English in four weeks

In the late nineties, I worked at Promstroibank, which was one of the first to derail the financial crisis. It is clear that without a job it was completely sad, especially after the crisis was not weak, and therefore when I was offered to come for an interview at the office where I needed English, I agreed without hesitation, although I knew exactly three words in English - torch and yellow submarine (thanks to the Beatles ). In other words - I couldn’t speak English at all. Totally. Understand - even more so. But he agreed, thanked for the invitation and went boldly.

In the "selection committee" there were six people, all Russians and one American, financial. We chatted very vigorously, in Russian, and when it was moving towards the end, I thought to myself that “cool, cool”, they forgot about English, how lucky I was, la-la-la, American, wretch, woke up. I woke up and asked, - Vai did liv the bank? I, dubino starosovoi, understood only two words - live (live), and bank (bank). And then I was covered - what the hell, I think, he asks me why I lived in a bank? Is it a joke so American that they have admins live in banks? I, your god's soul, worked there ... Well, and so on.

The loading and thinking process on my face was so obvious that almost the most important guy (excellent, by the way, as it turned out later) screamed and very kindly tells me, - He asks you why you left the bank, and not why you lived there !
')
From such an intellectual turn, I was stunned once more, and quickly and quickly told everything about the crisis, the license, and all the garbage.

At that, the interview was over, and almost the most important uncle said - look, the most important uncle is an Englishman, and he will arrive in a month if you can master English during this time and have an interview with him - well done, and if not, I'm sorry.

Then I collected all my money that was left after the crisis, a little, but there is nowhere to go, and went to the local Nsk language schools. Everything really went around, and everywhere they turned away by twisting a finger at the temple - a boy, you are a fool, for a month this is not-re-al-but, go home, get well. There was one, the last one, and there again, I passed the test, listened to what a naive and idiot I was, and was about to leave in frustration when I heard a bold voice behind my back — I will take it. Nina Andreevna Mertz, now a citizen of Germany, was not afraid to try and really, after four weeks of daily classes for three hours, in the morning and in the evening, I said, almost calmly in English. I was lucky - the biggest boss was two weeks late, which was very useful for me, and when he did come, I talked with him for a little more than an hour, answering his questions more than listening. Not the biggest boss was very surprised - how is that even possible, have you changed the firmware?

So for the whole month I learned English.

A few years later, when I already lived in Europe and tried to find an answer to the question of many friends “how did you learn English so quickly?”, I realized that Nina Andreevna taught me just like we teach our children - I read books with audio cassettes, constantly I listened to the player and then read it myself out loud, trying to imitate, wrote a lot, writing down what I heard / understood and so on. The most difficult thing in learning was to start speaking at first, and then learn how to highlight key words in the heard. By the end of the first week I was already thinking in English, very clumsily and stumbling, but I tried not to translate, but to understand the meaning of not my own words.

Films with subtitles are of course a great thing, but we must understand that in films, in contrast to audio for books, there are pauses, and not small ones. Plus, actually viewing is still fun, and learning the language is work.

^{And the biggest boss, as he later, when he retired, turned out to be speaking Russian completely without an accent, and at the reception on the occasion of his retirement he admitted this in the purest Russian, and everyone who in his presence spoiled - forgiven and asked to relax.}