May: Sure. My name is May. Uh, May Youn. I am Korean. I was born in Korea, but I came to the United States when I was four. Four years old. I have lived in Southern California ever since. I’ve traveled to many different places, but I’ve lived in Southern California—So. Cal. as we often say here. And, uh, for my undergraduate degree I went to UCLA and got a degree in linguistics, uh, study of language. And after that I went to Biola University to get an MA in applied linguistics and TESOL, which is Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. And I am currently working at Biola University and this is my fifth, I think I’m going into my fifth year. And I also work at Pasadena City College. And, and um, what else? Right now I’m engaged and I am set to get married next month.

Interviewer: Congratulations.

May: Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s a very crazy time right now, but I’m alive. So. . . um, yeah, that’s pretty much a quick life story about me.

Interviewer: What is the best way to learn foreign languages?

May: Foreign language. Um, that is a great and excellent question. I think, first off, it’s really psychological and very mental, too, I think. For me, when I was in junior high school, I learned French for a very, very long time, junior high until college. But while I was in the process of learning French, it was more of, I had to tell myself I’m going to speak like a French person. Really you just psychologically tell yourself that. And I see that with my students. For the students that don’t really care, they’re just. . . “Nah, as long as I speak, it’s fine.” They always will maintain that extremely thick accent. But for those students that are really telling themselves I want to sound as authentic as possible, um, how do they learn the different. . . I guess, uh. . . accent is from being constantly exposed. It’s really us going out of our comfort zone, and if you’re constantly comfortable going to the nearby supermarket where they speak your language, you’re never going to learn it. But you have to jump out of that comfort zone and go deliberately put yourself in a place where you are surrounded by English. So, I guess that’s kind of first two points – one: psychological; two: put yourself in the environment.

May: Now granted, I understand that if you are learning from your home country it’s really difficult to find that kind of place. So therefore, what you can do is, thankfully we have the Internet, and we are constantly surrounded by so many things over the Internet. Um, Youtube, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Youtube, but you could find five thousand different things on there. Even just online radios, uh, don’t listen to the radio that’s in your native language, but listen to a radio, um, that’s in English. And um, I think, listening to music, uh, listening to the radio, watching American television, and when you are a beginning learner, I think subtitles are very helpful, because at that point they’re not able to really differentiate. But many learners are auditory as well as visual learners. Myself, I am a visual person and, but if I see the auditory-visual connection, it – tink! – goes off in my head. So for beginning learners, I believe they should be listening, but at the same time see it visually, so they can make that connection. They’re not going to make the connection right away, um but given enough time and practice they will. And after as they get to the intermediate levels, start leaning off, leveling off on the subtitles and really try to just, only depend on the listening. So it’s really “practice makes perfect”, we have that saying in America, and it’s true.

May: Um, I wish there was a very quick formula like mathematics, but unfortunately, fortunately but unfortunately, people have different speed. Some people pick it up like this. And they are so quick, whereas other individuals, it takes years and years of hard work and perseverance but I think just tell yourself it’s like working out. You cannot, um, lift the two-hundred pound in one day. You have to gradually work from five pounds, ten pounds, go up. So I think just have patience and perseverance.

Interviewer: Patience.

May: Yes. Patience is extremely important. And don’t be too discouraged. English, in my opinion, is probably one of the most difficult languages in the world because there are too many exceptions. Um, it’s special cases, D3you have the same spelling but four different pronunciations, like the “ough” – rough, through, bough – it’s just, why do we have so many pronunciations for the same spelling?

Interviewer: Okay, thank you.

May: Sure.