E75 - Ahmad's language learning methods - become fluent and sound like a native!

Ahmad is sharing his language learning story with us!

If you want to share your story, send us an E-mail to [email protected]

Podcasts mentioned in this show:

Football Daily podcast:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08qt66t

Luke's English podcast:

teacherluke.co.uk

Interview with Luke on my fluent podcast:

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/myfluentpodcast/E28_-_interview_Luke_Thompson.mp3

Tik Tok trailer to the interview on my fluent podcast:

https://www.tiktok.com/@myfluentpodcast/video/6835683333477846278?lang=en

Zdenek's English podcast

https://zdeneksenglishpodcast.podbean.com/

Transcript:

Thank you very much, mr. Daniel. My name is Ahmed Djago and I live in Senegal. Senegal is a country of a 16 million habitats in West Africa. And when it comes to learning a language, a second language or a third language, for me is, I mean, I have a very interesting story because when I tell somebody that I live in a country where the official language is not English and I've never attended an English school or an English institution and yet speak English the way I am speaking it this day it might amaze him, you know,

You have a flawless accent it seems to me,

Thank you, but thank you very much , the story is quite interesting for me because Senegal is a country where the official language is French because it has been colonized by the French. But here in Africa, when we say official language, mostly we don't mean that the official language is the language that is spoken by the vast majority or the whole population of the country. French is the official language but we have other national language, which is the language that is named Wolof. And that is actually the the most widely spoken language here, I can say something like 95% of the country's population is speak the same language but only those people who went to school for studying French, all those people who live in an area where the French speakers are to be found are actually able to speak French.

But for me, when I was about 14 years old, my father took me to Gambia. Gambia is our neighboring country. I went there merely (synonym `= only, purely, solely, simply) for learning Arabic. So I went there to learn Arabic but Gambia and Senegal are quite similar. They have lots in common. For example, our national languages are the same and I've been able to survive while there, but they have one different thing. And it is Gambia's official language is English. So, the people that go to school for learning English but their national language is still the same as our country, which is Wolof but I was surrounding (surrounded?) by some of my friends, some boys who were going to school to learn English and they were having some conversation around me in English, even though English was not the language that they were speaking in their daily lives, but I've been, I mean, I became fascinated with the way they use language sometimes around me. And I asked one boy, one of my friends there to teach me how to read English because before you can teach yourself. You have to, somebody has to guide you to do the basics. Something like being able to read the language first before you go for yourself. By the time I was learning Arabic, but this boy, this particular way helped me to teach me the English alphabet until I became able to read English myself.

And that was it. I was still speaking up some expression, some words in English, something like breakfast, brother, sister, school, things like that. Basic things.

I spent the next four years there in Gambia. Then I returned, I came back to my home country, which is Senegal to continue learning Arabic in Arabic schools in Senegal, around the year 2013. I have this desire to continue learning English because I realized that English is the most widely spoken language in the world.

It is the most popular language in the world. And just by being able to speak it, it will open, you know, lots of opportunities for you. And then by that time, I was able to use Arabic and English dictionary properly. I have been quite almost fluent in Arabic. And then I stumbled upon one day, one application in the form of, I mean, it was, I think the audio book but it was made, it was built up in a form of application.

I downloaded it from Apple store. And then I download the on English and Arabic dictionary, this particular application or the audio book, as you might call it's actually built in several secti...