More than 1.5 billion of the world's population speak English today. About 1 billion people master it. There are many reasons, some will be discussed later. More questions give rise to another point: how to learn a language if the memory is not the same and time is always running out?
Conversational English for beginners
This material will help identify the key difficulties in learning English that every adult faces. In addition, practical recommendations will be given based on the experienced hundreds of successfully mastered people.
It is well known that without motivation a person will not do anything. This must be taken as a fact. If at the moment and in the future absolutely no paths are planned that can intersect with the English-speaking world, then it will be difficult to force oneself to learn aimlessly. True, there is another point - curiosity. To warm it up and bring it to the level of motivation, you should consider several potential prospects that the English language opens up.
What are the prospects for knowledge of English?
If the number of students approaches a billion people, it is fair to believe that knowledge of English provides certain advantages. What are they like? Here are the main ones:
- The simplicity of the language, which can be seen in the learning process. There is a widespread belief that in English there are as many as 16 kinds of times, while in Russian there are only three. In fact, there are much more species of times in Russian too. But no one talks about them, since the native language and its principles are intuitively understandable. If a person needs only spoken English, which allows you to build the simplest dialogs, then delving into the jungle of grammar is not particularly necessary. You can limit yourself to three main types of time.
- Increasing labor market value. Why do some countries learn the language of another country? Because economic processes are constantly going on between countries: companies and states cooperate with each other, if there are no resources in one country, then it purchases them from another, if somewhere there are few jobs or low salaries, then people move to other countries . From this point of view, Canada, Australia, England and the United States remain leaders where people migrate in search of a better career and life. A high level of wages allows you to realize your ambitions with economic benefits.
- Travels. For tourists, no country puts forward special requirements regarding the language. But it’s much more interesting to delve into the identity of a foreign culture, communicate with local residents and get to know the country from the inside.
- Access to the entire internet. Not everyone knows that about 50% of the Internet is occupied by English-speaking resources, while the Russian language accounts for only about 7%.
- Get to know everything first. Most of the new discoveries and technologies come true in English-speaking countries. For example, in the field of programming. According to various opinions, until someone translates a new theory into Russian and publishes, it takes from 5 to 20 years. Anyone who knows the language can learn about them almost immediately upon publication.
- Objective information. Anyone who knows even spoken English can read a short text from the media and understand the essence of events. A trifle, but the horizons will be wider by an order of magnitude.
Where to begin?
Spoken English for beginners is learned from simple words and phrases. Everyone has a certain baggage of knowledge from the school bench. If not, then start by learning the alphabet. However, just learning the letter order is not enough. Each English letter has a transcription - the order of sound. A transcription is usually written next to the letters in any textbook. In the process of studying it will become clear how much the sound differs from the written version.
Along with learning the alphabet, you should start reading simple words. As a rule, in English there are few long words. At the first stage, nouns and simple verbs are studied. Further, with their help, you can begin to compose whole sentences. To this end, conversational English lessons or textbooks will help.
When learning a language, it is important to remember that it is not enough to be able to speak yourself. You must also be able to understand the interlocutor. The complexity of understanding can be appreciated if you watch a regular video - not for language learners, but live speech. For these reasons, conversational English lessons are not limited to exercises and grammar studies. Listening, watching videos with subtitles and retelling are equally important components. Such skills will help to better understand speech and pronounce phrases correctly.
What is important for verbal understanding?
If the classes are held with the teacher, then the student’s speech develops with an orientation to his pronunciation. With independent study, this part will have to be studied independently. And here is what you should pay attention to:
- Accentuation Proper stress allows you to grasp the meaning of speech even in the presence of unfamiliar words in the sentence. Everything is complicated by the fact that some letters in English “fall out” of the word - they are either not pronounced or are pronounced in a very modified form. For example, the word phOtograhp and photOgrapher.
- Similarly, there are phrasal accents. If a sentence is pronounced, then every word in it is not pronounced in even tone: The night was cold. The stress falls on night and cold.
- Some conversational English courses focus on listening. But there is an important amendment. You should listen to two types of texts: the first type is intended for students, the second type is ordinary video and audio materials in English, intended for carriers and confident speakers. The first type should be listened thoughtfully and repeated after it. In the second case, there is no need to strain your hearing, trying to listen to every word. This is useless until the practice of spoken English reaches an average level. But the benefit is that at the moment of listening, subconscious assimilation takes place.
Every person has that ability. This is manifested when the child is just learning to speak: he does not attend spoken English or mother tongue courses. Mastering takes place on a subconscious level. If once we succeeded, then the second time will succeed.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary in any language is divided into two types: active and passive. Active vocabulary is a list of the most frequently used words. Passive stock is not often used words, but their meaning is known and can be applied in stylistically appropriate texts.
Spoken phrases in English follow a similar procedure. There are simple phrases, the meaning of which is clear to beginners, and there are idioms - separate phrases from different words, which in the end give a completely different meaning. For example: Not for all the tea in China. It would seem that we are talking about the total volume of tea in China. In fact, this idiom is pronounced “for nothing.” Or an analogue in Russian: for no haircuts.
Spoken English should be replenished every day with new words. There are different opinions regarding the number of words. Someone believes that it is enough to know about 300 verbs and this will be enough for simple communication. It all depends on the ultimate goals of the student. But for work in an international company or for reading modern media this will not be enough.
Those who master languages well and constantly strive to run ahead will have to face certain incomprehensible moments. You should be aware of another feature of the English language: there are about five thousand phrasal verbs in it. That is, it is a set of simple verbs that individually carry one meaning, and next to other words - completely different. The principle is similar to idioms, but differ in that they are much more common. For example: knock down - knock and down, but together means "destruction".
Phrasal verbs form a separate section of the grammar, the study of which follows after the situation with simple words is clarified.
Do I need a language environment?
Does spoken English require a language environment? Having an environment is a great opportunity to practice. Absence is not an obstacle if there is a specific goal and motivation.
Creating a language environment is not difficult. At its core, the language environment means the number of words heard and spoken. Continuous listening to English radio, music and songs, watching English-language channels and daily reading can fully replace the language environment. Spoken English for beginners should be mastered with maximum immersion.
How to make a proposal?
The subtleties of grammar and complex speech turns should be studied with the presence of some vocabulary and skills in compiling sentences. Learning spoken English begins with mastering the word order in sentences. If in Russian it is permissible to change the order of words in a sentence, then in English this is considered a gross mistake.
According to the rules for making sentences, there is a whole section of grammar that cannot be mastered if grammatical terminology has long fallen from school. Therefore, a simple guideline is used: a sentence should be drawn up in Russian, and in the English version, swap the words in the opposite direction. However, this rule does not work for all phrases and sentences. In understanding the principles of construction, speech will help a self-taught spoken English.
Time
For an elementary level of communication, you should study three types of English tenses: Past - past, Future - future and Present - present. Each of them is divided into other types. But this is for an advanced level.
To account for an event that occurred in the past, you should know:
- verb;
- noun;
- ending for the verb –ed;
- types of irregular verbs.
Irregular verbs obey their individual rules. Divided into the 1st, 2nd and 3rd group. There is no single principle for their formation, but most commonly used verbs are irregular. Therefore, the study of spoken English, where there are irregular verbs, is possible only through memorization.
Example: She answered me.
If you need to report what will happen in the future, you will need to master the will construct. Will applies to both singular and plural nouns. He is also united by his faces: he is used as the first (I, We), the second person (He, She), the third (They) including non-inspired objects - it.
Example: You will try it.
Spoken phrases in English also include a story about events that occur in the present. In this regard, it should be understood that the endings –s or –es are added to the noun or pronoun of a third person. And for I, We, You, They use a simple form of the verb.
Example: They love her. It rains all day.
How to learn new words?
The difficulty of remembering new words exists only at the initial stage. Daily reading and fattening of vocabulary helps maintain motivation. There are many resources and ready-made software applications where it is possible to train your hearing, grammar, the ability to correctly make sentences and the correct spelling.
When an adult learns English, colloquial phrases for communication should be repeated many times until the pronunciation reaches automatism. The secret to perfect language proficiency is that one thinks in that language. In this regard, there is a need to start thinking in English. This will help the association. For example, when studying the word deprivation or avoid, you should mentally “bind” these words to specific images.
Similar rules apply to grammar. It is possible that memorizing sentences that are not related to the student’s reality create difficulties and reduce motivation. Practical recommendation: before starting to study a specific topic, you should make a short story in your own language and open a dictionary. After the topic from the grammar is studied, all unfamiliar words should be translated and only the learned grammar rules should be applied to the translation. This speeds up the process of thinking in another language.
From simple to complex
It is impossible to learn one language in a short time. Training should be gradual, but regular. You should really evaluate your knowledge and not get ahead of yourself. It is advisable to go through the entire beginner stage with resources that host light texts with a dictionary. If you make an example algorithm, then it may look like this:
- The study of the indefinite and definite articles.
- Rules for to be and to have.
- Negative offer forms.
- Video with subtitles.
- Memorizing poems.
- Short stories about yourself.
Training will be more effective if there is an ally - another potential polyglot. When a person learns spoken English, phrases and dialogs can greatly facilitate the understanding of voluminous texts.
How to consolidate knowledge?
The theoretical part is forgotten if there is no practice. Thanks to information technology, maintaining a language level is now very easy. One example is social networks. The circle of friends should be expanded towards other contingents. Communicating with them, reading their posts allows you to better understand the practical application of individual parts of the grammar.
In addition, there are many resources with various tests. Spoken English from scratch is well mastered when each lesson is regularly reinforced by passing tests for grammar, the level of vocabulary and the ability to understand aloud. Practice within 1-2 months in this order will add confidence in their knowledge and open the way to more advanced tasks.