Combining learning English with leisure
Many people offer various techniques, describe mobile applications, recommend courses and much more, I want to tell you my personal experience of learning English over the past 4 years.
As an introduction, I can say that more than 4 years ago at the very dawn of my IT career, I interviewed one well-known and very large foreign company. As expected in this case, the interview was in English.
Actually, after this interview, I decided for myself that English for a programmer is not just a language for reading documentation and must be taught as well as all IT disciplines.
')
How I built the learning process, how it advanced and what results are achieved we read under the cut.
After the above-mentioned interview (which I successfully failed), I made a lot of conclusions for myself. One of the conclusions was that it was necessary to tighten the level of the English language.
I, like everyone, taught English at school, I will say more, I taught him from the 1st grade and I even had 3 foreign languages ​​at the same time at school with Russian. After school I studied English at the institute. For me, like for many, this long process that lasted about 15 years did not bring a significant result.
If I read this article, I can assume that my vocabulary was about 800-1000 words (and maybe less). Grammar knowledge was also at a rather weak level.
Thus, I began my studies from a level that is just above the initial level.
The goals were set to raise the level of English to a free understanding of speaking by ear and free communication with foreigners.
There was an important question, how to build a training. Here I pushed off a few important points.
And the choice here was obvious - to teach through watching movies and TV shows.
And when I had already decided, many small nuances appeared:
At the expense of the genre everything is clear, that's what someone likes. More important is the selection of films on the complexity. All films have different vocabulary, and this should also be taken into account. For myself, I decided at the first stage to watch those films that I had already seen in Russian, and I know what the actors say and in what scenes, and then gradually move on to what I have not yet seen.
Since I decided to watch those films that I know, and Russian subtitles could not be used. In fact, I even watched in English and with English subtitles. Unless of course hard, then we must take the Russian subtitles.
Go completely to the English-language film
I decided to act radically and switched to a fully English version. Here everyone chooses himself, at first, with a full transition to the English version and a weak level of proficiency in the language, you can forget about getting some pleasure from watching movies, it will be a very hard study.
For the first 6 months, the films were divided into 2 types for me: “Something is clear” and “Nothing is clear . ” It was the most stressful period, I think everyone will have it at different times depending on the initial level, desire, time, etc., for me it was about six months.
There are films on some common life topics and everything is tolerable here, but there are films for specific topics, such as surfing or something about cars or even a historical film with the use of words that have come out of everyday life. A vivid example of Dr. House with his medical terms. Even taking into account that these terms are repeated there very often, it is very difficult to remember and perceive them by ear.
There are films where the characters speak very poorly, for example, Gandalf is one of them, and in general the actors can shout something in a battle or speak in a whisper or even speak with their mouths full. Understand further and see that there is an American film and a British film, and in the early stages it is difficult to distinguish pronunciation.
The clearest voices where they are duplicated can be cartoons or non-English-language films duplicated in English.
Beginning to watch one series, which can be very long, gradually getting used to the vocabulary, the pronunciation of actors, etc. and when switching to another movie, there were difficulties and it even began to seem that there was no result at all and all this was in vain :), but then everything settled down.
The first period you have to be prepared for is study. Each viewing is a very busy study hour. From time to time, you have to search for something in the dictionary, stop the video and rewind it several times in obscure places, translate quickly until the heroes poured a few more complex sentences on you.
After 1-2 months, it became clear that the training is paying off. At work, it has become much easier with English-language documentation and with communication in English-language forums. It was felt that the vocabulary is growing. Almost every time I looked through, I learned a few words and phrases and it wasn’t just a crunch, but an understanding of how to use them in a particular context.
Half a year has passed and I just changed jobs and in the new place were English language courses. The vocabulary was already quite good, so the courses were fairly easy and I was able to tighten the basic grammar.
Studying on video itself was actively continued and brought great results, there were less and less obscure words in the films and it was possible to go to the movies with a specific slang. This year, my friend once asked me why I didn’t watch reports from IT conferences, various English language training videos, but at that moment I decided that it was still early.
This year I went to Jeff De Luc's master class on his FDD agile development methodology, and on the master class there was an option to listen with translation through headphones or listen to everything without them. For me, this was the first experience of listening to ordinary conversational speech live and was fairly easy, of course there were some incomprehensible moments, but in general, field tests of learning outcomes proved to be very good. I even talked with the speaker in the breaks, asking him questions that interested me. After that, there was an incentive to learn this method further.
This is how one and a half years of training in video has gone unnoticed. I abandoned courses at work because it became too easy and in a sluggish mode I began to look for other ways to learn in addition.
Later, I had more than once personal contact with native speakers. There were practically no problems. Thanks to the video training, listening comprehension was very good, and the vocabulary allowed us to communicate on various topics without any problems. It is worth mentioning that I spoke both with the Americans and the British and the difficulties of understanding did not arise largely due to the fact that films with British English were also given time.
Having studied in this mode for about 2 years, it became clear that the level of proficiency in the language could not be quickly raised by just watching a video. Vocabulary is growing slowly since most everyday words are already known, and grammar and pronunciation are lame. Here I actively began to look for other ways to learn. These were various courses and conversations with foreigners via Skype and all sorts of educational videos.
I also began to actively watch professional videos, these were IT conferences, training and many others. At that time I could already handle the speech of such comrades as Stephan-T-Lavavej .
At the moment, my language level has stopped, or rather, it moves very slowly. But despite this, I continue to look at everything exclusively in the original. It seems to me that if you continue like this for another 4-5 years, then the level will somehow grow up, but the main thing is that there is a regular practice that does not allow you to lose the accumulated knowledge. In terms of work, knowledge of the language helps a lot, it blurs the boundaries and helps to broaden horizons and gain knowledge from English-speaking sources without any difficulties.
At some point, I began to think about learning other languages ​​in the same way.
German was not chosen by chance, having a large vocabulary in English, you can easily switch to German since there are a lot of common and similar words. Similar design suggestions. In general, I began to slowly master cinema in German.
The first conclusions are that knowledge of English helps very much. The main problem is the German grammar and the only way out is to learn!
My love of anime played here. I even looked in Japanese with English subtitles and you do not want to want but the words start to be remembered. Even for such complex and unusual languages, you can study Swadesh List and if you are an anime lover, learn slowly.
Chinese or Mandarin Mandarin or Mandarin is the world's leader in the number of speakers. Chinese cinema is also very rich and interesting, which will help find films to study. One of the main points that interest me from a professional point of view is the IT world of China, to which there is not much access due to the language barrier.
When learning Chinese, I try combined tactics, combining work with a native speaker and watching a video. The language itself is very difficult to understand by ear, largely because of the tones.
I must say that these tips are my personal opinion, it’s not at all a fact that they can be useful to you.
In the process of all this learning a lot of interesting things appeared.
After 4 years of training in this mode, I got to the level of approximately Upper-Intermediate in communication and Advanced in translation and understanding of oral speech. Having passed several tests, vocabulary can be estimated at about 11,000 - 15,000 words. The chosen method was fully justified, but you should not focus only on it alone. It is necessary to learn grammar and talk more in the target language, etc ...
PS
If you understand this video without any problems, then you read this article in vain :).
As an introduction, I can say that more than 4 years ago at the very dawn of my IT career, I interviewed one well-known and very large foreign company. As expected in this case, the interview was in English.
Actually, after this interview, I decided for myself that English for a programmer is not just a language for reading documentation and must be taught as well as all IT disciplines.
')
How I built the learning process, how it advanced and what results are achieved we read under the cut.
Start
After the above-mentioned interview (which I successfully failed), I made a lot of conclusions for myself. One of the conclusions was that it was necessary to tighten the level of the English language.
I, like everyone, taught English at school, I will say more, I taught him from the 1st grade and I even had 3 foreign languages ​​at the same time at school with Russian. After school I studied English at the institute. For me, like for many, this long process that lasted about 15 years did not bring a significant result.
If I read this article, I can assume that my vocabulary was about 800-1000 words (and maybe less). Grammar knowledge was also at a rather weak level.
Thus, I began my studies from a level that is just above the initial level.
Choosing a training method
The goals were set to raise the level of English to a free understanding of speaking by ear and free communication with foreigners.
There was an important question, how to build a training. Here I pushed off a few important points.
- it is necessary to study regularly even if the level is very high
- it is necessary to combine study with leisure, because not much free time
- I'm not a fan of cramming words
- and most importantly, I was always a movie lover and was always ready to find time to watch some interesting movie or series
And the choice here was obvious - to teach through watching movies and TV shows.
Start date
And when I had already decided, many small nuances appeared:
What to watch?
At the expense of the genre everything is clear, that's what someone likes. More important is the selection of films on the complexity. All films have different vocabulary, and this should also be taken into account. For myself, I decided at the first stage to watch those films that I had already seen in Russian, and I know what the actors say and in what scenes, and then gradually move on to what I have not yet seen.
Watch with or without subtitles?
Since I decided to watch those films that I know, and Russian subtitles could not be used. In fact, I even watched in English and with English subtitles. Unless of course hard, then we must take the Russian subtitles.
Go completely to the English-language film and arrange a hell for your brain or not?
I decided to act radically and switched to a fully English version. Here everyone chooses himself, at first, with a full transition to the English version and a weak level of proficiency in the language, you can forget about getting some pleasure from watching movies, it will be a very hard study.
First half year
For the first 6 months, the films were divided into 2 types for me: “Something is clear” and “Nothing is clear . ” It was the most stressful period, I think everyone will have it at different times depending on the initial level, desire, time, etc., for me it was about six months.
Difficulties
Specific dictionary
There are films on some common life topics and everything is tolerable here, but there are films for specific topics, such as surfing or something about cars or even a historical film with the use of words that have come out of everyday life. A vivid example of Dr. House with his medical terms. Even taking into account that these terms are repeated there very often, it is very difficult to remember and perceive them by ear.
Pronunciation
There are films where the characters speak very poorly, for example, Gandalf is one of them, and in general the actors can shout something in a battle or speak in a whisper or even speak with their mouths full. Understand further and see that there is an American film and a British film, and in the early stages it is difficult to distinguish pronunciation.
The clearest voices where they are duplicated can be cartoons or non-English-language films duplicated in English.
Addictive
Beginning to watch one series, which can be very long, gradually getting used to the vocabulary, the pronunciation of actors, etc. and when switching to another movie, there were difficulties and it even began to seem that there was no result at all and all this was in vain :), but then everything settled down.
This study
The first period you have to be prepared for is study. Each viewing is a very busy study hour. From time to time, you have to search for something in the dictionary, stop the video and rewind it several times in obscure places, translate quickly until the heroes poured a few more complex sentences on you.
Light moments
After 1-2 months, it became clear that the training is paying off. At work, it has become much easier with English-language documentation and with communication in English-language forums. It was felt that the vocabulary is growing. Almost every time I looked through, I learned a few words and phrases and it wasn’t just a crunch, but an understanding of how to use them in a particular context.
Next year
Half a year has passed and I just changed jobs and in the new place were English language courses. The vocabulary was already quite good, so the courses were fairly easy and I was able to tighten the basic grammar.
Studying on video itself was actively continued and brought great results, there were less and less obscure words in the films and it was possible to go to the movies with a specific slang. This year, my friend once asked me why I didn’t watch reports from IT conferences, various English language training videos, but at that moment I decided that it was still early.
First live chat
This year I went to Jeff De Luc's master class on his FDD agile development methodology, and on the master class there was an option to listen with translation through headphones or listen to everything without them. For me, this was the first experience of listening to ordinary conversational speech live and was fairly easy, of course there were some incomprehensible moments, but in general, field tests of learning outcomes proved to be very good. I even talked with the speaker in the breaks, asking him questions that interested me. After that, there was an incentive to learn this method further.
It's been a year and a half
This is how one and a half years of training in video has gone unnoticed. I abandoned courses at work because it became too easy and in a sluggish mode I began to look for other ways to learn in addition.
Live chat
Later, I had more than once personal contact with native speakers. There were practically no problems. Thanks to the video training, listening comprehension was very good, and the vocabulary allowed us to communicate on various topics without any problems. It is worth mentioning that I spoke both with the Americans and the British and the difficulties of understanding did not arise largely due to the fact that films with British English were also given time.
After 2 years of study
Having studied in this mode for about 2 years, it became clear that the level of proficiency in the language could not be quickly raised by just watching a video. Vocabulary is growing slowly since most everyday words are already known, and grammar and pronunciation are lame. Here I actively began to look for other ways to learn. These were various courses and conversations with foreigners via Skype and all sorts of educational videos.
I also began to actively watch professional videos, these were IT conferences, training and many others. At that time I could already handle the speech of such comrades as Stephan-T-Lavavej .
Our days
At the moment, my language level has stopped, or rather, it moves very slowly. But despite this, I continue to look at everything exclusively in the original. It seems to me that if you continue like this for another 4-5 years, then the level will somehow grow up, but the main thing is that there is a regular practice that does not allow you to lose the accumulated knowledge. In terms of work, knowledge of the language helps a lot, it blurs the boundaries and helps to broaden horizons and gain knowledge from English-speaking sources without any difficulties.
Other languages
At some point, I began to think about learning other languages ​​in the same way.
Deutsch
German was not chosen by chance, having a large vocabulary in English, you can easily switch to German since there are a lot of common and similar words. Similar design suggestions. In general, I began to slowly master cinema in German.
The first conclusions are that knowledge of English helps very much. The main problem is the German grammar and the only way out is to learn!
Japanese
My love of anime played here. I even looked in Japanese with English subtitles and you do not want to want but the words start to be remembered. Even for such complex and unusual languages, you can study Swadesh List and if you are an anime lover, learn slowly.
Chinese
Chinese or Mandarin Mandarin or Mandarin is the world's leader in the number of speakers. Chinese cinema is also very rich and interesting, which will help find films to study. One of the main points that interest me from a professional point of view is the IT world of China, to which there is not much access due to the language barrier.
When learning Chinese, I try combined tactics, combining work with a native speaker and watching a video. The language itself is very difficult to understand by ear, largely because of the tones.
Tips
I must say that these tips are my personal opinion, it’s not at all a fact that they can be useful to you.
- We must find a way to learn the language regularly, and even better daily.
- Select the method of learning necessary for yourself. I even knew people who learned the language by Rep. It does not say that you need to learn this way, you just need to pick up and choose a training system just for yourself.
- Vocabulary is very important, without it any learning will go very slowly. You can, for example, at the very beginning learn the Swadesh List for the language you want to learn. One of the reasons for which I was a little easier at the beginning was precisely because I already knew the translations of the words in this list.
- Watch movies with subtitles in the same language. At some point, I realized that the subtitles often do not coincide with the text, especially if this film is translated into English and even with subtitles. Here you can learn how different phrases are translated, what synonyms are, well, and all this analysis will force your brain to work intensively. And even if the subtitles match, then you learn to spell words.
- It is necessary to find interlocutors and talk as much as possible in the language being studied. It is worth remembering that there is an active vocabulary - these are the words that we use in writing and in conversation and passive reserves - these are the words that we learn by ear or when reading. Both should be developed.
- You need to choose which language you are learning, American English or British English. A vivid example of this word can't, if you speak it in American English in the British version, then you may be misunderstood :).
- Chat with someone from your friends in English only.
Interesting moments
In the process of all this learning a lot of interesting things appeared.
- You can for example find out that some well-known actors are not so beautiful voices to the ear :).
- Localization of the names in Russian are beginning to cut the ear.
- Translations can not convey a lot of jokes, such as jokes associated with the peculiarities of the language
- English is very simple
results
After 4 years of training in this mode, I got to the level of approximately Upper-Intermediate in communication and Advanced in translation and understanding of oral speech. Having passed several tests, vocabulary can be estimated at about 11,000 - 15,000 words. The chosen method was fully justified, but you should not focus only on it alone. It is necessary to learn grammar and talk more in the target language, etc ...
PS
If you understand this video without any problems, then you read this article in vain :).
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/296886/
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