Guests podcast "42" respond to questions from the audience about learning English

IN 46th edition of the podcast "42" we talked about the self-study of the English language. In our virtual studio was attended by the main expert on the strategic development of the company "SKB Kontur" Peter Didenko, editor "PC World" and former member of the popular IT-podcast "Radio T" Olga Akukina aka Olyapka and creator LinguaLeo web service Aynur Abdulnasyrov.

Shortly before the release of the podcast we suggested to the audience to ask questions to our guests. We thank you for your interesting questions that have made the issue more meaningful. Unfortunately, not all questions were asked in a podcast for a limited time, so we decided to put them in a separate post and ask Ainura Abdulnasyrova and Olga Akukinu to give their answers. I will allow myself also to make some additions to the answers of our guests.

Antony Kitoff:
In your opinion, what "version" of the English should learn: British or American? And again, it is very difficult (at least to me) to construct sentences. What can you advise? :)

Olga:
In my personal view, the US preferred. Almost all popular culture - in the United States: movies, series, interviews with the stars, etc. (If you want to watch all of it). In general, because English is used everywhere - not only in England and America, but also in Australia, Canada, etc. It is hardly necessary to emphasize only one accent. I do not see here is that some language schools offer individual courses of the British and American and do not ask this question. In general, you teach English, and then I'll be able to talk with the British and the Americans!
About the construction of the proposals - here it is necessary to understand what your problem is. If the grammar - rules of construction - then buy a textbook on grammar or read the rules on a variety of sites in the network, remember. If just the lack of practice - I can only advise to write more, speak, and listen to and read. With the experience of all comes, and with no experience in any way.

Pavel:
I believe that it is necessary to teach American English, that he will hold the first place in the classroom. But at the same need to get acquainted with the basic differences between the UK from the US.

Alex Lazarev:
Hello! Tell me please, is it possible to learn a language on their own without leaving the Russian Federation? How effective learning through self-help and services such as LinguaLeo or Langled, for example? Many thanks!

Aynur:
Learn the language on their own without leaving the Russian Federation, it is very real. Moreover, the language still need to learn on their own, even when abroad. Language environment only helps in this process. Create for yourself the language environment is easy: listen to audio books, watch movies, read, use LinguaLeo, for example! Your task - to select (or create for themselves) study of the system and follow it. For example, listen to audio books every day with text and read aloud on the same page. If you want - you can learn grammar by Murphy, for example, on a unit per day.

Pavel:
You can learn the language and do not leave the borders of Russia, but still communicate with native speakers, complete immersion gives much faster results. This is very effective - to learn the language in the context of everyday life. So ideally you need to master the language of the homeland to achieve a certain level, and then to live abroad.

Jura Suholotyuk:
FROM learning words it's pretty simple, but what about the grammar? How to learn the grammar of their own?

Olga:
Find a textbook, for example, highly praised English Grammar in Use Raymond Murphy. I saw the pdf scans of the network. Sit, read, do exercises (on the network can find a lot of grammar tests). And in general is full of websites devoted to the rules of grammar.

Pavel:
I add that to memorize the rules of the language you can use different ways to work with information. For example, I and the improvement of language skills and the study of other subjects are always very helpful Mind Mappingdesigned Tony Buzan (Read his book if you have not read), and to quickly and in a structured way to store information. You can also draw different schemes based on reading material, something to outline clearly highlighting the important points, writing for himself cribs - not for use in exams, but simply to yourself :)
Textbook Murphy is good for people with language skills is below average (but not quite so zero). If you know the language better, Murphy will be too easy for you, and you should choose a more complex books.

Oleg Demkiv:
How to learn how to read words in English? Once I taught German, and now some English words are read in German, to look into the Dictionary every time, as it should be played in English, bored, and lazy, to the same transcription anyway I forget.

Aynur:
Correctly read words in English will listen to the audio and video materials with parallel text. If you listen to-read 5-6 pages a day, you have greatly improved pronunciation.

Pavel:
And more and more diligently to imitate the native speaker! Watch videos, follow the movements of the lips, to listen to the pronunciation and repeat as closely as possible to what they see and hear. This, of course, a great work, so that with laziness need to fight us;)

Pavel Kushnarev:
How to make yourself sit down and study?

Olga:
I think everything should start with motivation. If you need to speak English, and you understand why and what should be, problems should arise - will sit down and deal with on a daily basis. Otherwise, you do understand - the movement forward is not.
If still a problem, so I do not know, promise to buy something good, if you devote language learning at least one hour a day :)

Pavel:
Learn the language not just as uvyazhite these lessons with life goals - get a better job, to travel a lot, to have access to vast amounts of most interesting English-language content that will never be translated into Russian, etc. Get to know other people, to learn the language and dividing the progress of their activities in blogs, read foreign resources. All this will help to feel the incentive to learn the language.

Pycu4:
How long I will have to learn English to read books?

Aynur:
If you start from scratch and use something like LinguaLeo, it may take 2-3 months, at least (this is the method Zamyatkina).

Pavel:
2-3 months, in fact, you can start to read books, but still not very sophisticated. To overpower any book, you need a deeper knowledge of the language. Well, to freely read fiction in the original, will have to work even more. How long acquired a level of knowledge of the language - it depends on the intensity of training and reasonableness, but it is certainly more than one year.

funny_psyhopath:
Hello, two months ago, I started attending English language courses "from scratch" and parallel to educate ourselves. I've heard that it is useful to watch movies in English. I try - do not know anything about, and Russian subtitles pulls the attention on himself. What to do - to overpower yourself or wait until know a little more than words?

Olga:
I also initially watched movies and TV shows with Russian subtitles. I can say that in this sense is not enough. The fact that you hear one thing, but quite another to read. As a result, the head turns the confusion, and the English language, you really do not understand at all.
I have for a long time tormented with Russian subtitles, but one could not understand the phrase (loose translation) and including English. And at that moment I realized how much easier to see and read precisely those phrases that the characters utter! More to the Russian did not look.
Of course, I had a good level of English at the time. If you have just started learning, I am afraid it will be difficult to watch with English subtitles. We will always have to stop and look in vocabularyIn my head will be confusion and so on.
Personally, I am a 40-minute series favorite series looked at first for 3-4 hours with constant stops (tired scary). Now this time was reduced to approximately 1-1.5 hours :)
In general, you can try if it will be very difficult, wait until your level will not rise. Although periodic training itself can hold.

Pavel:
And you can still do so: see a short scene of the film or TV series with the translation, and then unplug the translation and re-watch the scene - with or without subtitles. Or vice versa - first look without translation, then the translation.
As Olga said, it is better to watch it with English subtitles, and not Russian. If you are unfamiliar words, stop playback, slide - it is work, but it will pay off!