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myself. As for today, I have mastered six languages up to advanced and native levels (two of them are native, indeed) and four more languages to intermediate level. In my book I share with you the most successful techniques for language learning. Theres little theoretical reasoning behind each statement. This is a practical reference and it should be treated and used as such. Always feel free to contact me. I love to hear from my readers. Your opinion is important to me! And whichever language you are learning and whatever difficulty you may have, Ill be glad to help you.
Disclaimer The Reader assumes all responsibility for use and application of this book and waives all claims against the author that may arise from utilization of this book or of any data presented in this book. Further, the author or copyright holder shall in no event be liable for any damages or losses, including without limitation, direct, indirect, consequential, special, incidental or punitive damages resulting from or caused by this book or its content, including without limitation from Readers use or inability to use the book, or any error or omissions in content. You agree that using the information and techniques described in this book is solely at your own discretion.
Table of Contents
How It All Started ............................................................................................................... 5 What Is Language ............................................................................................................... 8 Language and Communication ....................................................................................... 8 Studying Language? Using Language! ........................................................................... 9 Three Questions before You Start................................................................................... 9 General principles ............................................................................................................. 11 Levels Learn Gradually.............................................................................................. 11 Practice You Get What You Practice......................................................................... 11 Words, Meanings, Dictionaries, Grammar ................................................................... 12 Memorizing Topics, Similarities, Differences ........................................................... 13 Word Importance Meanings Frequency ................................................................... 14 Everyday Culture Related to Language ..................................................................... 15 What to Learn, and How ................................................................................................... 16 Beginners Level ............................................................................................................ 16 Main Targets for This Level ..................................................................................... 16 Words From Life Situations................................................................................... 17 Grammar Complex Is Best, Drilling Makes Easy ................................................. 18 Speaking and Listening Drills Wardrobe, Re-Hearing, Fetching .......................... 19 Accent How Do You Master It .............................................................................. 21 Reading and Writing Dont Dig Too Deep ............................................................ 22 Non-Verbal Communication and Culture Lets Play............................................. 23 Intermediate level.......................................................................................................... 23 Main Targets for This Level ..................................................................................... 24 Words and Grammar Build Up Your Vocabulary, Use a Dictionary .................... 24 More on Meanings .................................................................................................... 27 Topics List for Your Vocabulary .............................................................................. 28 Accent Even More Important................................................................................. 33 Culture You Are No More a Guest .................................................................... 35 Advanced level.............................................................................................................. 36 Main Targets for This Level ..................................................................................... 36 Words and Grammar Step Forward ....................................................................... 36 Oral Communication Discussions and Emotions .................................................. 38
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
Written Communication Read and Clarify, Write and Get Corrected ................... 39 Culture Become One of Them ............................................................................... 40 Translating and Interpreting ...................................................................................... 40 The Native Level Dream ................................................................................................... 41 Building up Native Speakers Vocabulary ................................................................... 42 Mass Media ............................................................................................................... 42 Literature ................................................................................................................... 42 Official ...................................................................................................................... 43 Spoken....................................................................................................................... 44 More Tips on Language Learning..................................................................................... 46 Words Lists Dos and Dont ...................................................................................... 46 This Can Stop Your Language Learning ...................................................................... 47 Change Your Learning Activities ................................................................................. 48 First Time Language Use .............................................................................................. 48 How to Choose a Language Course .................................................................................. 50 Beginners ...................................................................................................................... 50 Requirements for a Self-Study Course ..................................................................... 50 How to Use a Self-study Course ............................................................................... 51 Requirements for a Teacher-Lead Course ................................................................ 52 And Yet If No Course ............................................................................................ 53 Intermediates ................................................................................................................. 53 Requirements for a Self-Study Course ..................................................................... 54 Requirements for a Teacher-Lead Course ................................................................ 54 Advanced ...................................................................................................................... 55 Just Guidelines for Learning ..................................................................................... 56 Goodbye But Not to the Language ................................................................................ 56
A couple of years later, in summer, my family and I went to a recreation site in Belarus. The site was one of the best in the republic, so many foreign students, who were studying in universities in Belarus, were invited by the Soviet government to spend some time there. There were lots of students from Vietnam, from Arab countries, from Central America, India, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Africa. They all could speak Russian, but each community had its own language and its own culture. They were so different! And that was so interesting! At that time, for the first time in my life I had got acquainted with a multilingual. A new teacher had come to our school. His name was Igor V. Serov. They said he spoke six languages. Igor taught us technical translation from English into Russian. His English had some unusual accent. Well, it was unusual for a Soviet school. It just turned out to be British. Igor knew English, like none of our teachers did. Once I had got an assignment to find 10 military words in English. I came up to Igor and he just dictated them to me, one by one. I remember his slight grin. Like an old man can grin, when he sees how serious a child can get in his childish games. There were some words that my English teacher didnt know It seemed rather obvious, that I would become a translator myself. There was a Foreign Language College in a city 70 kilometers from my hometown and I wanted to enter it just after graduating from school. I wanted to become a translator and an interpreter. At school I was good in languages, so I didnt think there would be any difficulties. So nave I was! Well, the Soviet government had nothing to do with getting me down to Earth. The blow came from my parents. They did not like the idea. In their opinion, a professional translator in the Soviet Union had only one job opportunity to be a language teacher at school. And not only did they dislike it, they even found it dangerous. The verdict was: If neither a doctor nor a lawyer then at least (weep) an engineer. And finally they managed to persuade me, that a translator is not a good thing for a guy, that being a good engineer is much more serious and respected, and that an engineer who knows languages oh, that would be so marvelous! So, after school I studied Electronics Engineering, got a B.Sc. and started to work as an electronics engineer. But a decade ago I re-decided to learn languages. And I still wanted to know many languages. And I didnt have much time. After all, I have already spent a few years studying Electronics and working as an engineer. I was not very young. And I had to work and to support my family in the first place. That left me rather little time for learning! And I didnt want to drag out my learning till the end of my life. Whats the use if I only manage to learn my 16 languages when Im old? That did not seem an attractive idea. So I had to find some extremely efficient techniques, to learn fast. I desperately had no time to waste. I HAD to be effective! So, learning languages became an exploration, too. I started with German. Mastering German to an acceptable (advanced) level took 3 years. Then came Italian. Indeed, when I was a child, Italian pop-singers were extremely popular in the Soviet Union. The language seemed very beautiful. But I never believed
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
Ill be smart enough to learn it. After all, I had to learn German first! Anyway, while learning German I had already tried a few audio courses, so I knew how to choose a better one for my future Italian studies. And of course, while learning German I had tried many learning techniques. So mastering Italian to nearly the same level as German took a year and a half. Then I learnt French, Chinese and Indonesian, each of them to intermediate level. I havent encountered good intermediate courses of Indonesian, so here I had to start inventing them myself. The most recent, Spanish, took only three months to upper intermediate level. Well, I knew how to find a really good audio course and a good grammar book. Besides, I was learning for two hours each day. I had really no time I was supposed to go on a business trip to Mexico, and I knew it wasnt a good idea to speak English or Italian there. While learning languages I encountered dozens of methods and dozens of courses. I tried everything Ive heard of. Some things proved to be effective. Others were just scams. Some methods were effective at some point of language learning but not at the other. I must confess, Ive probably made all the possible mistakes. Sometimes I was spending days after days learning and then I discovered I actually did not progress. Sometimes I had headaches. Sometimes I just got that disappointed, I didnt want to learn any more! At least not that language. But I never gave up. I just went on and on. Took my books again, turned on my radio programs, opened my mouth and started talking. In the beginning of my self-study, I often had to admit I had wasted a few days or even weeks. I didnt learn much of a language, so I wasted them as a language learner. But I had learnt a lesson in language learning. I knew something had gone wrong and THAT was NOT a good way to learn a language. And that was even more important. After all, getting to know that some method doesnt work will save me time in future! I still have other languages to learn, and Ill never waste my time like that any more! After having learnt enough myself, I started with mutual tutoring. I found people, who wanted to know languages I already spoke perfectly. I was tutoring them, and in return they helped me with their languages. That was fun! I never knew that teaching languages may be such a fun! And so I understood that my learning tools were good not just for me my friends progressed much better, when they learnt correctly. You, my friend, my fellow language learner, you dont need to make the mistakes Ive made. I have done a lot of investigating, and I have found the best tools, the best methods for language learning. I use them in my tutoring. I have used them for writing my language courses. I use them to raise my daughter trilingual (yes, she has three native languages). And I describe them in this book. Read my book, use my methods and make your language learning dreams come true. And most important have fun!
What Is Language
[Language is] a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings. Merriam-Webster The purposes of language: 1. Assistance (!) in conveying ideas or feelings 2. Making you accepted in a group (society, nation etc.) Conveying (getting and receiving) ideas (information, orders, information requests) and feelings (physical, emotional or other) should be done in a way, acceptable between two or more persons. One single person generally does not need a language.
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Would you want to make friends with people, who speak this language? Or, would you want to find your spouse? Maybe, you are just a language freak? Probably, the worst reason to learn a language is I must. Or I have to take a language course to obtain my B.A. in Chemistry. I am really sorry for people who are made to learn languages they dont need. What a waste of time! Now, the second question. How are you going to USE the language you have learnt? How are your language skills supposed to help you in life? Will you just read classical literature books? Or just chat in Facebook? Or, will you translate your favorite song? Indeed, your answers will help you to choose a better way to learn the language. Or, to be more precise, that will help you to better define language skills you need in the first place. Be sincere. I dont want you to reveal your answers to me or to anyone. I want you to understand for yourself, what are the most important skills for you to acquire. And how deep and in which direction you should better dig. So that learning doesnt become a waste of time and efforts. Indeed the whole purpose of my book is to help you to SAVE your time and efforts and to make your learning effective and fun. And the last one. Imagine you already know the language perfectly. You have learnt the language. What happens next? What are you going to do next? Are you NOW going to take a book and start reading it? Will you NOW go on a business trip? Imagine yourself having learnt the language. How will it look like? How will you look like? Sometimes, you dont need to wait, until youve learnt the language perfectly. You may go on a trip and get around pretty good after youve just completed your Beginners course. The same about making friends. Chatting may require Intermediate level and a few specific words, which are usually used in online chats. And if you just want to sign business contracts, you dont need to learn reading classical literature. (But you STILL need to understand what stands in your contracts!) And maybe, sometimes it is easier for you just to hire a translator or an interpreter! I know this can sound weird for a language teacher to say things like that. That might kill my income! But it doesnt. A true headache for me is a student who starts learning a language without having a slightest idea, why is he doing it. This one wont get good results, if any. And I dont want you to be that unlucky. Learn language only if you need it. Learn what you need. And have fun!
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General principles
There are many techniques that help you to learn a language. And those that fit best for one communication type will not necessarily be the best for another. However, there are some general principles to be observed: Levels Practice Words and Grammar Memorizing Words Importance Culture
Lets see exactly what I mean by each of them and how it helps you to learn a language.
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You get what you practice. If you practice oral communication, then your oral communication will become perfect. Practicing writing makes your writing perfect fluent and correct. And so on. You get what you practice. Practice up to acceptable and your skill will be acceptable not perfect. Practicing to perfect will make it perfect. Techniques that I present here must be practiced or you never get good results.
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A good dictionary should have clear explanation of various meanings of each and every word. The more precise and clear are the explanations, the better is the dictionary. And of course, a good dictionary needs to have enough examples, how the word is used in various contexts in various meanings. Fixed phrases with their meanings (idioms) should be included, too. Dictionaries are used to clarify the words meanings. Some of them contain more meanings, others less. Some of them are written in plain language, others are not. You purpose is to find the exact meaning that fits the exact context without getting lost. Find a dictionary that fits best. There is a plenty of dictionaries in the Internet, too. To form a sentence, words are ordered (and sometimes changed) according to certain rules. So they convey some definite, intended meaning. These rules are called grammar. Words and sentences that violate grammar rules will cause misunderstanding. Books on grammar describe grammar rules, namely how you codify an idea (forming a sentence), out of mere meanings (words).
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standing in a stall. Or a Russian word stakan, a (drinking) glass, may be re-made up as stuck cun(ning). But mnemonic has its drawback. When using it too much, you may start getting lost in all those images. And you cannot speak swiftly. So, use mnemonics only in the beginning and only with words that seem to be too difficult to memorize them otherwise. And once you can do without mnemonic, do without it. Objects, situations, qualities or any other meanings never come alone. Thinking of a swimming pool nearly always includes thinking also of water, humidity, people dressed in bathing suits, swimming, jumping, sounds of splashes and other things which appear most commonly in a swimming pool and which it is generally associated with. In order to be memorized easier, new words should be related to one another, too. This is the issue of topics. Words introduced during some certain unit of learning should be related in their meanings as closely as possible to one specific situation or issue. This does not mean in any way, that words introduced should be somehow related grammatically! Introducing NEW words according to their grammatical features will confuse you and will cause you unnecessary hardships. Classifying a word according to its grammatical features should be done only after the words meaning is learnt and the word is properly practiced and memorized. This is good for grammar learning not for words learning. You would rarely think of a goose in association with a tooth. Yet, after both words are memorized and attached each one to its proper situations, they may and should be grouped grammatically: goose geese, tooth teeth. This is true about word formation, too. You should never introduce new words related only by their word formation similarities. Meanings of those simple words which are a part of a complex one will most probably be unrelated. So they should be well known before. Example: You already know the words education, population, illumination, invention. THEN you may learn at once the words educate, invent, populate, and illuminate. This is true about learning words by the ABC. Many people get that weird idea, that once youve learnt the dictionary by heart, you might know all the language. That is false. A dictionary is the most useful tool, when you want to clarify a meaning of a word. But you should never try to learn dictionary pages by heart. For one single and sufficient reason: Words grouped by alphabet are mostly unrelated in their meanings.
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Importance in this case will be defined as how frequently a word or its specific meaning is used in common situations and how essential that word/meaning is, when you need to form phrases in those situations. In other words, how often do you come across that specific word, used in that specific meaning. This applies to words as well as to grammar structures. Importance is tightly related to situations. Situations are related to life and to learners level. Life situations which occur more frequently to a beginning learner, like sightseeing, are not necessarily more common to an advanced learner. Beginners will rarely need to discuss peculiarities of local politics or the latest film with their local friends in much detail. More examples: There is a series of words important for operating machinery at a factory. The situation (operating machinery at that specific factory) is common only if a learner works at that factory. Then, these words should be learnt at the beginners level. Else they should not be learned up to native level and even that may be unnecessary. Beginners are expected to be more often involved in eating out situations than in activities related to cooking gourmet dishes. For an intermediate learner these two activities may be of the same importance. It is because of this importance principle, that learning the words according to some grammatical or dictionary lists usually fails. Dictionary is a reference tool, not a textbook, and it should be used as such. You may memorize many words, learning by heart the whole pages from a dictionary, but you will hardly use them. Each word, each meaning has different importance. Moreover, thinking up each time a different situations for unrelated words is more difficult, than just taking one situation and learning all the words that you may come across in THAT situation. Overlooking the importance principle will unnecessarily complicate language learning and may stop it at all.
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Moreover, each society has its ways of courtesy. Although grammatically correct, some expressions and phrases will be just considered impolite or rude. So the phrases should be learnt exactly as they are used in the language BY native language users. Or thats the way we use to say it. Many jokes about foreigners are based on cultural differences and the manner of expressing the same things. Two persons of different cultures may say exactly the same words, but the meaning will be just the opposite. Just an example: You guess that your Russian pal has borrowed your pen, without you letting him do that. The Russian may say I needed your pen! or something like Very much I needed your pen! And he intends: I DIDNT need your pen AT ALL! And stop bothering me on that! Just the opposite! And to understand correctly you should not just listen to the music of language, but you must know that specific cultural point. A good textbook will teach you the main cultural aspects of the target language society. There are many books on different cultures, too. The last resort may be a local, who will be tolerant enough to understand you are not brutally rude, but just a learner.
Beginners Level
This is the level, where you set your basics. This is where you learn to express your wishes and observations in the target language, although in the most primitive way. It is extremely important to start speaking with proper accent from the very beginning. Most common cultural issues and non-verbal communication are studied here, too.
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A1: Speaking/Listening: CAN understand basic instructions or take part in a basic factual conversation on a predictable topic. Reading: CAN understand basic notices, instructions or information. Writing: CAN complete basic forms, and write notes including times, dates and places. It is extremely important to start speaking with proper accent from the very beginning. Most common cultural issues and non-verbal communication should be studied here, too.
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even more time. So, the most effective solution for this level will be explanation in your native language. And then drill the phrase in the target language! The best way to learn words is to take part in (or create together with the teacher) exact life situations. You may take your teacher to a restaurant or rent a room together. You may play some movement games, but make sure you properly understand each word FIRST. Words will be learnt easier if summarized (orally or written down in a copy book) according to their topics. Never let yourself guess about the meaning of a word. Look it up in a dictionary and choose the meaning that fits best to the context. Some words are slightly more difficult to memorize or to understand, and you may discover, you need to look them up again and again. Theres nothing strange about it (or about your language abilities). However, if you seem to always forget the same meaning of a specific word, look it up in another dictionary. Maybe you will find a better explanation there.
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tongue speaks perfectly. The same thing about the language you are learning. You need to drill it enough. And this drilling brings you to perfection. After drilling a few sentences (a short dialog or so), you may make up your own similar sentences, or recite the dialog or the story in your own words. If no teacher is available, but theres an audio file with its transcript (written text) instead, listen to the audio file and follow the text, phrase by phrase, until you hear properly and understand each word in this phrase, even if it is reduced, or said quickly or pronounced improperly. If you havent understood exactly what has been said, just stop your recording and look it up in your transcript. Then return a couple of seconds back and listen again. While listening to the recording, you should be able to repeat what has been said there. Exactly the way it has been SAID. (And not just the way it has been WRITTEN in the transcript!) If you cant repeat it exactly the way it has been said or if you dont understand how those sounds correspond to what the word should be according to the rules or to the book, just listen to it again and again. Until you immediately understand what has been said, and you get used to THAT way of saying it. Then, after you have clarified the whole recording, listen to it a few more times. Dont hesitate to look up in your transcript, any time you mis-hear anything (do not exactly understand what youve just heard). Listening is a skill, too. And it is best drilled this way. After youve drilled SAYING and HEARING phrases, you may need to drill to fetch them recall the proper phrase in the proper situation. Or reply with a proper answer to a specific question. Your textbook glossary for the lesson youve learnt, may help you best. A very good fetching drill is done with a recording. Record the phrases in your native language, at random, and leave a few seconds in between. Then, while you are listening to your recording, you will translate these phrases or reply to the questions. Make sure that your recording prompts you to say every new phrase a few times throughout the recording. Example: you are learning the question How is the weather today? and the answers: Its raining today, its cold today and the weather is fine today. So, your recording goes like this: (In the target language: ) How is the weather today? (Pause, to let yourself reply in the target language) (In your native language: ) How do you say, its cold today? - (Pause, to let yourself reply in the target language) (In your native language: ) Ask about the weather! - (Pause to let yourself ask about the weather)
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(In your native language: ) Its cool. How is the weather today? (Pause to let yourself say in the target language that it is cool today) (In your native language: ) How do you say: It rains today? (Pause to let yourself say in the target language that its raining) And so on.
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intermediate or advanced learner they will always sound like beginners and treated as beginners no matter how correctly they speak. Unfortunately, it is much easier to acquire proper accent at the Beginners level, than at any other. The importance of mastering the proper accent is often underestimated during language courses or in textbooks, so I want to specially stress this datum here. Proper accent can never be explained in books. Like its practically impossible to explain basic colors. It should be demonstrated. However, proper mouth positioning for a specific language may be described. Probably, one day Ill do a research about accents. In order to drill the correct accent you will need an audio recording and an audio recorder for yourself. A transcript is highly advised, too. First, listen to the recording, phrase by phrase, and mark the music of the language and the pace you hear. Mark the words that are pronounced in some unexpected or wrong way. Mark exactly what you hear. Then listen to a phrase of no longer than 1.5-2 seconds, and then say it yourself. Record yourself saying it and listen to it immediately. Hearing yourself speaking a foreign language may be fun! Or, it may be funny it differs THAT much from the original recording! Pay attention to the music of the language and the pace. Simulate them. Play them. Be an actor and act the character of your recording. While you are speaking, try to change the position of your tongue or lips. Take notice, when you sound more closely to the recording. And please, remember: Most important accent work should be done at this level. From the very beginning! It will be much more difficult to get rid of a bad accent, than to acquire the right one from the very beginning. As for myself, I had learnt two languages without paying attention to the correct accent. Indeed, I just bypassed the whole accent issue about these two. And I could never acquire proper pronunciation ever since. My grammar, vocabulary and cultural knowledge increased, one to advanced, another to intermediate. But once I open my mouth, native speakers hear immediately where do I come from and often treat me as a learner.
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You better start to learn reading and writing only AFTER youve mastered proper pronunciation. The letters will then not confuse you. Letters reflect pronunciation approximately, they rather imply it. Moreover, pronunciation of a word may be affected by other words around, or by the whole meaning of the sentence. The same word may be uttered SLIGHTLY OR SIGNIFICANTLY different in various cases. Letters rarely represent sounds to THAT extent. Reading may be done aloud as well as silently. When you are drilling READING, you are not drilling PRONUNCIATION. You have drilled oral communication before, now its just about reading. Read a text again and again until you recognize and understand immediately each one of the encountered words. Writing may be drilled as follows: look into the textbook you have used to drill reading, memorize a simple sentence, put the book aside and write the sentence in your copy-book or type it (with all your fingers!) on a PC. You better drill typing up to the point when you are typing without hesitation, stumbling or any other difficulty. You may drill all the sentences you come across in your textbook, but you might first drill those you need to fulfill the requirements described in The Main Targets for This Level.
Intermediate level
CEFR B1-B2 This is the level, where you may (although, not advised to) start learning without a teacher or a textbook. The guidelines provided below will make your learning easier.
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
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At this level you expand significantly your vocabulary, acquire reading and writing skills, drill speaking, listening, and express yourself correctly on much more issues.
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in the Beginners level. Now your vocabulary expands and you should use it correctly. Pay most attention to the way the words are connected to one another in phrases. Correct use of prepositions and pronouns becomes more important at this level. Word formation is important, too. Keep your own vocabulary. Make it in the following way: Your vocabulary will consist of four parts: 1. Words part this one contains words only. It is the biggest part and it will be described further in more detail. 2. Phrases part this one contains idiomatic expressions, sayings and proverbs. 3. Grammar part this one contains data on how you build up phrases with the word. Which prepositions do you use to connect the word with others (work on a project / work with a colleague / work at a big company; dependent on him; in a house, in a meadow, in a forest, at the seaside, at a bus stop, etc); conjunctions use, and their effect on sentence structure, etc. 4. Exceptions part this one contains morphological (word forms) exceptions or peculiarities irregular verbs with their conjugations, irregular or non-obvious plural forms of nouns, etc. Building up the Words part: This is the biggest part. It contains all the words that you have learnt or encountered. It should be divided by topics, so that each new word and new meaning (!) of an old word is entered according to its topic. Topics should reflect all possible life situations and/or activities. There will be general topics, like Activities, Society, Travel, which may include subtopics as Interactions between people, Social relations and positions, Lands and peoples respectively. Words in each of the described above subtopics would be support, warn, care, friend, leader, duty, Englishman, Europe, Asian. You will see the list of topics in the next section. Be careful: many words have different meanings, each one applicable to a different subtopic (The Cross religion, a cross symbols and forms, to cross movement, e.g. to cross a street). This word should appear in each one of these subtopics with a meaning, applicable for that specific subtopic. The theoretical basis for such division is described in section Memorizing Look up in a dictionary each new word or meaning that you encounter, check other meanings of an already familiar word, and write them down into applicable subtopics. Idioms in which this word makes a part should be clarified as well and written in Phrases part, aspects on the word use in alliance with others should be written in Grammar part and if this word has any irregular or special form, it
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(that form) would be written down in Exceptions part. Only a dictionary providing all this data will be considered a good / appropriate one. Other parts: After you have entered a word to the Words part, you may need to add some grammar notes about that word in the Grammar part, or that word may be some grammar exception. When you are entering it into Grammar or any other part, write down at which page, or under which topic does this word or meaning appear at the Words part. It will help you later. Compare the word to its synonyms and antonyms that you have already in your vocabulary. The point here is to pay attention to similarities and differences between words with respect to their use. Pay special attention to the differences between synonyms. Differences between ANTONYMS are more obvious, but just differences between synonyms will help you to understand the exact idea of the meaning for both the word and its synonym. Make up a few sentences with the newly acquired word according to each subtopic it is entered into. You may imagine or remember a situation in his life, in which this word would be applicable.
You can enrich your vocabulary by reading or by listening. However, if you are listening to a text and you hear a word you dont know or dont quite understand how it relates to the context, you need somebody near you, a teacher or a native speaker, who can immediately explain, what you have misunderstood. If you are learning on your own, use only a printed text or a transcribed recording. I would not recommend a text that contains more than 8% of unknown or misunderstood words. Keep in mind that a word may be already familiar to you, but in this specific context it may have a different meaning, so you need to look it up in the dictionary. After having clarified all the words as described above, re-read or re-hear the text, sentence by sentence. Until you can read (or hear) and immediately understand each and every word, everything you hear. Then drill the sentences with your pal or against a wardrobe as described in the Beginners section. Then drill writing: read a sentence, set the text aside and type or write the sentence yourself. Work through the whole text this way. Afterwards, tell your own story on the same topic, using the words youve learnt from the text. A story may consist of up to 10 sentences. A teacher or a native speaker should correct any mistake immediately and you should immediately redo the sentence errorfree. The story should be re-told up to fluency and perfection. Then write down your story. A teacher or a native speaker should correct any mistake immediately. Re-write the story or certain sentences from it until they are error-free. Then, a teacher may tell you
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his own story on the same topic and then you may discuss with the teacher both stories yours and your teachers. Discussion-related phrases may be a separate topic by itself. Choose texts for learning from teenage or (rarely and only those simplest) women magazines. They might include topics on Human Body and Personality, Personal Care, House and Home, Family and Relationships, Economy and Politics (only most basic dayto-day issues), Social Institutions and Social Issues, Vacations and Travel. These can be modern short stories for children and teenagers. For listening practice, stories and audio plays intended for children and (rarely and only those simplest) for teenagers may be chosen, as audio texts are generally more difficult then written ones. Learning popular poems and songs by heart and reciting them to yourself is very useful, as it sets many commonly used phrases in. By the way, this tool is used by many educational systems to improve native language skills of a student. Moreover, you will be able to understand / quote phrases or rhymes, that only native speakers are expected to known. This brings you much closer to the native speaker level and you will be treated as such. Proper vocabulary work should be observed, while working with any text. At this stage, the best way you can use a teacher or a native speakers is to ask them to correct your mistakes immediately. As well, swap ideas or narrations with native speakers and hold informal discussions with them. Continue using audio recordings as I describe it in the Beginners section.
More on Meanings
At this level you expand your vocabulary significantly. You need to understand lots of new words. It is a widely spread stereotype, that one should memorize words. Thats false. It is not about words it is all about meanings. One word usually has a few distinct meanings. When you hear or read a word, you must immediately fetch the meaning, which the speaker or the writer intended. And on the opposite side, when you are the speaker or the writer, once you think of some idea, you need to fetch correct words, corresponding to this idea. We are not dealing with words. We are dealing with ideas and meanings which are practically the same. And we use words as substitutes for them. We represent meanings by words. And sometimes one meaning may be represented with a group of words. When we speak our native language, we usually dont have any problems about fetc hing words for our ideas or about getting the correct meaning of a word, we have just heard or read. We have actually drilled it through the whole life. And when we learn a new language, we still need to drill it. The first step is to understand, which meaning will be represented by a word. Each word may represent a
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few distinct meanings. And when you are making your vocabulary, make it according to the meanings. It will be a meanings-based-vocabulary, not words-based. To help you to understand exactly each meaning that you see in a dictionary for that specific word, I advise you to classify the meanings into groups. A meaning may represent: a) A person (or an animal): man, John, old lady b) An object: table, car, mobile phone, a piece of writing c) A situation: representation, official (related to authorities), place, setting d) An action / activity of a person: to write, to cut out, negotiations, handle (something) e) A process: rain, to rain, to burn, to turn into something f) A quality or an ability: imagination, lively, funny, g) A thought or a belief: to think of, a wish, morality, h) A mental state or emotion: fun, exhausted i) It may point at a relationship between those above (i.e. who is the doer and who is the receiver of action, etc): because, in, at on, etc. As you see, this grouping of MEANINGS is hardly related to the common grouping of WORDS into parts of speech.
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5. Plans and realizations: try, succeed, make, perform (some activity), take care (of something), activity, project, failure (result of some activity) 6. Objects' qualities: big, small, hot, soft, hard, liquid, dry, loose (not tight), solid 7. Objects' qualities changes: burn (an object burns itself), melt (object melts itself), stretch out, break (object breaks) 8. Qualities of activities: exact, somehow, unchanged, profoundly, this way (how is something done) 9. Order and dependencies: reason (for something to happen), why?, depend on (something), trigger (a reaction), difference (between something and something else), on the opposite side, relate (how 2 processes or things relate one to another), similarity, order (everything is placed in order), except (something), exception, lack (an objects should be somewhere, but it lacks), 10. Language, Speaking, Information: speak, joke, voice, tell (a story), story (which is told), shout, explain (some idea), express (some idea), pronunciation, consult, ask, warn (somebody on something), news, advice, point (to something), show (something) 11. Read and Write: read, read out, pencil, handwriting, word, note (a piece of paper), note (to write a note), book, desk 12. Opinions: agree (with somebody), explain, persuade, to my mind, sure, suppose, so-called, argument, judgment, mistake, question, critics, sincere, like (approve of some idea or persons behavior), complicated, consider (anything to be something), advantage, probably, surely, claim (say that anything is something), believe (have some idea), nonsense 13. Wishes and orders: claim (demand), demand, beg, forbidden, propose, succumb, beg your pardon, obey, permission 14. Time: Sunday, winter, weekly, last year, on the 2-nd of December, date, each morning, quarter past 5, current (happening now), past (what has already been), go on (some period of time), start (some period of time), next (in time), later, yesterday, first (in time), then (order according to time), always, until, as long as 15. Quantity, count, weights, comparison: group, one third, piece (of something), majority, number, digit, plus, hardly (some quantity), pair (i.e. of socks or gloves), 8, 148, measure, weight, kilogram, litre, contain (some quantity inside), weigh, contains (of something), full, empty, most, totally, very, many, much, how much, exactly 16. Space and forms: above, over, below, back (direction), inside, side, narrow, wide, depth, dimensions, left/right, middle (of something), height, straight (not bent),
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
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sharp, corner, cross (form), bow (form), flat (horizontal, without slopes), slope (curvature), ring (a form) 17. Colours, light and sounds: dark, bright (not dark), pale, green, yellow, ring (a bell rings), harsh (sound, light), loud 18. Human Body and Anatomy: heart (an organ), lungs, face, finger, foot, breath, sweat, blood, look (when a person looks somehow), pretty (of persons body), plump, posture (of a body), lose weight 19. Body functions and the five senses: see (only visually), hear, sleep, dream (while sleeping), wake up (only physiologically), taste (sense), feel cold, tear (which falls out of an eye) 20. Feelings and emotions: happy, glad, nervous, love, lust, anxious, afraid (of something), fear, ashamed, pleasure 21. Intellectual faculties and activities: hope, idea, clever, experience, think, imagine, imagination, ability, decide, choose 22. Personality: moody, nosy, honest, have guts (to do something), will (ability to choose and decide), self-discipline, determinate 23. Personal care: wash, shower (to wash our body), comb, shave, make-up (that you put on your face) 24. Health and sickness: healthy, pill, wound, cough, pain (physical), catch cold, faint, poison 25. Food, cooking, drinks, smoking: cook, receipt, fork, bread, fish (food), meat (food), apple, nut (as food), milk, tea, bottle, beer, pipe (that you can smoke), cigarette, lighter, kettle, pan (that you use for cooking) 26. Clothes and adornments: pullover, shoes, trousers, pants, necklace, ring (that you wear on your finger), watch (that you wear on your wrist), fashion, put on (a cloth), take off 27. House and yard: window, wall, living-room, entrance, porch, hedge, floor, ring (the bell), rent, room (a piece of a house), closet, kitchen, bake (to bake cakes), oven, roast 28. Housekeeping: bed, pillow, lamp, wardrobe, dust (that you must wipe away), to dust (to actually wipe dust away), pail, keys, hook, hammer, scissors, box, broom, wash-machine 29. Personal identification and life stages: child, woman, have a baby, age (of a person), first/last name, become 65 years old, gender (biological), born in , dead, grave (where someone is buried), last will 30. Chances and fate: chance, state (a situation that a person is a part of), save (somebody from danger), luck, victim, horoscope
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31. Family and relations: daughter, husband, friend, divorce, wedding, relative, friend, enemy (personal), love, hate, attraction (to somebody) 32. Social positions and behaviours: society, manager, status, poverty, wealthy, duty (personal, to somebody), obligation (towards a person), trust (somebody), expect (from somebody), thank (to somebody), frighten (somebody), support (somebody), tolerate (somebody), help, influence (of somebody over somebody else), lead (somebody somewhere) 33. Contacts and gatherings: invite, party, guest, get acquainted, present (somebody to somebody else), present (a gift), entertain 34. Employment and professions: peasant, technician, engineer, doctor, work as , assistant, start at (begin to work), employee, recruit, office, salary, negotiations, holidays/vacations, apply for a vacancy 35. Money and possessions: coin, loan (money), payment, bank, bank counter, cheque, debt, bank account 36. Businesses and customers: serve (the clients), assist (clients), in stock (available), pay, advertise, customer, price (money you should pay to buy something), sell/buy, receipt 37. Economy: industry, competition (between businesses), taxes, advertisement, stock exchange, insurance, ship (send goods to the buyer), deliver (goods somewhere) 38. Computers, Phones, Post: display, email, software, mobile phone, phone number, post box, post office, stamp, parcel 39. Mass media: newspaper, TV, presenter, talk-show, publish, broadcast, reality, columnist 40. Law and authorities: form (that you fill up), document, personal ID, license, permit, fill up, report (when you tell the authorities, what youve seen or heard), register (let the authorities know you have something), court of law, lawyer, prosecution, suspect, police, break in (enter somewhere illegally), detain (arrest), witness 41. State and politics: elections, homeland, immigrant, nation, freedom, boarder, king, spy, demonstration, communism 42. War and peace: insurgency, bomb, soldier, peace talks, agreement (between countries), winner, hero, attack, occupy, refugees 43. School, Education and Science: class (room), classes (courses), theme (of a lecture), chemistry, university, homework, research, methods, preschool, exam, degree 44. Faith and religion: soul (of a person, as regarded by religion), sin, the Bible, Islam, God, prophet, reincarnation, festival, deity, scripture 45. Healthcare and hospital: doctor, prescription, pharmacy, injection, vaccine, surgery
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46. Hobbies and pastimes: swim, take pictures, collection of stamps, game (that you play), outdoors, puzzle, dance 47. Sports: team (sports), ball, play football, tennis, ride a bicycle, record (the best sports achievement), contest (sport), swimming-pool 48. Fine arts and literature: artist, painting, brush (which you paint with), mosaic, character, plot, novel, irony 49. Performing arts: music, theatre, films, actor, stages (in a theatre), spectator, costumes, opera, choir, applause, sing (perform as a singer), reader, comedy, violin, drums, script (of a film), jazz, circus 50. City and village: sky-scraper, community (people who live at one place), street, monument, fountain, mill (where grain is milled into flour), castle, tower (high structure), Zoo, area (of land), barn, fence 51. Traffic: crossroads, traffic lights, accident (when cars collide), highway, taxi, make a U-turn, detour, bus ticket, park (to leave your car somewhere), speed, bus, tractor, motorbike, flat tyre, petrol/gas station, bonnet/hood, back light, seat (in a car or a bus) 52. Travel and transportation: luggage, departure/arrival, hotel, passport, visa, book (a room in a hotel), arrive/depart, high season, suitcase, stay (in a hotel), airport, flight attendant, captain, cruise ship, crash (an airplane), sink (a ship), railway station, compartment (in a train), travel agency 53. Landscape: fresh air, mountain, island, river, forest, seaside, park, view (what you see somewhere), sand, storm, desert, horizon, pit (hole in the ground), path (where you go) 54. Countries and Nations: the UK, England, Russia, Chinese, American (a person), Asian (widespread in Asia) 55. The World: North, East, temperature, the Sun, the Earth, planet, atmosphere, ocean, South-East Asia, North America, the Pacific 56. Animals: cow, bear, bird, monkey, tiger, butterfly, love bug, ant, kitten, whale, salmon, farm, stall (for horses), feed (give food to animals) 57. Plants: tree, crops, bush, stalk (of a plant), carrots, legumes, fruit, mushroom, field, flower bed, plantation, plant (to make plants grow), water (pour water to plants) 58. Climate and weather: ice, snow, cool/hot/cold/wet (weather), cloud, mist, frost, sandstorm, wind, thunderbolt 59. Machinery: motor, machine, function (a machine operates), model (of a machine), voltage, electric, turn on/off (make a machine start/stop operating), rust, wire (electrical), board (a piece of wood) , screw and nut, waterproof, sealed 60. Materials and substances: plastic, oil (from ground), wool, cotton, leather, metal, tin (material), wood (material), gas (a substance in gaseous stat), brick, mud (material), furnace
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
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related to the Music of the language, too. Stress usually points out the most important sounds of the word, or the most important words in a phrase. Some syllables may be unstressed to the point you may not hear them pronounced. Sometimes, there are a few stressed words in a phrase. And they are not of the same importance. Native speakers are used to understand, which stress corresponds to which importance. A learner may consult a textbook or ask a native speaker. Language pace is generally about how fast or how slow is a sound or a syllable pronounced, and how long are pauses (if any) between adjacent sounds or syllables. Each sound, each syllable is pronounced at some relative pace. Some sounds nearly disappear, while they are pronounced much faster than others. Some can change. Even if you speak slower, the RELATIVE pace of the syllables must not change. And paceinflicted sound changes will mostly persist, too. Pauses will be considered as a part of pace, too. They can be longer or shorter, between words in a phrase, or even between sounds in a word. Pauses are something relative. You may speak quicker or slower. Pauses will become a bit longer or shorter, respectively. Intonations have a lot to do with grammar. They are inseparable part of a sentence. Intonation pattern of a question will always differ from that of a statement. Expressing ones emotions has to do with intonations, too. In order to master intonations properly, you better use an audio piece with its transcript. Listen to the recording carefully and mark the intonations in the transcript the music of the language, stresses, pace. You will need to mark sounds changes, too. You mark them exactly how you hear them. After all, THAT is how they are pronounced. You mark, which sounds last longer, which ones become shorter, which disappear, which mix up with their neighbours and become something different at all. Then read the sentence, using your marks, the way the native speaker has just pronounced it at your audio recording. Say it a few times and then record yourself saying it. Listen to your own recording and compare it with the native speakers. Does it fit? Drilling proper sounds changes will help you to acquire proper articulation. You may try to change the position of your tongue or lips slightly, while pronouncing some sounds. And you may notice that those slight re-positioning of your speech organs will make it even easier for you to change the sounds properly. Or to pass from one sound to another. Or to pronounce them the way the native speakers do. Thats all the articulation has to do with just place your mouth into proper positions. Dont get discouraged, especially at the beginning. At first, you will never sound as a native speaker. Just because you arent! Native speakers drill their intonations through the whole life. But you didnt! So just get down to drilling, drilling and drilling. Tens of
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
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hours of proper drilling will do. An hour or two of an original audio text will be fine. A movie with many dialogs would be the best. Your course book audio is often good enough, too. While choosing audio recordings make sure, thats not only a narrative. Theres nothing wrong with a narration, but when talking to native speakers, you mostly get into a conversation, a dialog. So try to drill a conversation. A family movie with subtitles would be the best. Just follow every phrase. Mark (or memorize) its intonations and drill it, until it becomes yours. I would not recommend drilling pronunciation for more than an hour a day. Your speech organs get tired and start operating worse. You need to spend more time to acquire less. But thats up to you.
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Advanced level
CEFR C1-C2, ALTE 4-5 At this level you know the language well enough to communicate on variety of topics already and just bring your skills to perfection. The guidelines provided below will make the process easier. This is the level to polish up your vocabulary, writing skills, especially those necessary for formal written communication, and common / vulgar spoken language. Elements of style are introduced here, too. This level actually brings you to close to native and native. So the recommendations and learning techniques are rather similar. Achieving the native level is probably a sweet dream of many learners, and the approach may be somewhat different. Ill discuss it later. At this level you may use a monolingual dictionary; however a good bilingual and an encyclopedia should be at hand, too. Native speakers will be very helpful.
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The main difficulty about this level is that you need to deal with many words, that you dont encounter that often. While reading or listening, you continue to encounter unknown words or meanings steadily and little by little. And there seems to be no end. When you are speaking or writing you may often lack that correct word. Or become unsure whether THIS is the right way to say it. The best principle to overcome this difficulty and go on up to the native level is divide and conquer. First, divide. Define exactly what you need in the first place. If you need to speak to children learn childrens language, read childrens stories, watch films or cartoons, learn the common games, that children play and what they say when they play. If you need to write essays on 18-century politics read a lot about 18-century politics, look up all the unknown and not-quite-understood words you come across, mark out the common expressions that youll need for your essays, write the essays and get them corrected. If you need to write contracts on hiring new employees, learn a few hiring contracts. The list of topics in the Native Level section will help you to define better, which language area you may need. Dont waste your time on what you DONT need. If you get stuck in a topic that you will hardly need in future, maybe you find a better one to learn. Moreover, if you do get stuck in some topic and you feel you have no drive to go on, one of the reasons may be that you really dont need it. (The other reason is that you havent properly clarified all the notquite-understood words, youve come across.) You may need to look once again, what are your goals and adjust your learning accordingly. Second, you may just need much more drilling. Reading, listening, speaking or writing; or any combination of them. If your purpose is reading, read a couple of novels, of different authors, some 100,000-200,000 words in total. After youll have read THAT much, you will hardly encounter any new ones in this area. Newspapers and magazines require even less. Read a few magazines, from the very first line, to the very last. Look up all unknown or not-quite-understood words in a dictionary. Watch films some 50-100 hours will do. Series are the best they give you some insight into daily life in that society (but dont forget this is fiction, anyway!) Get films with subtitles or with transcripts, especially when you start watching them. You can look up each time you arent sure about what you have heard or what does it mean. And it is easier to clarify the words you see printed. Some radio stations publish transcripts of their programs, too. After youll have copied a dozen of contracts, official letters or sets of instructions on some specific issue, you will feel how easy it becomes to write them yourself.
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And after youll have spent enough time with native speakers, chatting with them, discussing something with them, doing something together, going out or partying with them, really taking part in their talks, be sure you WILL be able to express yourself on any topic and without any doubt. Continue keeping your vocabulary. But now divide the words not just by topics, but by situations you may use or encounter them, or by styles. Some words are more commonly used in literature. Others are reserved for official language. You may express the same idea in one way when you discuss it with your friends and in quite a different way when you are writing a magazine article.
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After you have read a text, you may start copying it, in writing or in typing, sentence by sentence. Read a sentence, or a part of it, no longer than 15-20 words. After you have read it, set the text aside and write it by heart. If you dont remember something, look it up, then put the text aside again and write it down; and then delete the whole phrase and re-write it again, by heart. Then go over to the next phrase. After you have re-written the whole text, check it compare it to the original. If you are learning to write official papers, you are strongly advised do some copying, even if you have somebody who checks your writing. Actually, in official writing you need to use exactly those fixed phrases. And those phrases are only used in writing. So drill them in writing.
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Mass Media
This is probably the most common and relatively simple reading area. Daily newspapers and magazines, news, advertising, etc. Many TV programs use this language, too. The topics are: 1. The easiest: Panorama, Lifestyle, Youth Media, Advertising 2. More difficult, with relatively small and unique topic-related vocabulary: Criminal, Sports, Science & Health, Religion, Technology & Computers, Arts & Culture, Transportation & Travel 3. Even more difficult, with wider topic-related vocabulary: Social Issues, Politics, Business 4. Most difficult for mass media: Opinions & Columnists
Literature
Here you find the broadest vocabulary. Most complicated grammar forms, archaisms, irony, the language at its best or at its worst. Thats for true language freaks. For those, who appreciate not just literature by itself (you can read translations in your language), but the LANGUAGE of literature. So, before going down to this language area, ask yourself a question: Do you really need it? Do you really want it? What is YOUR purpose for studying it? Are you having THAT fun reading books? Do you enjoy the
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
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language THAT much? Anyway, if you decide to go ahead with it here are the topics for literature area: 1. Youth literature relatively broad vocabulary, but most of the vocabulary is rather common. 2. Modern Children stories the easiest, relatively limited vocabulary, very specific, dealing mostly with objects that surround us, childish words keep in mind that a native speakers MAY use childish vocabulary with adults, too. Do you remember when YOU did that in your language? 3. Folk Tales unique vocabulary, many words are used only for folk tales, somewhat archaic language. However this sort of language may be used in jokes. 4. Modern literature, 20-th and 21-st centuries you encounter the broadest vocabulary of the language here. The slightest nuances of meanings and impressions, some archaisms, historical and cultural issues they are all to be found at this level. You NEEDNT read every piece of literature that has been written. A common school literature course, that native speakers are taught when they go to school, will do. This is the level of educated native speakers. 5. Classical literature like modern literature, but with even broader vocabulary. A school course for native speakers will do.
Official
Similarly to the literature area, these topics are useful only when you really need them, and they will bore you stiff if you dont. So before getting down to any of the topics, see how much you need any one of them. 1. Reports, Letters, Instructions probably most common topics to start with. Here are the most common writing topics most of the things a native speaker may write get down to these. 2. Business, Medicine, Military, Educational System if you need it. 3. Sciences - school course nice to know to become a well-educated native speaker. 4. Laws, Contracts these are considered to be the most difficult topics. The good news is that its only partially true. The only difficulty is that it uses very unique and sometimes relatively broad vocabulary. Many words have only one meaning and most of them have more common and plain synonyms. However, structures are mostly stiff and invariable. Grammar is very special, but limited. Mastering these topics may be boring, but once you get it and it ISNT infinite, like literature, bingo! The job is done! Moreover, you get to understand the laws of that country, and THAT often helps, too.
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
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Spoken
Living in the society of native speakers, you will encounter these topics each and every moment. If you are NOT living in the society, it will be more difficult to create that environment. Anyway, this is not as difficult as it seems, especially nowadays, as you have Internet, streaming video etc. 1. Daily Reality (Series) one of the most important and the most difficult to understand. There are many reality programs on TV, which serve that purpose. Daily words said by native speakers, who are not always in very good mood, who may be in a hurry, talking in the sloppiest way, breaking grammar rules. They may want to add insult to injury to poor language learners! Anyway, once you get to hear what they are saying your job of getting to understand their voices is done. This topic is best done with a tutor. The easiest and the fastest. Or at least with transcripts or subtitles. If you never wanted to pay for learning this is where you may want to re-think it. Your tutor doesnt have to be a professional teacher, just a native speaker or at the native speaker level, who can clarify you at any moment what the have they said there, and what they mean by that. 2. Entertainment, Talk-Shows similar to Daily Reality, but the vocabulary may be slightly different. 3. Forums here you can get spoken language written. At forums, people use to write as they speak. This is the best thing to start with. 4. Discussions its especially important that you can make and defend your point in a discussion. You can see printed discussions in the Internet. A discussion of any issue gets down to the following: is it bad or good and why. And each side wants to be right. If you have no partner, you may print out the special vocabulary for this topic and let your pencil and your pen, or your right and your left hands hold a few discussions on any issue you please. 5. Songs: 5.1 Children Songs easiest, 5.2 Modern Songs more difficult, 5.3 Folk Songs dont get afraid of the language irregularities, just learn 20-30 of the most popular folk songs by heart, it will repay one day. 6. Films: 6.1 Panorama Films probably the easiest, rather good articulation, if you have already done the Mass Media area you will have rather few difficulties about this topic. 6.2 Cartoon Films rather simple language, articulation is mostly good. 6.3 Educational Films vocabulary is mostly topic-related, but usually limited. 6.4 Children Films vocabulary is broader, but still rather easy and specific.
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
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6.5 Feature Films even broader vocabulary, more cultural issues. Just for the sake of better understanding the culture, I advise you to see at least 15-20 cult films, those films that everyone has seen. 7. Besides, each nation has its own language learning utilities for children nursery rhymes, simple tales, words-oriented games etc. Their value for learning to communicate with native speakers may never be overstated. Very good since the intermediate level.
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Lists that contain some related words (like: cinema, film, actor, movie-star, titles, producer) may be easier to learn. However, they still have the same drawback you do not have the proper context and you need to waste your time and energy to make it up. You would better find a text on cinema and make use of THAT context. The other drawback is especially relevant for learning dictionary pages by heart. Some words at that page are used rather frequently in the language. Others are less common. Some are hardly used at all. Many words are only used in very specific contexts you are unlikely to come across. But on a dictionary page their importance is equal. I hardly know a couple of dictionaries that point out frequency of use. So you are going to end up with loads of words you hardly ever need, instead of concentrating on the words that are truly important and more common. This is true for meanings, as well a word can have a few meanings and some of them are more important and more frequent than the others. Mere reading or listening will help you much more.
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HOW are you going to say it. No more. If you achieve it with one try do just one try. If you are doing it successfully with one single try for more than 5-8 successive sentences, pass to a more difficult drill. You always have something new to learn a more advanced course book, a literarily text, a talk show, a feature film. So dont waste your time on a nice course book of the lower level or on an attractive website which thoroughly starts from the very beginning. Dont be afraid to miss a few words from that nice course book or drill. If these words are frequent, important enough, you will definitely come across them later. And if they arent, probably you dont need them anyway. If your level is higher than your assignment you do not need to do it, full stop.
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Maybe they will say some words you are not familiar with. Or you dont remember exactly what they mean. Anyway just go on speaking with the native speaker! Thats fun! Thats a great fun. You have invested so much time and efforts in your language learning. Now you are in a true life situation. And you CAN use your language skills. Dont get frustrated if it isnt exactly the same as it was in class or with a book. Life is different. Just go ahead. Thats all about it. You will go ahead and after a couple of hours you will have at your fingertips all that youve learnt. Just go ahead. My personal experience practically with every language, at the very first moment I needed to open my mouth and start speaking a new language I just seemed to forget everything I had learnt! All the necessary words disappeared! It was rather frustrating. It took me a few hours to start to get into it again. But after a couple of new languages I started to understand, that was quite normal. The first encounter with the language in a true life situation MAY seem unusual. But after a couple of hours things start to go better. Thats all. And well, the better youve drilled speaking, the better you will speak. From the very beginning.
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Beginners
You first course, either a teacher-lead or a self-study, is your gate to the language and to its society. Impressions you get from your first course can determine your future successes or failures with this language. As serious as that! Thats why I prefer courses that were created by highly professional teams from the target society. More and more countries start exporting their culture. And often do it with excellent language courses. However, pay attention to the quality of teaching, too. A list of requirements below will help you to choose the best course. Be aware, that there can be no ideal course that would fit all the requirements. But still it will help you to navigate through loads of courses you may get exposed to.
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change from word to word, too. So, dont spend much effort on learning each sound separately. 13. Ideally, a course will have the same audio recording spoken slowly and quickly. This way you can hear how words change with different speech pace. 14. Beware the courses that throw you too complex phrases, something that seems inapplicable in daily life, overload you with new words or phrases and let you understand it later or understand it yourself or from context. Maybe good as a sales gimmick, this will make your learning unnecessarily complicated, at least. And it will make you frustrated and disappointed in yourself, which is much worse. Invest your efforts in LEARNING; dont waste them on guessing, pondering and hesitations. 15. For the same reason, use only those courses which provide transcripts to their audio recordings.
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times, until you hear clearly what and how they pronounce it, and you understand it immediately. 9. You get what you drill. It may happen that in certain circumstances you cannot do all these steps one after another as described. For example, if you are learning in a bus or on a train, I doubt that you will do the wardrobe drills. However, you can complete that drill later at home. Just keep in mind that you will never learn to speak a language, if you didnt drill speaking. 10. At some stage you may feel that your drilling becomes rather easy. You can say a sentence to the wardrobe correctly, swiftly and confidently from the very first try. Your intonation is correct, you write smoothly and quickly. You re-hear the text only once, and you truly no cheating understand each and every word they say. Thats great! That means you may just go ahead even faster! If you have drilled rather diligently since the very beginning, thats what you will surely get.
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11. A native speaker is not necessarily the best teacher at this level. As a beginner you need a teacher first. Someone who is going to make you understand what you are learning. A native speaker is a good reference on words use, on pronunciation or on special cultural issues. The point is that as a beginner you do not need THAT much reference. You need a TEACHER who knows how to make things simple for you. No more than that. A native speaker will be best at the advanced level. Are you already there?
Intermediates
As an Intermediate learner, you are expected to expand your vocabulary. You can build up much more phrases yourself and express yourself on much more topics. AND you should do it correctly. So the requirements for a course (whether teacher-lead or selfstudy) may be slightly different.
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2. You are corrected each time you make a mistake. 3. The teacher corrects your pronunciation, too. 4. Your learning pace fits the teaching pace of the course you do not fall behind; at the same time you dont feel the course is to slow for you. If you do, consider taking another course or doing some more self-study. 5. At this level it is much more important NOT to re-learn what you have already learnt, i.e. the Beginners material. Just to get you there, a salesperson can advise you a course at a much lower level, than you are. And in order to persuade you, the registrar may advise it is nice to review or you will just better know what you know already. Review does not mean re-learn. And from re-treading you will not know better. You will waste your time and get frustrated thats all. 6. Pay attention that each word and each grammar pattern are presented clearly enough, so that you understand them without effort. 7. Items 4-8 from the requirements for a self-study course apply here, too. 8. Ideally, the teacher will encourage you to speak and write. Not just read and listen. 9. The explanations are clear enough. You are not made to guess and you never stay unsure whether youve done it correct or not. Theres no place for guesses in language learning! Your dictionary work is encouraged. 10. Beware the courses that throw you too complex phrases, something that seems inapplicable in daily life, overload you with new words or phrases and let you understand it later or understand it yourself or from context. Maybe good as a sales gimmick, this will make your learning unnecessarily complicated at least. And it will make you frustrated and disappointed in yourself, which is much worse. Invest your efforts in LEARNING; dont waste them on guessing, pondering and hesitations. (I guess Ill never get tired in repeating THAT. This is one of the main secrets of successful language learning.) 11. A native speaker is not necessarily the best teacher at this level. But may be a nice benefit. You still need a teacher first. But of course you can start getting exposed to communicating with native speakers. That will definitely break the ice between you and the society, which language you are learning.
Advanced
As an advanced learner, you are getting close to the native level. Indeed, you are becoming a professional in language learning, too! But the game is not yet over. Now you finally arrive to probably the most exciting moment. You KNOW the language. You CAN understand it. And your purpose is to brush up on your language USE, so that you use the language exactly like a native speaker does.
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
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Good luck!
Copyright 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course Lessons with Dmitry Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html