# How quick are you in learning new words?



## Etcetera

Hi all. 
Of course, I remember that all people are different, and while one can learn new words and expressions very quickly, the other may need some time to memorise them. But I've noticed that I memorise new words in English and Polish much quicker than in Finnish and Piedmontese. It may be explained rather easily: I've been learning English for more than ten years, and Polish is pretty close to my native Russian, while Finnish and Piedmontese are more difficult for me in every aspect. But I still wonder if any of you has ever experienced the same problem. Do you memorise new words in different languages with equal speed, or are some languages more 'friendly' to you than others?


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## Life

HI 
I've been learning English for 30 years now, so some years ago I decided to have a go at German, as I had been told that it would be soooooooo easy for me because I already spoke English. But in fact I was a failure! I couldn't (and I can't) remember anything! Of course I'm not going to generalize from my experience. In fact I'm really sorry about my own situation and it won't be long till I try again!


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## pedro0001

For me is much easier to memorize words which are similar to the corresponding words in spanish. There are even sometime rules of how the words changes, for example,

Spanish: Animación
English: Animation
German: Animation

The ending "ción" is tipically change with "tion".

Other example:

Spanish: concentrar
English: concentrate
German: konzentrieren

The ending "trar" is much verbs replaced with "trate" in english and "trieren" in german.

But remembering a word like "Schwäbisch" at once requires a good knowledge  of the language  and how words are tipically constructed. In spanish so many consonant together is not common case.


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## Whodunit

I can remember new English and French very quickly, because I'm kind of familiar with the languages and know how they work. To remember words in English may also be so easy for be, because it's close to German. The memorization of words in Spanish is harder for me, because I don't use it actively, only passively to understand what the Spaniards have to tell me. 

Besides, it's a real pain to learn Arabic, Japanese, and Gujarati words, because they use a different alphabet from the one I've grown up with. Czech and Latin is another story: I don't like studying Czech words and knowing them by rote, because it is a completely different language, and hard to guess the meaning of most words or to compare it to other languages I'm already more familiar with. Latin is hard to understand, because almost every word has two totally different meanings; a plural noun in the nominative can also be a verb in the perfect infinitive.


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## englishman

Etcetera said:


> Hi all.
> Do you memorise new words in different languages with equal speed, or are some languages more 'friendly' to you than others?



I'm not sure the difficulty is associated with the language, or the class of words. In French, I generally have no problem remembering any word, as long as I've used it a few times (and of course, many words are so similar that they barely need memorising); in German, it's largely the same, but there are many, many compound verbs that I find almost impossible to recall: e.g. angehen, zugehen, vergehen, eingehen, ...

I found that I reached a plateau of comprehension in German, limited by the compound verbs, that I was unable to exceed and my interest in the language began to wane somewhat at that point. Many years ago, as a teenager, I tried to learn Ancient Greek, and I found a similar problem but with the various tenses; somehow they just wouldn't stick, but it wasn't specifically related to greek (I could remember the nouns OK) but to that particular aspect of the language.


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

Of course, it's easier to learn new vocabulary in languages related to your own, partly because there are more similar words, partly because the rules regarding word formation are not that different from your native language.

Setting that aside, I find that the amount of intimate familiarity I have with the structure, and particularly the phonetic structure of the language, has a lot to do with how well I retain the vocabulary. By "intimate familiarity" I mean when you have reached the point where your pronunciation is near native without any undue effort on your part.  I realize that this is not a major consideration for a lot of people, but it definitely is for me.

Aside from that, I can always use word association when I want to learn a lot of vocabulary fast, although it's no replacement for the first method, in the long run.


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## Etcetera

Whodunit said:


> The memorization of words in Spanish is harder for me, because I don't use it actively, only passively to understand what the Spaniards have to tell me.


Yes, it's much easier to memorise a word if you have to use it. After reading the word several times in different context, you usually don't have to make a special effort to remember its meaning. 



> Aside from that, I can always use word association when I want to learn a lot of vocabulary fast, although it's no replacement for the first method, in the long run.


Can you tell a bit more about how you use word association? I've heard about this method several times, but I've never tried to use it myself. Maybe because I study languages which are quite unlike each other, and for a native of Russian using word association to memorise Polish words can be really confusing.


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## Hakro

Etcetera said:


> Yes, it's much easier to memorise a word if you have to use it.


Some thirty years ago, in Paris, I was reading a newspaper and I had to look in the dictionary the meaning of the word "obèse". The very same day, later in the evening, I had an opportunity to use this word. After that I have never needed the word but I still remember it. Many words that are more useful for me I forget again and again.


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## Brno79

This is really interesting. I sort of agree with everything! I definitely find it easier to remember new words in languages that I started to learn as a child. Languages I've learnt later in life seem to stick more slowly.


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## Thomas1

Five or six years ago when I started to (really) learn English I found its vocabulary very _exoctic_ now when I got some fluency in it it helps me with my French, although, I still come across lots of words I don't understand (while reading a book, for instance). Learning Russian is either quite easy or conversly pretty hard for me. I think it is due to the fact that the two languages have a lot in common but there are many discrepancies too; very often I associate some words or constructions with the ones in my mother tongue and this frequently proves wrong. When I came to English speaking countries I could revise my vocabulary and develop it much faster than when I learned English in Poland. Similarly, when I went to France I could polish up my small scope of words, and this let me gain some fluency even with limited stock of words.

Some time ago I tried to learn some basic phrases in Chinese and this experience is totally different from each and every one I had with any language. Everything is so far different from languages that I learned that I simply need to learn it by rot. No way I could associate anything, that's impossible!

So I guess the Indo-European languages are more friendly to me than Sino-Tibetan.  My theory would be, as some forer@s already mentioned, that the more related languages with your mother toungue you learn (or a language that you've been learning since your childhood) the more easy they are for you to study.

Tom


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## Layzie

I can learn lists of 30-50 words at a time. I'm not kidding either. Recently, about 1 month or so ago I discovered the wonderful, wonderful world of mnemonics. It takes longer to read a list once, but thats as many times as you'll need to, you pretty much imprint most words into your brain. It takes a lot of effort at first because the techniques sound silly, especially if you're not an imaginative/creative person! If you havent heard of mnemonics being used in that way before, I try to explain it on this page in my website: http://www.usefulthought.net/Mnemonics.html


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## Easychan

I am a senior school student. The foreign language we learn is English. I also want to learn German and French.But both of them are not very popular in China.So I don't know how to learn them by myself. By the way,do any one of you know Chinese?


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## Easychan

Hakro said:


> Some thirty years ago, in Paris, I was reading a newspaper and I had to look in the dictionary the meaning of the word "obèse". The very same day, later in the evening, I had an opportunity to use this word. After that I have never needed the word but I still remember it. Many words that are more useful for me I forget again and again.


 
I really agree with you.Because I have the same experience. Generally,I don't spend a lot of time memorizing the new words.  I only can remember the words that impress me deeply. And I still can't remember the words that I have never met .


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## Etcetera

Thomas1 said:


> Learning Russian is either quite easy or conversly pretty hard for me. I think it is due to the fact that the two languages have a lot in common but there are many discrepancies too; very often I associate some words or constructions with the ones in my mother tongue and this frequently proves wrong.


The same happens with me when I'm trying to learn Polish words and expressiona.  
I've read recently an article in a newspaper which said that one can learn a language more quickly if one is doing this for some purpose. For example, if you have to pass an exam in the language you're learning, you learn it really quickly, but if you're studying a language just for your pleasure, it takes much more time. I don't know if this statement can be applied to every learner of languages, but it's just the case with me!


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

Etcetera:

In answer to your question about word association, the way I do it is to keep repeating a word in the foreign language until I think of an image - any image - to associate it with, either based on the sound or the spelling (that is, if it uses an alphabet I already know well).  Usually I end up associating it with a word I know in another language.  The more absurd and unlikely the association is, the more likely it is that I'll remember the word.  For example, the word _mbuzi _is Swahili for "goat."  Forming the image of a goat drinking booze made sure that I remembered the word for twenty-five years now, even though I haven't had to use Swahili for a long time.


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## Etcetera

Thank you, Thomas! I'll try to use this method.


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## Frank06

Hi,

As pointed out by others, it depends a bit on the language. My native tongue is Dutch, so a lot of words from other Germanic and Romance languages don't pose a lot of problems, apart from the 'false friends' etc.
Now, remembering a word and using it correctly is another issue, especially with an inflectional language as German .

For other languages... It always implies lots of studying, but I try to make things easier by looking for a _context_. I also try to use a lot of stock phrases, and change them by to inserting new words (nouns, verbs, etc.). I try to use pictures to find some extra aid for my aging memory to _keep_ them there.


Groetjes,

Frank


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## cucu

I have been learning English for 9 years and I am used to using it. And also I'll be an English teacher if I graduate from university. It is a lovely hobby for me. But although it has a lot similarities to English, German is a nightmare for me because of articles. I speak with my friends German sometimes and it really works. I try to write easy paragraphs, and study on the internet or wtih CD's... I'll defeat this nightmare...


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## spakh

I've been learning English for about 9 years (with cucu)and German for nearly 4 years. German is really similar to English but as for articals, it is really a thorn in my side.
I'm also interested in Spanish and I think it has a good deal of vocabularial similarities. Maybe I like it for these similarities.


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## Etcetera

cucu said:


> I have been learning English for 9 years and I am used to using it. And also I'll be an English teacher if I graduate from university.


We're colleagues, then! Nice to meet you. 



> It is a lovely hobby for me. But although it has a lot similarities to English, German is a nightmare for me because of articles. I speak with my friends German sometimes and it really works. I try to write easy paragraphs, and study on the internet or wtih CD's... I'll defeat this nightmare...


Writing in a foreign language really helps. My English has definitely improved since I started to write in it.


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## ireney

Depends really. I remember all the (very few) words I've learnt in Norwegian although I don't speak the language. I even pronounce them properly it seems. Can't seem to remember many words in French, doing fine in Italian and I can forget the simplest term in either English or Greek 

(we're talking about me jumping up and down in a frantic and frustrated way and screaming to my mom to go pick up the "_ring ring_" all the while making desperate gestures of picking up the handset of a telephone because I just couldn't remember the word; Of telling to my boyfriend that in the middle ages people had to build their villages up on the hills because of  "the people who had ships and looted and killed and abducted and their appelation started with a P")


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## Etcetera

Oh, how familiar to me!  I, too, can forget the easiest word in Russian or English. I still remember an awful moment when I couldn't remember the word 'match' in my own lesson. 
I also can forget some word in Russian and so use its English equivalent. If I'm speaking to my friends, it's quite OK, but in my family, I'm still the only speaker of English.


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## duckie

When I've been speaking exclusively English for a period of time (say, a month) common phrases in Danish seem to escape me altogether and it takes a little while to regain my feel for the language..

As for the original question, it depends whether I can find an association.. when I can't it can take a while. Generally I find it so much easier to remember words than to remember grammatical rules and applying them, though. Learning new words is a lot of fun, like making new acquaintances


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## Thomas1

Etcetera said:


> Oh, how familiar to me!  I, too, can forget the easiest word in Russian or English. I still remember an awful moment when I couldn't remember the word 'match' in my own lesson.
> I also can forget some word in Russian and so use its English equivalent. If I'm speaking to my friends, it's quite OK, but in my family, I'm still the only speaker of English.


Same here, this is sometimes so embarassing, especially, when I try to explain someone what an English word means and can't find an appropriate word in my mother tongue or all the way round (in spite of knowing it; usually I remember it after a moment ).



I was wondering what you do when you read a book in a foregin language and there are quite a lot of words you don't understand. What are your techniques of remembering those words. What do you do to remember them? Do you always translate all of them or maybe just these that you need to understand the plot?


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## duckie

I usually look words up I don't understand. If you're reading a new book and you find a slew of new words you're not familiar with (and you keep forgetting them), try to make a little vocabulary with all these new words on a piece of paper or something. Chances are that the book is going to be using these same words throughout and so you can easily look them up, and after a while you'll be very familiar with them and don't need the vocabulary anymore


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## Etcetera

Thomas1 said:


> I was wondering what you do when you read a book in a foregin language and there are quite a lot of words you don't understand. What are your techniques of remembering those words. What do you do to remember them? Do you always translate all of them or maybe just these that you need to understand the plot?


When I read those books at home, sitting comfortably in a chair with my dictionaries at hand, I usually look up for words meanings of which I can't understand from the context. But if I'm reading, say, in a bus or suburban train, than I simply have to skip such words and hope to look up for them later. 
I almost never do any special effort to remember these new words. My memory is good enough, at least for English words.


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## übermönch

Don't know if it has been mentioned, but the best way to learn new words is just to search for synonyms which would be useful for most languages. For instance, it is much easier to learn euphoric or eudaemonic, instead of happy, gelukkig, heureux, fröhlich and helluvalot of other words in other languages. As a side effect you'll be more exact and also allways'll be looked upon as refined and educated, no matter which language you speak!


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## duckie

Using synonyms indiscriminately across languages like that does not exactly increase precision, rather confusion


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## übermönch

duckie said:


> Using synonyms indiscriminately across languages like that does not exactly increase precision, rather confusion


Ed animo the irregularities are ignorable if you favour the correct expression! Anyway the tendency would be permanently proclivitily circa to the correct zone!


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## duckie

Lol, nice way to show my point


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## Alxmrphi

I used to be quick, but I don't know what has happened, I have hit a brick wall, I am not able to take in even 10% of the words I used to memorise, I don't remember doing anything differently, but my brain might be full!

I have had this problem for about a month, I need to create a new way to help me learn words.


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## Thomas1

Etcetera said:


> When I read those books at home, sitting comfortably in a chair with my dictionaries at hand, I usually look up for words meanings of which I can't understand from the context. But if I'm reading, say, in a bus or suburban train, than I simply have to skip such words and hope to look up for them later.
> I almost never do any special effort to remember these new words. My memory is good enough, at least for English words.


Wow, I whish I had such memory. 
I can sometimes tell the word's meaning from the context but if someone, say, asked me about its meaning just giving me the word after a few days I'd not be able to tell them the meaning (provided I only saw the word in the book I read). I have problems with specialistic terms, and phrasal verbs as well as idioms are sometimes a pain too.

Do you only look for the meaning of the words or you also try to translate them into your mother tongue?




Alex_Murphy said:


> I used to be quick, but I don't know what has happened, I have hit a brick wall, I am not able to take in even 10% of the words I used to memorise, I don't remember doing anything differently, but my brain might be full!
> 
> I have had this problem for about a month, I need to create a new way to help me learn words.


Could you please say something more about this? What is your regular way of memorizing words? How many languages do you learn? how frequent do you learn them? What is your age (approximately )?

Tom


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## ellas!

I remember words in Spanish a tiny bit better than French vocab but that's probably because I love Spanish more


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## Alxmrphi

Tom said:
			
		

> Could you please say something more about this? What is your regular way of memorizing words? How many languages do you learn? how frequent do you learn them? What is your age (approximately )?



Hi Tom, I am 19, I am actively learning Italian and passively learning Spanish (90% focus on Italian, 10% I just look and am aware of in Spanish)
I used to have a list and write them down and cover up the English and test myself, but I have been advised that that is bad, I am in a bit of a crisis about a new system now.

For every word I learn, I write a sentence on a piece of paper and learn it within that sentence, and for example I am reading Biancaneve (Snow White) and I am going to learn all of the words in that book so pretty soon, I can turn my PC off and put my dictionary away and read it, and read it maybe once a week (it's VERY short) but a lot of words to learn.

Then I will try another fairy tale and work my way up to news reports after a while.

Hope it helps

- Alex.


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## jess oh seven

i find it much easier to memorise foreign words when i'm surrounded by the language, ie in a country where it's spoken and i'm exposed to the word quite often or enough to keep it in my mental dictionary.


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## Alxmrphi

Well that's normal anyway isn't it?


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## Etcetera

Thomas1 said:


> Do you only look for the meaning of the words or you also try to translate them into your mother tongue?


If I'm reading a book for my own pleasure, I look for the meaning of the word, and I usually use Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. If I can't undestand the meaning of the word from the explanation in this dictionary (it happened to me twice or thrice), then I take my English-Russian dictionary. 
But if I'm translating the text or am preparing for an exam, then I look for the meaning of the word *and *try to translate it.


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## Lucretia

Hello,
A tip for Russian speakers: there's a book that helps one remember English words using the association method. For example, *to peek *sounds like the Russian word шпик [shpik]=a spy. the book procceeds to give a sentence in Russian (it's my translation) : _The shpik peeked from round the corner._
Some associations are helpful, some are too far-fetched.
Just in case, the book is И.Ю. Матюгин Секреты запоминания английских словб 1999.


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## jess oh seven

Alex_Murphy said:


> Well that's normal anyway isn't it?


well, yes....
you can't just sit down with a list of vocabulary and expect to memorise it perfectly without having an outside reference for it or using it purposefully.


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## Alxmrphi

> well, yes....
> you can't just sit down with a list of vocabulary and expect to memorise it perfectly without having an outside reference for it or using it purposefully.



Yeah that makes sense, (so glad you spelt it memori*s*ing!)


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## ellas!

jess oh seven said:


> well, yes....
> you can't just sit down with a list of vocabulary and expect to memorise it perfectly without having an outside reference for it or using it purposefully.




That's like what they expect us to do at school though.


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## Alxmrphi

I think with language learning, it's up the the student to find his/her own way to take in all the information, in a class, that's nobody's way, it just has to be like that.


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## duckie

Memorise words from a list? No thanks..


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## Etcetera

Why not, I sometimes do this - when I feel that I can't memorise the words in my "usual" way. 
But it is never just a list of random words, it's always a list of new words from some text, so I can remember their use.


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## duckie

I understand, I just find it an unpleasant way of learning and therefore not very productive.. I prefer to refer to a list of commonly used words in the text I'm reading, after a while I tend to become familiar with the words and no longer need the list


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## Etcetera

I totally agree with you! And I use the same method. 
But sometimes I just have to memorise a list of words for a test, for example...


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## duckie

Yikes, I'm glad I'm not being tested in Italian!

You said you're studying to be a language teacher, right? How much weight is put on teaching you future teachers correct pronounciation?


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## Thomas1

Etcetera said:


> I totally agree with you! And I use the same method.
> But sometimes I just have to memorise a list of words for a test, for example...


And, I thought it was only the case with my country. So glad it's not just me.  We had to do that to when I studied English at college. Sometimes I had to learn 100 words (no context whatsoever) for a test and I remembered most of them before it but after I was tested I usually forgot many of them--which was something I couldn't quite agree with; I put so much effort into studying them. I am more likely to remember words when, as some of you, I see the context. 


duckie said:


> Yikes, I'm glad I'm not being tested in Italian!
> 
> You said you're studying to be a language teacher, right? How much weight is put on teaching you future teachers correct pronounciation?


May I chime in? 
I think there isn't any special weight applied only to students of philological courses who are indending to become teachers. If you study philology (for the first few years) you take the same courses regardless whether you are a teacher, tranlsator or someone else--this is at least the case with English philology in Poland. 
When I was studying English philology we had courses of English phonetics during which we studied English sounds and learned how to correctly pronounce English words. I must admit I liked these classes (even though, the lecturer wasn't too gifted at teaching us ), later on I delved into this branch of grammar to find out the differences in pronuncitaiton of main English variants. It also helped me to see some points in pronunciation when I learned French.

Tom


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## duckie

I was wondering because I was very impressed with my own language teachers in school who had excellent pronounciation, especially in English. China and Japan for instance import native English teachers, apparently because it's too difficult to train their own teachers properly. This does not seem to be the case in European countries, but I wonder how well trained the teachers are in the various countries..


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## Etcetera

duckie said:


> This does not seem to be the case in European countries, but I wonder how well trained the teachers are in the various countries..


I have had a lot of English teachers, and they were trained very differently. Even at the University, where most teachers are its graduates themselves, their level isn't similar. We usually have three or four English teachers each year, each of them has their own course, and only one of them has really good knowledge of English.
Or I suspect sometimes that for some reasons they don't want to reveal all their knowledge to us students!


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## duckie

How about their pronounciation? And how much phonetics are you taught?


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## Etcetera

Our first year was dedicated to mastering the English pronunciation. Mind that English is my major, so students of other faculties may not have so much training. But we're speaking about how teachers are trained, aren't we? 
Our teachers' pronunciation is henerally pretty good, but there are two or three women whose pronunciation is rather bad. Unfortunately for their students.


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## duckie

Do you have tests to pass in terms of pronounciation? It would make a lot of sense since it's rather a bummer to have a language teacher with poor pronounciation (having to unlearn all those mistakes..)


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## Thomas1

Etcetera said:


> I have had a lot of English teachers, and they were trained very differently. Even at the University, where most teachers are its graduates themselves, their level isn't similar. We usually have three or four English teachers each year, each of them has their own course, and only one of them has really good knowledge of English.
> Or I suspect sometimes that for some reasons they don't want to reveal all their knowledge to us students!


I got similar impression, especially with young teachers who had _just_ their Magister degree (roughly, an equivalet of Master's).

I know that some schools in Poland have natives who lecture students at universities/colleges; they run different types of classes.



duckie said:


> Do you have tests to pass in terms of pronounciation? It would make a lot of sense since it's rather a bummer to have a language teacher with poor pronounciation (having to unlearn all those mistakes..)


We had, but we didn't pronounce any words as you could expect. We listened to some words and had to put down their phonetic transcription, read and listened to texts and the same needed to put down the transcription. We also had tests on more theoretical knowledge of English phonetics. And, I, also, remember we were to make some comparisions of pronunciation of words spelt the same in Polish and English. The type of examination was dependant on classes--we had three different types of them. I remember that we had a lot of practical drills on pronunciation, which then seemed to me rather silly (repeating several times _how know brown cow_ and whatnot), but now when I can make some retrospection I find them very helpful. 

Tom


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## duckie

So what kind of dialect are people going for there?

Here it's 'southern educated', more specifically as used around the city of Bath.. it's a little silly, but a least there's some consistency to it


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## Thomas1

duckie said:


> So what kind of dialect are people going for there?
> 
> Here it's 'southern educated', more specifically as used around the city of Bath.. it's a little silly, but a least there's some consistency to it


I think that in my country it is more directed at variant rather than dialect; they taught us British English (spoken in England). However, I don't think it is consistent at all unis. I have a friend who attends college and is lectured by an Irish; she lived for some time in Canada and she tries to stick to what she learnt up there. Anyway, I think that if you are taught by natives of different variants/dialects of English you pick up bits and pieces of everyone what can be later detectable in your pronunciation.

Did study English in England?--that's a very good way to learn language and all its aspects. How about pronunciation drills in your case?

Tom


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## duckie

I didn't study English formally outside high school, I just came to build relations with people from English speaking parts of the world.. in school pronounciation was practiced initially, but after the first few years it wasn't commented on. My pronounciation improved a lot after school. A typical issue with people speaking a foreign language is that they're conscious of constructing sentences and therefore forget to let the language flow on its own. Therefore the rhythm tends to allign itself with that person's native language. Italians speaking English end almost all sounds with a vowel, Germans speak it in the 'hard' German rhythm, and so forth..

It's my impression that the 'southern educated' pronounciation is pretty much standard for English teachers here. English as spoken in England is highly varied, so in reality it's a very narrow phonetic focus. It works well though, because it provides a good level of consistency and it's typically well articulated. If an English teacher spoke cockney or some such I would find it rather unfair to the students 

Since so much of tv and films here are American people tend to adopt a mix between the school-British and American-tv accents


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## Etcetera

duckie said:


> Do you have tests to pass in terms of pronounciation? It would make a lot of sense since it's rather a bummer to have a language teacher with poor pronounciation (having to unlearn all those mistakes..)


We have an exam in the end of our first year, but then we are practically left on our own. It's no good, of course.


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## duckie

Is English mandatory in Russian schools, and if so for how long?


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## Etcetera

In most schools, it is. However, some schools may choose German or French. 
I began to study English at the age of 10. But it was in 1996; since then, times have changed greatly, and now in many schools in major cities kids start to learn English at primary schools. 
But the situation is very different throughout Russia: in the country and remote regions of Russia there simply could be no teacher of English...
As for how long should the kids learn English, it actually depends on the particular school. But they learn English for now less than 6 years.

What about Denmark?


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## duckie

Wow, you start earlier in Russia than I expected. Does this mean I can go to Russian and expect younger people to speak decent English? Do you have any other mandatory languages?

I started when I was 11, but these days I think it's mandatory from 3rd grade (age 9).. a second mandatory language (typically German) begins around 6th grade or so.


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## Etcetera

Yes, you can.  At least if you go to one of the major cities (the two capitals, Novosibirsk, and others). I remember reading a guide to St. Petersburg which advises the tourists, if they need to know, for example, how to get to the nearest metro station, ask a young person: it's more probable that they speak English. 
In the school I attended since 5th grade (that is, since 1996), there was a second mandatory language - German. But after leaving school, I completely gave up my German studies, so now my knowledge of this language is even poorer than my knowledge of Italian, which I started to learn only recently!
In St. Petersburg, many schools have Finnish, Swedish and French as second mandatory languages. French may be first language, however.


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## Lemminkäinen

Trying to find associations (no matter how silly) is definitely the best way for me. 
Also, it depends on the size of the existing vocabulary and the progress in the language. For instance, when I see a new word in English I just look it up and it usually sticks. 
This may be because I don't like looking up words, I just try and get them from the context. However, if a word shows up several times I'll usually get so annoyed I look it up - not surprisingly, it's stuck after that  (That goes for French as well).

For Russian I just try and memorise as good as possible, but whenever I can find an assosiation it gets easier.

Also, sometimes a word will just imprint itself onto my brain - this goes especially if I make a mistake with it. 
For instance, we had prepositional excersises some weeks ago, and I had to link the preposition *в* (in) with *угол* (corner). I remembered that it was a masculine noun with stress on the suffix in the prepositional, so I said *в уголу* (which doesn't even sound Russian).
What I _didn't remember_ was that it also had...I don't know what it's called in English, but the last vowel disappears in all conjugated forms, so the correct form is *в углу* - I'll never forget that


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## duckie

Etcetera said:


> I completely gave up my German studies, so now my knowledge of this language is even poorer than my knowledge of Italian, which I started to learn only recently!



Do you find Italian easier to learn as a Russian? I don't know anything about the Russian language.. Italian and German both have complicated grammar, but in different ways, I was thinking if the Russian grammar structure was more akin to Italian? I've heard Russian is a tough cookie to learn as well


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## Etcetera

Yes, Italian is much easier to learn for me.  I used to study Latin, and it makes studying Italian easier. 
I've never thought about how similar Russian and Italian grammar structures may be, but anyway, Italian grammar seems to me more 'friendly', so to say, than the German one.


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## kanojo_

Lemminkäinen said:


> Trying to find associations (no matter how silly) is definitely the best way for me.
> Also, it depends on the size of the existing vocabulary and the progress in the language. For instance, when I see a new word in English I just look it up and it usually sticks.
> This may be because I don't like looking up words, I just try and get them from the context. However, if a word shows up several times I'll usually get so annoyed I look it up - not surprisingly, it's stuck after that



This is excatly what I do. I find mnemonics to be the best way to learn vocabulary that doesn't want to stick in your mind. 
I also do not like looking up words in dictionaries as I tend to get really confused whenever I have to find the meaning of, let's say, more than 6 unknown words. I struggle to connect the meaning of the word from my mother toungue to the language I'm learning and it just doesn't work- I forget new words promptly. 
I've found that learning directly from the context is the best way to learn new words. When you come across a new word, you usually observe it in that context and if you read a lot, you, of course encounter the same word a lot of times and you guess the meaning without difficulties. By this time, I can as well look up for the meaning in a dictionary, just to check, if I got it right. And most of the time, my guessing of the meaning is exact. 

The problem is that the previous "learning system" does not apply to my learning of Japanese. The language uses, along with two phonetic alphabets Hiragana and Katakana, which you can grasp in a few months, Chinese characters or Kanji. There are approximately 2050 kanji's to learn to write, recognize and read in order to become fluent in Japan. As a kanji has different pronounciations, depending on its function in the sentence, it is impossible for me to not look up a new Japanese word in a dictionary as I have no idea how to even pronounciate it. That's the tough part of reading in Japanese.


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