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(Not) Learning English -
overcoming fear
BaySide Tech Nite
OKURA Masafumi, 2023-05-19
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Me
• Name: OKURA Masafumi
• Work: Freelance web developer (Ruby/Rails)
• Activities: The creator of Alba gem, the chief organizer of Kaigi on
Rails, a LT speaker of RubyKaigi 2023
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#kaigieffect
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No content
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I’ve not
• lived abroad
• worked abroad
• used English in my day job
• spent any money on Eikaiwa school
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I haven’t “learnt”
English for a
while
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Why?
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Mimic
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I just mimicked other people
• I mimicked the pronunciation of native speakers with English
program from NHK
• I mimicked some useful phrases from GitHub users
• I mimicked tempo and rhythm in real conversations
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What things
have I learnt?
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Grammar
and
vocabulary
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Why do I have to learn grammar and vocabulary
• Because it’s too fundamental
• In real conversations, they must bubble up in milliseconds
• If you talk with completely broken grammar, it’s hard for them to
follow and understand
• High school level is just enough, no worries about dif
fi
cult grammars
and vocabularies that only appears in newspapers and novels
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-FBSO /PUMFBSO
(SBNNBS 1SPOVODJBUJPO
7PWBCVMBSZ -JTUFOJOH
'MVFOU
DPOWFSTBUJPO
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Don’t care about
pronunciation
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Japanese-
English is
fi
ne
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The most
important thing
is:
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Overcoming fear
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Just talk to them
• Rubyists are nice
• Rubyists don’t laugh at your English
• Rubyists patiently listen to you
• Rubyists might speak to you slowly
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Recommendations
• Make Rubyist friends (#rubyfriends)
• Find opportunities to talk with them
• Get some feedback
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Thank you,
MINASWAN