Two Questions

Dear Teachers,

I am writing to ask the following questions.

Remembering vocabulary necessary to express oneself in another language is the difficulty that many learners say causes to most anxiety.
--Why remembering vocabulary need to express oneself? What does express oneself here mean? Does that mean to use their own words, English, to express the vocabulary they just remembered?

Simply put, mneminics is a method used to help one remember information that is otherwise difficult to recall. An example is the rhyme "i before e, except after c, or when sounded like a, as in neighbor and weigh," which many English learners use to remind themselves of a spelling rule.
--I do not understand this: "i before e, except after c, or when sounded like a, as in neighbor and weigh". Can I have an example?

Thanks

Emily

[Tdol]

'Express yourself' means 'say what you want to say'. It causes anxiety because it is often hard to remember vocabulary items. I recently lived in Cambodia for some months and now I'm in Japan- two completely different languages and each word has to be learned individually. Often, what I learn today, I'll have forgotten by tomorrow. Then comes the stress when you know that you should know the word, but just can't remember. For students of English, the same is often true, especially if they speak a very different language.


The mnemonic isn't perfect, but it's a useful guide:

i before e- believe
except after c - receive
or when sounded like a - weigh

[Dianelys]

(to) express oneself can be used as a reflexive verb; “oneself” is the reflexive equivalent of the indefinite pronoun “one”. [“one” is used, in formal English, as an alternative to “you” in an indefinite sense.]

• remembering what? necessary vocabulary
• what for? - to express oneself (or to express yourself,in informal English) = to reveal/let out what one feels or thinks