Learning a foreign language is always a challenge. Especially if you want to learn English, and you live in Russia yourself. Finding a native speaker is difficult or at least costly. Courses, as a rule, also do not bring much result and take too much time. If you study hard and do your homework, you will still need several years to understand at least something and somehow talk.
However, not everything is so hopeless. It's all about the approach. Textbooks today are obsolete. In place of come innovative methods of learning a foreign language. Thanks to them, you can learn English in just six months. Remember how you learned Russian. You obviously owned it even before going to kindergarten or school. And all because you listened and talked a lot and were in this language environment. Accordingly, the same way in learning a foreign language you need to go now.
Hog, an English professor and teacher, advises beginners to listen more and watch videos in the language they are about to learn. Here are some more practical tips to help you succeed in learning English.
Learn and memorize English phrases, not just single words
What will give you a meaningless set of words? Nothing at all. But if you learn and memorize whole phrases, then you can understand the essence, understand how the word is used, and learn the basics of grammar. For example, water in English is water. Instead of memorizing this single word, learn the phrase: “I want a glass of water, please”. Firstly, you’ll better understand the grammar, you can build associations. Secondly, this phrase will definitely come in handy when you find yourself abroad. But one word is unlikely to help you with something.
Do not learn grammar
Sounds absurd, doesn't it? However, learning grammar, as advanced educators say, is a waste of time. Again, back to Hog’s first tip. What did you learn before: Russian or grammar? You knew Russian, because you constantly heard speech and were in a language environment. When we say, we don’t have time to think about grammatical structures, to remove and correct mistakes. This is because although grammar is very important for spelling, it is not a fundamental basis for conversation.
Remember your English lessons at school. What did these rules give you? Absolutely nothing, only more confused. Only through long listening can you learn the basics of a foreign language. So run for the headphones.
Perceive information by ear, not by eyes
This advice from Hog completely destroys all the usual stereotypes. It implies that you must say “no” to all textbooks, cards, drawings, etc. Only by listening to the information can you learn English. How can I even understand something if I listen to an unfamiliar speech? So surely many of you thought. The professor advises to watch primitive programs (even children's ones), series with subtitles in English. So it will be easier for you to correlate Russian speech with English. Through active and frequent listening to audiovisual materials, you will learn a lot of vocabulary, grammar, formulas and expressions. Avoid complex science films that are full of abstruse phrases. The simpler the better.
Repetition is the key to success
Do you know why, after graduation, few people speak English well? The fact is that teachers are trying to follow the school curriculum.Accordingly, they provide such a large amount of information that cannot be deposited in the student’s head for a long time. We learned something in one lesson, and then forgot, because we will not return to this topic anymore. As a result, our vocabulary is at zero. Knowledge is also zero.
Hog says that in order to absorb the material, you need to repeat it two to three times a week for two weeks. Do not try to learn something new: focus on what you already know. This approach allows you to expand your vocabulary and better understand your grammar.
Use real materials
The textbooks write the basics and classic English. If you really need to talk to the Briton, then you won’t understand anything at all. And all because any spoken language is different from literary. This is another good reason to forget about old textbooks. Get information from modern sources: magazines, TV shows, celebrity interviews, news sites, etc.
Do exercises “listen and respond” rather than “listen and repeat”
This is the most effective rule when it comes to learning English. Repetition is not enough to remember and absorb material well. Thus, you will not learn grammar and will not be able to communicate freely.
The best exercise is to take a text and draw up a series of questions for it, and then try to answer them. Even if you do not know the correct answer, at least you will need to explain that you are not able to answer the question. Accordingly, you will try to formulate a sentence in English, remember words, etc.
