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In the anime Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai, there's such a scene of a notebook.

enter image description here

As you can see in the picture, it's almost barely a list of vocabulary, I mean, there's no example sentence. Besides, instead of using the international phonetic symbols, it's using katakana to imitate the pronunciations. I definitely can't learn a language effectively this way.

My question is, is this actually a good way for a beginner, say, a seven-year-old child, to learn English? How common is this method used in Japan and how does it work there? Is the outcome of this method really good there?

  • That just looks like someone's school notebook. [There is a scene like this with a notebook]. You don't learn a language with a notebook. You write things in a notebook to record them for yourself. Is that anime a teaching video? – Lambie Nov 08 '22 at 17:34
  • I like the picture example for "on the cake". It looks more like a cupcake to me, which seems a bit odd to me to to abbreviate as just "cake", but I suppose it's not strictly incorrect to abbreviate it that way, either. – Brandin Nov 09 '22 at 05:01
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    The question as is probably is not answerable since we don't know how this person is using these notes. For example sometimes I'll make such a list while reading a novel. I don't need to write examples into the notebook, because the examples are in the book itself, which I will re-read or refer to if I need to review the context. For pronunciation, I see why people like it, but personally I do not like it. Most of the languages I've studied have much more logical spelling than English. Even French (which is among the less logical orthographies) is better than English, in my opinion. – Brandin Nov 09 '22 at 05:04
  • Anyway, for Japanese I seem to recall a Japanese speaker saying that using Katakana in this way is not uncommon. It's probably not good if it introduces bad habits. For example, "on the", pronouncing "the" always as ザ should not be the target. Granted, the "the" sound is pretty hard and maybe unique to English. I'm not sure of another major language that has this sound made with the tongue, so naturally many non-native speakers (from any language) will pronounce this word basically according to this Katakana character. However it should not be the pronunciation goal. – Brandin Nov 09 '22 at 05:06
  • Doubtful you can infer anything from that screenshot. If you want an idea of what the primary school English curriculum looks like, look up the current textbooks: "Let's Try" and "We Can". It won't give you the full picture, since the way teachers use the textbooks can vary significantly, but nonetheless, it should give you a general idea of what's being taught. The question of outcomes is too difficult to parse for me (they're awful, but worse than elsewhere?). The 2025 PISA assessment might produce some answers. –  Nov 09 '22 at 05:27
  • "instead of using the international phonetic symbols" I'm curious which countries use international phonetic symbols for learning English in high schools or below. – Andrew T. Nov 09 '22 at 05:49
  • @Brandin: Spanish (intervocalic d), Greek (δ), and Swahili (dh) all have this sound. – ILEM World Jan 06 '23 at 20:41

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