最高の気持ちだった。天気が良くて紅葉もちょうどpeakになっていてこのドライブはいい思い出になった。










雲場池

その後研究室の合宿にも言ってきたんだけど、それはまた今度!