Why can't I speak English. The polyglot strategy is to draw maps. The verb to speak in English
- We Not great empire, we need to interact with the world.
In Egypt, Vietnam, far gone Estonia, Finland, Greece, everyone speaks English: any cashier, tram driver, 10-year-old child. And in Russia, knowledge of a foreign language is the privilege of smart people. Familiar Englishmen living in St. Petersburg complained that we could not do without a Russian. Why is this not a priority for education? Why do adults not seek to expand their horizons?
In my opinion, need is necessary for motivation. "Let others learn Russian better," the average man thinks. Now I will tell you what needs our youth, Finns and Estonians have.
- In Finland, I managed to agree with the Department of Education that they would arrange excursions to two schools for me. Having learned that I was so young, the director of one of them suggested that I be a schoolboy and spend the day with the Media class (I gave a short lecture on the role of the press). So in conversations, I asked questions about motivation. Everyone is driven by doing a lot to get a good job, and the labor market in Europe is common, that is, the competition is serious. And it is also necessary to work with different countries, as the teams and businesses are multinational.
- Our market is closed, few and only the best graduates interact with the world, who already know English. That is, an ordinary Russian does not need a foreign language.
- With Estonia, the situation is similar, but it is aggravated by the small population. Movies and TV programs are not translated (!), but are released in the original (more often in English) with subtitles. I read that in the cinema subtitles are immediately in Estonian and Russian. What a pleasure to watch films in the original. I looked through the local channels: indeed, Nat Geo in the original is American. Even if you don’t want to, you still have to listen to English and subconsciously correlate the sound with the translation. Therefore, children and teenagers speak pure English.
- We would have. But in Russia the market is large and dubbing is profitable.
Estonian TV in English With subtitles:
- Now about promising schoolchildren and students, to which I have always referred myself (as well as other students of the GSOM). We need English for education (there is a lot of information on business in English) and for a career. We compete with the world, with the best in the country, so perfect English is needed. The entrance exam showed that 60% of GSOM students have level B2 (very good). At the undergraduate level, you can take a semester at a partner school in Europe (how can you miss this opportunity?).
We have difficulties with the fact that English is taught mediocrely in schools. If you need to enter foreign universities, then you cannot do without tutors or nights with textbooks. It is necessary to pass the IELTS exam, which requires careful and systematic preparation. For students who plan to continue their studies in a master's program, both at a prestigious university abroad and at GSOM, it is necessary to provide the result of the GMAT exam, which tests not so much English language skills as a foreign language, but rather analytical thinking skills, skills in using English as application tool, as well as your skills in mathematics.
How to check the language level?
Exams are held as IELTS for schoolchildren to enter foreign universities (about, England) and GMAT for admission to the master's program. These exams are really important for education and career, they prepare for them for a long time and seriously, they spend money on tutors. For cool students (from GSOM, for example) you need a high result. And suddenly I am ready to offer one place in St. Petersburg, where professionals and colleagues work - ↳ icexams.ru. They know about the potential of both GSOM and other advanced universities, and are ready to help with the preparation. By the way, the GMAT is held at GSOM.
If you need to prepare for the GMAT and IELTS, now you know where to turn. ⬆︎⬆︎⬆︎
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The son of a poor carpenter, Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who became an Italian cardinal, spoke a hundred languages. And the famous Russian academician Zaliznyak knows more than forty. So why can't our children, who have been cramming English for 10 years, explain themselves tolerably in at least one foreign language?
The son of a poor carpenter, Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who became an Italian cardinal, spoke a hundred languages. And the famous Russian academician Zaliznyak knows more than forty. So why can't our children, who have been cramming English for 10 years, explain themselves tolerably in at least one foreign language?
How to choose a foreign language tutor? Let's figure it out together.
1. Language is not a subject
At school, language is taught as an ordinary subject, the same as mathematics or physics. Instead of formulas and theorems - spelling and punctuation rules. And this applies not only to foreign, but also to the Russian language.
Teachers are aimed at formal literacy and are motivated to coach the student to pass the exam. Did the job, well done.
If we only studied Russian at school, we would only learn how to place commas and speak in phrases like “mom washed the frame.” Because they don't talk about rules.
2. English - not Russian
To simplify the process at school, they teach as if English words are just equivalents of Russian ones, they just sound different. "Cat" - "cat", "dog" - "dog". Teachers have no time to go into the intricacies of constructing English sentences, and children, in fact, speak in Russian phrases made up of English words.
Everything seems simple until we start talking to an Englishman or an American. At this moment, jokes are born about the strange Russian tongue twister “tu-ti-tu-tu-tu”, with the help of which our compatriots unsuccessfully tried to order “two teas in the twenty-second room”.
3. Few words to learn
What foreign language vocabulary do children get in high school? The correct answer is about 2,500 words. Swedish polyglot Erik Gunnemark has calculated that it takes about 8,000 words to fully communicate. This is almost three times more than a school dictionary, even learned with an A.
4. No time - no language
According to the program approved by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, English has been taught in secondary schools for 10 years, from 2nd to 11th grade. We translate years into lessons and get 735 hours of basic education or 945 hours if English is chosen as a core subject in high school.
Just remember that schoolchildren study English not individually, but in groups of 15-20 people. And not every teacher has time to ask at least one question.
According to the observations of tutors and teachers of language courses, in a group of three, each student manages to speak no more than 20% of the lesson. If it is completely optimistic to assume that in a group of 15 students a student manages to communicate in English at least 10% of the time, we get 75 hours for the entire time of study at school.
All according to the same observations, if you learn a language from scratch, then through 170 hours of speaking practice you can reach the level of speech ... a six-year-old English child!
Bottom line: to speak like a six-year-old Englishman, you need to study at school about 2.5 times longer.
5. Language changes
The Oxford English Dictionary has about 500,000 entries. Each word can have a different meaning depending on the context. And this context is changing every year. The phrase: “The boy glued the model in the club” will be understood by a romantic of the 60s of the twentieth century and a modern hipster in completely different ways. Because over time, the meaning of each word in this phrase has changed.
In the same way, the context and meaning of expressions in English change. And at school they continue to cram topics from the last century, cut off from life and filled with obsolete vocabulary. According to modern manuals such as Cutting Edge, English File, New Total English, Round-Up, English textbooks for children published by Pearson Longman or Oxford, today live English is taught only by tutors or advanced teachers.
I listen, I read, and I understand everything. But now they ask me a question, but I can’t connect two words in response. Yes, and there is nothing special to connect: all the words seemed to have evaporated from memory ...
I think the described emotions are familiar to many. There is a so-called "dog problem" or “I understand everything, but I can’t say” due to the fact that the student from the very beginning does not develop active skills - speaking and writing. It seems to him that first he needs to master the English language perfectly: learn all the rules, frequency words, etc.
This is especially common among ardent perfectionists. They end up getting so stuck in "learning" that they bring their passive skills to above average levels, but never dare to open their mouths themselves.
What to do? Speak more often!
And now I can already see how rotten tomatoes flew at us. 🙂 Tell the person "talk more often", when there is a reinforced concrete language barrier in front of him, it's like saying to a crying person: "Well, you, this ... don't cry".
I think you already know what to say without us: communicate with foreigners on special sites; conduct in English (foreigners can also check them); go to courses where they talk a lot, etc.
BUT! You can and should independently perform special "exercises".
First: we translate the passive dictionary into an active one
Yes, the main difficulty lies precisely in the fact that words and grammatical units are in our passive. We learn the word - we learn, but we ourselves cannot say it.
But what if you already have an impressive passive vocabulary? We have 3 ways to activate it:
1. Read texts your level and retell the content aloud. So you first remind yourself of the words (during reading), and then activate them in speech (during retelling).
You already have a vocabulary, just activate it!
2. Before the planned communication - with a foreigner, in a language club, etc. - make for yourself a list of words that you want to activate and use them purposefully in speech.
3. Practice more often in training for reverse translation - when you translate a Russian word into English, and not vice versa. These are workouts.
WE RECOMMEND: set a goal to pump and activate the vocabulary that you already have. That is, align the levels of proficiency in passive skills (listening and reading) and active ones (speaking and writing). The most effective way to do this is to retell the read texts at YOUR level, where you know ≈ 85% of the vocabulary.
Second: get rid of language barriers
Another common reason for "silence" is fear of speaking in a foreign language. How will I sound? What's wrong with my pronunciation? How is it even possible to speak a foreign language?!
Calm down. You have the opportunity to rehearse. And you will overcome your fear, and at the same time you will shake other skills:
1. Speak along with the announcer. Work in this sequence: first you just listen to the recording, then you listen and repeat FOR the speaker - you pause after some passage and pronounce his phrase after, the third step - you speak at the same time as him.
So you will accustom yourself to rhythm, intonation and, in general, to pronunciation of English speech.
2. Read English texts aloud. Then you will get used to the sound of your voice in English + it will help you at the level of "mechanical memory": at this moment you will speak! Let not your thoughts, but still - speak!
Relax and rehearse by yourself. The image is a frame from the film The King's Speech.
3. Talk to yourself. You are constantly thinking about something. So think in English. Happened? Now, think out loud! Try to speak out loud in the language you are learning as often as possible.
WE RECOMMEND: accustom your brain, speech apparatus, hearing to your own English speech. Speak audio recordings - monologues, songs, etc. - after the announcer, read aloud, talk to yourself. Then it will not be so scary to “open your mouth” and speak English with a real person.
The main thing is not to be afraid of mistakes. Don't even call them "mistakes". These are temporary errors that will be corrected in the future. To do this, you just need to keep practicing the language. In any case, your speech, sometimes incorrect, will be better than proper silence.
To sum up: how to start speaking English
- If you are just starting to learn a language, then learn from the mistakes of others: immediately, from the first day of learning, develop not only passive skills, but also active ones.
- For speech practice, use not only obvious means - special sites for communicating with foreigners, language courses, etc. - but also independent exercises.
- First of all, set yourself the goal of pumping, activating the existing vocabulary.
- Also work on the language barrier: get used to the sound of your voice in English.
- Do not be afraid of anything. Be ready to be corrected, ask for it yourself and rejoice in the opportunity to correct your small mistakes.
Are you already on Lingualeo?
We will finish for today. to pump all other skills: reading, listening, writing. 🙂
In English, there are pairs, triplets, and sometimes entire groups of words that can be combined into one semantic family. They have a similar meaning, but nevertheless have limitations in use. In this article we will talk about verbs, the meaning of which one way or another is “to say, to say”.
There are four English verbs that translate as “to speak, to say”:
He said that he would come back in June. He said he would be back in June.(to say)
Can you tell me what should I do? - Can you tell me what to do?(to tell)
You need to talk. - You should talk.(to talk)
Can you speak louder? - Can you speak louder?(to speak)
These four words are not interchangeable shades of the same Russian "to speak". There are not only differences in meaning, but also grammatical restrictions.
The verb to Say in English
The verb is translated into Russian as to speak, to say, to say aloud, to communicate.
In English, it is associated with the transfer of any information, so often the verb to say can be found in indirect speech:
Oliver says that he likes to dance. - Oliver says he loves to dance.
But indirect speech is by no means a prerequisite for using this verb in an English sentence. We repeat that to say has the meaning say something. We can use it to express our thoughts:
Kate Moss didn't say that at all. - Kate Moss didn't say that at all.
What is Lessy trying to say? What is Lassie trying to say?
Verb to Tell in English
Verb to tell very close in meaning to the previous one. In the dictionary you can find its meaning - to tell, to speak, to tell:
Tell me what do you really think about him. - Tell me what you really think of him.
A distinctive characteristic of this verb in the meaning of “to tell” is the obligatory indication of the person to whom this information is transmitted, that is, “to tell to anyone”:
Phoeby told me that she would not come to the party. - Phoebe told me she wasn't coming to the party.(told me)
I will tell you the details later. - I'll tell you all the details later.(tell you)
English verb to tell often used in orders or urgent requests in the sense of "order to do something, ask to do something." In this case, he requires after himself a semantic verb in the initial form with a particle to:
Tell him to get out of here. - Tell him to get out of here.
I'll tell him to help Johnny. - I'll ask him to help Johnny.
There are some exceptions that free the verb to tell from obligatory complement (say to anyone). They are fixed expressions that need to be remembered. Here are some of them:
tell a lie - lie, tell a lie
tell the truth - tell the truth
tell the time - say what time it is
tell the future - predict the future
The verb to speak in English
Verb to speak can be translated into Russian how to speak, speak. This word implies the physical and mental ability of a person for speech acts:
Mary doesn't speak yet. She's only one. Mary isn't talking yet. She is only one year old.
Speak! It's the only opportunity to change the game. - Speak up! This is the only opportunity to replay everything.
There are a number of circumstances in which the use of this English verb would be preferable, and sometimes mandatory:
- speak a foreign language
- public performance
- when talking to someone about something
In such sentences, only the verb to speak is used:
Does your wife speak French? - Does your wife speak French?
You probably know the noun speech- speech. It is closely related to this very meaning of the English verb “to speak”:
My grandmamma loves to speak in public. - My grandmother loves to speak in front of an audience.
In this case, we are already faced with control prepositions, each of which will give the verb to speak specific shade:
I'll speak to him about his behaviour. - I'll talk to him about his behavior.(speak to... about...)
The facts speak for themselves. - The facts speak for themselves.(speak for)
The verb to Talk in English
This English verb has the meaning of "talk", "talk", "discuss something". This verb has a more informal connotation compared to to speak and is almost synonymous with it. to talk often found in colloquial speech:
Mary doesn't talk yet. She's one year old. = Mary doesn't speak yet. She's only one. Mary isn't talking yet. She is only one year old.
Also verb to talk preferably used in the sense of "to discuss something":
Please, don't talk shop at the party. Let's have some fun. - Please, just don't start talking about work at the party. Let's have fun.
There are a couple of great English verb idioms talk that will be useful to you in communication:
to talk nineteen to the dozen - talk excitedly, non-stop
to talk nonesense - talk nonsense
So, you have learned about the four main ways to “speak” in English. To summarize: speak = talk with a touch of more informality, tell is always used with the one we are talking to, say is the best way to convey your message without “additional requirements”.
We wish you a lot and correctly speak English and always with pleasure!
Victoria Tetkina
Business Coach at Pilgrims (England) Kevin Batchelor reveals the secrets of language learning and effective communication.
“I understand everything in English, but I can’t speak”
This is what I heard most often in Moscow this week. Do you know how we at Pilgrims try to get people to talk? We listen to them. We just sit and wait for them to speak. The quality of our ability to listen as coaches determines the quality of your speaking. What's it like? We did an exercise with the executive director of a Russian news agency. He was among the participants in the training. I said, "Tell me about your career." And everyone began to listen carefully because of his status, position, like, "OK, he's a big boss, I'll listen." After about ten minutes, I began to approach the participants and quietly say: "Stop listening, stop listening." People stopped listening, began to look around, dig into the phone. And what happened? The director said: "That's probably all." He stopped talking. Therefore, the quality of perception affects the quality of speaking. What's the point of speaking good English if you can't deliver it to the listener? That's why we teach communication strategies.
businessEnglish / Englishforbusiness
We don't say "English for business" or "Business English", we don't even believe it exists. It's just a bunch of vocabulary that's a little different from what you might have learned in school about your hobbies and pets. People get the specialized language they need, but the end goal is to be able to use it to get results.
Imagine someone with A2 English level
When I teach a course, it's like talking to a 3 year old. In Russian, you adapt your language when communicating with children. You don't say to a 3-4 year old child: "So, it's very important to watch how you position yourself" and so on. You just talk differently with a child, so I have to talk differently with people, because my goal is for them to understand what I'm talking about. I am a walking talking grammar guide.
I speak english, french, italian, spanish. I'm going to learn German. My strategy:
I'm taking a German tutorial. What I don't like is starting to learn a language with a teacher. I'm learning how the language works, not the language itself. In my mind, I draw a map that looks like a subway line diagram and see how it functions. Once I've made a map, I can fill it in with language, where stations are usually marked on the map. After I've started filling out the card myself, I can go to someone and say, "OK, I want to talk to you and say what I can say in German." That's how I do it. We had one student from Russia at Pilgrims for three weeks, her name is Olga. She said: “I'm learning German, but I can't speak it. My teacher communicates with me, I understand everything, but I can’t answer.” I said, “That's because you don't have a map in your head of what the German language looks like. You are trying to convey one or two words out of context. Get rid of the teacher and learn the language yourself. When you have a really clear map in your mind, an idea of how it works, go back to the teacher and he will give you more valuable information.
There is such a guy
His name is Luca and he is Italian. Go to the Internet and search for "Luca polyglot". The result will be a 6 minute video where he starts speaking English, then moves to Italian, then French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, Russian. In 6 minutes he speaks 8 languages. I showed this video to our student, among them were a Frenchman and a German. The Frenchman said, "He speaks like a Frenchman," the German said, "Yes, but he speaks like a German." He speaks English like an American. When he speaks in Russian, the Russians say: "It's pure Russian." When I studied languages, I found that you must have a map in your mind.
Pilgrimsis a coaching center for achieving high results
People who come there want to show high results in their work, solve problems, communicate, speak, be effective, achieve goals. Teaching is when we just give information, coaching is when we allow people to take information, process it, and then “pull” it back. We prefer to say "center" instead of "school" because...well, how many business people in their 40s are willing to go to school?! They are more willing to go to the center. This is how we describe Pilgrims.
There are 3 trainers for every 10 people
We have very serious business coaches at Pilgrims: one girl is the owner of a chain of restaurants, there is a financier, two coaches with a pedagogical education. Two of our teachers are bilingual: one speaks English and French, the other speaks English and Turkish. This helps the participants understand that English can be as good as one's native language.
Pilgrims is located in the center of Canterbury
Very nice building, home stop. All classes are equipped with projectors, computers and WiFi. There is a large room with sofas, a coffee machine, very comfortable. It's not a modern building, but you know what? - It's like home. Lunch is included in the course price. There are four restaurants - English, Italian, Mexican and Moroccan. On Fridays we have picnics with wine and baguettes. We try to go out into nature when the weather allows. The whole Pilgrims team - members, staff, teachers... To end the day on a high note. Friday is always fun, games. On weekends, members can do whatever they want. They can go to London, it's only an hour by train from us.
