Teaching English on your own from scratch. Learning English on your own from scratch: tips for success

This article will help everyone who wants or has been trying to learn English and more. I have made a selection of various applications, courses and programs for learning English which I used myself. They can be used both on the road and at home, on a mobile phone or netbook. If you cannot decide on the required course, then leave comments with questions below, I will definitely answer and help you with your choice. So let's get started.

Duolingo: Learn languages ​​for free

"Undoubtedly the best free language learning app." -The Wall Street Journal

Description

Rosetta Stone Course and Totale Copanion (mobile versions from Rosetta Stone on Android OS)

Now you can practice learning a language with Rosetta Stone on devices with Android OS. If you need an analogue of the PC version, which is described above, then your choice is Rosetta Stone Course. Just register and you can get access to free lessons. Not to be confused with Totale Companion, as it is a specialized application that will also help you learn a new language when you are on the go or away from your computer. The application is free, but only subscribers of the Totale course can use it, which is a huge disadvantage of the application, for the entire duration of their subscription. The full version of Rosetta Stone Course is paid, but there are also free lessons for several languages. If you are interested in this program, then look for it in the Play Market.

English according to Dr. Pimsleur's method for Russian speakers (90 lessons, full course). Audiolingual course from Paul Pimsleur

Year of issue: 2005
Dr. Paul Pimsleur
Course type: audiolingual
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Format: mp3

Course Description:
You don't need any tutorials! There is no need to cram anything! The basis of the course is the perception of English speech and pronouncing phrases out loud. Dr. Pimsleur's language programs are the only form of language learning that includes an original, patented memory training technique that ensures you remember what you learn. The course was created specifically for Russian speakers learning English. It consists of 90 lessons recorded in mp3 format. You hear explanations and comments about what you are studying in the course in Russian, and the speech is in American English.

Download Paul Pimsleur's course

ABBYY Lingvo Dictionaries

  • Year of issue: 2012
  • Genre: Dictionaries
  • Developer: ABBYY® Lingvo®
  • Interface language: Multilingual
  • Platform: Android 2.2+
  • Interface: Russian
  • Additionally: The program supports installation on SD (OS 2.2 and higher)
  • Installer type: apk

Description. Perhaps the most popular dictionary for mobile devices based on the Android operating system and not only. The application provides fast and accurate translation of words and phrases without an Internet connection. It is worth noting the application's ability to search for translations of words and phrases in several dictionaries at once, as well as high-quality content from the world's leading publishers. With this dictionary you will have access to more than 250 translation, explanatory and thematic dictionaries for 30 languages, from which the user can easily create a vocabulary set to solve their problems. The most necessary thing for us is translation from Russian and back: Russian - English, plus Spanish, Italian, Latin, German and French. Thanks to the functionality of ABBYY Lingvo for Android, it will become an indispensable assistant when traveling, studying or at a business meeting. Thematic dictionaries are available for purchase from the application. These dictionaries will allow you to find a more accurate translation of words and phrases, as well as obtain additional information: other translation options, transcriptions, synonyms, examples of use and correct pronunciation from native speakers.

Key features:

  • Detailed vocabulary material with many meanings, examples of word usage and tables with word forms
  • Pronunciation of words, voiced by native speakers (in terms of dictionaries)
  • A single vocabulary card with articles from several dictionaries
  • Hints when searching for a word or phrase
  • Search for words in any grammatical form
  • Quick translation of words from the clipboard

Installation:

Move the “Lingvo” folder from the archive to the ABBYY folder on the phone’s internal memory (sdcard0) and install the *apk file through your device’s file managers.

Hello dear readers!

How are you progressing in learning English? What methods and systems have you tried? Have you already chosen what's right for you?

Currently, there are many different offers on the educational services market. And, of course, for beginners learning a language, it is very difficult to navigate and make the right choice so that the learning is effective and brings results.

This article provides an overview of the best tutorials and gives my recommendations for improving the learning process.

About teaching methods

It is believed that The English language self-teacher will help you master the basic course quickly and without the help of a leader or mentor.. In addition, this is a less expensive way to learn a language, which is important. Therefore, quite a lot of people choose this method. Is all of the above actually true? Let's figure it out.

All English language tutorials can be divided into several types:

  1. traditional,
  2. to master spoken English,
  3. for an intensive course,
  4. copyright,
  5. art self-instruction books,
  6. tutorials from native speakers,
  7. online tutorials.

A good tutorial must include audio material.

Standard training

You can start learning from scratch using traditional methods, in which the presentation of material proceeds from simple to complex. Here you will receive information about the phonetic system, correct pronunciation, intonation, basic grammatical rules, and find useful tests and exercises.

One of the popular ones in this category is “The best self-teacher of the English language” by A. Petrova, I. Orlova.

Here one of the reviews on the popular website litres.ru, which reflects the entire essence and content of the textbook: “I liked this book right away... the text, simple and understandable drawings, a clear structure for presenting the material... Everything is clearly laid out on the shelves: we start with the basics and end at a significantly advanced level!”

Download the book on Litres

Download the book on Litres

Speech development

The following textbooks are suitable for mastering spoken English.

T. G. Trofimenko “Conversational English” . Without studying grammar, you can learn to construct the necessary phrases on your own. The technique presented here will help you remember the necessary words and expressions, as well as master pronunciation. This textbook is also suitable for children.

Download the book on Litres

N. Brel, N. Poslavskaya. “Course of spoken English in convenient formulas and dialogues” . This textbook is recommended for beginners and those who have difficulty speaking. It is designed to overcome the language barrier.

Download the book on Litres

M. Goldenkov. “Hot Dog Too. Spoken English” . A valuable guide from which you will learn about the features of modern language and slang, common idioms, and business correspondence.

Short terms

Intensive methods are mainly intended for training narrow specialists in any field. Here, acquaintance with new material goes in parallel with the consolidation of covered topics.

Book by S. Matveev “Fast English. A self-instruction manual for those who don’t know anything” It is interesting because the author presents the material in an extraordinary way, taking into account the psychological characteristics of mastering a foreign language, and makes different types of memory work. In this book you will find great reviews. “A good book that helps you learn the language from the very basics. Complex topics are explained clearly and clearly, English words are easily given" By the way, I have information about this author’s books.

Download the book on Litres

To gain knowledge about business correspondence, negotiations and telephone conversations, I advise you to use the manual S.A. Sheveleva “Business English in 20 minutes a day” .

Download the book on Litres

Author's methods

I would like to note the publication Dmitry Petrov, a famous linguist and polyglot. "English language. 16 lessons” is an initial language course that allows you to quickly start speaking English. You will learn the basic algorithms of the language, learn how to apply them in practice, and turn everything into a skill.

Download the book on Litres

Native speaker

Here you can highlight the textbook K.E. Eckersley “English Language Self-Teacher”. It is suitable for students of universities and colleges. Wonderful presentation, a lot of regional material, a cool selection of examples and exercises will make learning easy.

Download the book on Litres

Online tutorials

Lingualeo . This service can rightfully deserve the title of a tutorial. Therefore, feel free register and use it - it's free. And besides this - interesting, easy, effective! I wrote about this service on the blog pages - for example, here.

If you want step-by-step work, then feel free to purchase a paid course « English from scratch». After this, you can switch to grammar by purchasing the course « Grammar for Beginners» . Also take the course « About yourself and loved ones in English». I am writing all this for those who do not know where to start the process here. I think you will succeed!

Another interesting and increasingly popular online tutorial is Lim-English. This simulator is aimed at the simultaneous development of listening, reading, writing and speaking. Study for 30 minutes a day and your English level will improve significantly! I tried it and really liked it - now you are sure you will enjoy it and get results!

Currently, almost all books have electronic versions. Of course, they can be downloaded for free, but the world does not stand still. Everything is changing, revised and improved publishing houses are coming out. Therefore, in my opinion, it would be a better decision to buy a textbook. You will receive high-quality material for a small fee and appreciate the author’s work. If you are not a beginner, choose audiobooks, they will improve your perception of foreign speech and pronunciation.

So, to the conclusions

Yes, tutorials can be used, it’s especially worth paying attention to those that come with audio reinforcement. But be prepared for the fact that during the learning process you will have a huge number of questions. And you won’t be able to find answers to all of them on your own. And the search will take up too much of your time. Is it worth wasting such a colossal amount of time? After all, time, as you know, also costs money.

In my opinion, for productive and effective studying, as well as achieving results as quickly as possible, work on the self-instruction manual should be combined. He will be able to monitor your training once every week or two and purposefully lead you to a new level.

1. Learn with interest

Any teacher will confirm: abstract learning of a language is more difficult than mastering a language for a specific purpose. Therefore, at first, learn things that will be useful to you in your work. Another option is to read resources in a foreign language related to yours.

2. Remember only the words you need

There are more than a million words in the English language, but at best a few thousand are used in everyday speech. Therefore, even a modest vocabulary will be enough for you to talk with a foreigner, read online publications, watch news and TV series.

3. Post stickers at home

This is an effective way to expand your vocabulary. Look around the room and see which objects you don't know the names of. Translate the name of each subject into English, French, German - whatever language you want to learn. And put these stickers around the room. New words will gradually be stored in memory, and this will not require any additional effort.

4. Repeat

The technique of spaced repetition allows you to better remember new words and concepts. To do this, review the studied material at certain intervals: first, repeat the learned words often, then return to them after a few days, and after a month, reinforce the material again.

5. Use new technologies

6. Set realistic goals

Be careful with the load and don't overwork yourself. Especially at the beginning, so as not to lose interest. Teachers advise starting small: first learn 50 new words, try to apply them in life, and only then take on the grammar rules.

We decided to learn English language? Of course, you made the right choice, because English language- the main language of international communication.

Most likely, you have already encountered the main problem with learning English- a huge number of textbooks and courses on the market, most of which are a waste of time and money. And if we add to this selfeducation and complete lack of initial knowledge language, then all this confuses a person, and he loses the desire to learn English. A wish- the main key to successfully learning any foreign language.

So, what does the site offer you for success? learning English from scratch?

First of all, especially for the entry level in the form online lessons A wonderful self-instruction manual by K. B. Vasiliev “Easy English” was designed. Lessons on this tutorial are perfect for children, because the texts are presented from popular English children's fairy tales, such as “Alice in Wonderland”, “Winnie the Pooh and Everything Everything”, etc. Additionally, typos and some inaccuracies were corrected, and added free audio for the entire course. And doing the exercises is not at all difficult, because for this there are special forms for entering text, as well as answer keys. To view the answer, hover your mouse over the key: . You can only peek back after you have completely completed the exercise! If you have any questions, you can ask them under the lesson as a comment.

Please note that there is no need to rush and jump to the next lesson immediately after completing the current one. Move on to the next lesson when you are confident that you have mastered the material in the current lesson. fully.

Further parallel With the study of the audio course above, you can also study the perhaps simpler Assimil audio course. The page with audio courses also contains higher-level courses, as well as an interesting tutorial on how to work with audio.

How have you studied so much information and are still confused about verb tenses? Dont be upset, verb tenses in English- this is the most difficult part of it. After all, there are not 3 of them, as in the Russian language, but as many as 12! Especially for easier understanding and assimilation of tenses, the following section on effective lessons by S.P. Dugin for beginners was created.

Verb tenses can also be studied in the English grammar section. Initially, grammar lessons were intended for intermediate students, but translations have been added to them, and now they can be studied by slightly less advanced students. In this section Very There are many lessons, it will help you find answers to many questions, so don't skip it. Proceed to study it only when you are ready. And in lessons for beginners there will periodically be links to specific grammar lessons from this section.

Have you studied all this already? Well, you give it! Congratulations! What to do next? And then you will have even more self-study. Unfortunately, from an intermediate level it is difficult to build any path for study; build it yourself according to your interests. It takes a lot of practice. Listen to a lot of audio and video materials. Try to talk more. No one? Talk to yourself! Read, write. The site also has video materials. Perhaps there will be more later.

Please note that on the mobile version of the site the right menu collapses to the very bottom screen, and the top menu opens by pressing a button top right.

What kind of English are we learning? British or American?

Correct answer: both.

On the one hand, British refers to pronunciation rules set many years ago. Almost no one speaks it now, but everyone who studies English or tests pronunciation strives for it, incl. American actors (for example, Will Smith). Also, all textbooks have standard grammar and spelling of words. It turns out that almost everyone is learning British English. American grammar and spelling are slightly, very slightly different from British, so look for some textbooks on American English. very, very stupid.

On the other hand, British English also includes a special intonation that almost no one teaches, and it’s difficult to get used to. These lessons also do not teach intonation. It turns out that no matter how hard we try to pronounce it, we will still end up sounding more American English than British. Besides intonation, our speech apparatus is simply more similar to the American one. The video of the 1st lesson presents pure British English. The audio of the following lessons will sound more like American English. Otherwise, English is standard, there is no need to come up with ridiculous reasons why I should or should not learn these particular lessons. Just learn! I am responsible for quality! (Site author)

Surely you found something interesting on this page. Recommend it to a friend! Better yet, place a link to this page on the Internet, VKontakte, blog, forum, etc. For example:
English language learning

Learning a language on your own is both simple and difficult. Organize your classes correctly, choose the right methodology, find good textbooks and dictionaries - and learning can even turn into a hobby.

The habit of studying regularly will allow you, over time, to raise your level of knowledge above the level of many university graduates who do not study the language after graduation. When communicating with foreigners, expand your social circle. And when you achieve your goals, you can rightfully be proud of yourself.

Problems with self-studying English

Learning English on your own is an idea that has crossed many minds. But not everyone manages to realize it. Why?

The first problem is lack of control. Sometimes, in order not to miss a lesson, you even need willpower. Anything can distract you, from an interesting movie on TV to an invitation to go out with friends. Create a clear schedule for yourself and strictly follow it.

The next problem is errors. When learning a language on your own, you need to be very careful, sometimes even pedantic. If you make a mistake (even a minor one) while studying with a teacher, he will correct you. When you learn on your own, there is no one to correct you, and an incorrectly memorized construction will “take root” in speech and writing. Relearning is more difficult than learning.

Making a class schedule

Create a study schedule that is easy for you to follow. It is advisable to practice daily, for an hour - an hour and a half with a break of 5-10 minutes. Your schedule will likely vary, but follow the principle of “it's better to do a little bit of often than a lot of little time.” Exercising 20 minutes every day for two weeks will be more beneficial than one five-hour “assault.” Hang the schedule in a visible place at home.

Defining the goal

Define a goal and direct all efforts towards achieving it. Why do you need English? Conduct correspondence with business partners? Do you want to read your favorite books in the original? Communicate via the Internet? Or maybe go abroad to work?

In class, combine reading, writing, grammar exercises and develop the ability to express your thoughts. And focus on what you need and what you like. If you want to learn to speak, speak more, etc. Then the fruits of your labors - skills and knowledge - will inspire you to conquer new heights.

Choosing an approach

In order to create the optimal training program for yourself, you will have to become a teacher for a short time and become familiar with the methodology.

There are two main approaches to language learning: “traditional” and “communicative”.

The traditional approach is a combination of audiolingual and grammatical translation methods.

If you studied a foreign language at school, then you “know it by sight” grammar-translation method. Grammar exercises, retelling texts (and sometimes even memorizing them), expanding your vocabulary with word lists, and translations, translations, translations. Of course, talented teachers expanded the list of activities in the lessons and could interest students. But these are just a few. In most cases, the method was not worth the effort.

Audiolingual method much more effective than the previous one. It was fully implemented in language laboratories - and today you can buy discs with recordings of exercises. Training consists of listening and reproducing dialogues - on their basis, grammar is studied and pronunciation is “studied”. If you want to learn to speak as quickly as possible, look for good English courses on CD.

Communicative approach combines methods that use exercises that are unusual for graduates of Soviet schools: games, debates, tasks to find errors, comparisons, and analysis of situations. This approach is one of the most effective today. He doesn't just teach the language - he teaches how to use the language. Choose a textbook developed based on the communicative method.

Textbooks, dictionaries and your other tools

If you have already learned English before, the first thing you need to do now is to assess your level using tests. Don’t overestimate it - it’s better to repeat what you know again than to get stuck on the third page of an incorrectly selected tutorial.

Choose a textbook that contains not only standard exercises, but also creative, unusual tasks that implement a communicative approach to learning. The more interesting the textbook is, the less likely you are to encounter the first problem of independent learning: “I’ll study, but not today, but tomorrow.” “Tomorrow” rarely comes the next day.

Feel free to pass by books, CDs and tapes with titles like “English in a month!” If everything were so simple, everyone would have known the language long ago.

Whatever your goals in learning English, you will need a very good dictionary. The Internet will not help here - the vocabulary of online resources will not be enough for you.

It is convenient to work with a thick, small-format dictionary, which cannot be said about publications larger than a landscape format. We advise you to buy a dictionary of general vocabulary for fifty thousand words, no less (more is better). Please note: a good publication always contains examples of the use of words.

Try to choose the most recent edition possible so as not to waste time and effort on memorizing outdated words that have gone out of use. Another argument for a “fresh dictionary”: in publications compiled in the first half of the last century, you will not find many words that have long become part of our speech. It is convenient to use a dictionary with small print - do not let this moment confuse you when choosing. A dictionary is your permanent assistant in learning a language; don’t spare money on it.

Be sure to use audio materials and courses on CD: as we have already said, they will help you improve your pronunciation, expand your vocabulary and learn to speak English. Even if these are not primary tasks, listening to dialogues adds variety to the learning process. And the more interesting the classes, the better the results.

One option for learning a language on your own is to use materials from the online course program. During distance learning, you will be sent assignments by email, you will complete them, send them to the teacher, and after checking, he will point out any errors. Taking such courses will help you be disciplined and learn not to miss classes. This is a good option for beginners.

Large bookstores now have books in English, adapted for readers of different levels. The required level of knowledge is often indicated right on the cover. By reading books, you will expand your vocabulary, learn to construct sentences, and develop literacy and a sense of language.

Watching films in the original is a real pleasure. Buy films that have an audio track in English and subtitles. If your level does not yet allow you to understand complex dialogues, start with cartoons. They usually use simple vocabulary. Watch at first several times with subtitles, pause if you come across an unfamiliar word. For each movie, make a small dictionary, writing down unfamiliar words as you watch the movie. Please note: there are films where the characters speak quite clearly (for example, The Hot Chick, Chick) and those where the speech is difficult to understand (Back to the Future, Back to the Future).

Use the Internet while learning a language - it provides simply amazing opportunities. Using Skype you can talk with native speakers; in the livejournal.com service you can start a blog in English or simply read online diaries of Americans and British. Social networks, forums, chats - use them and get the maximum benefit. Do you like to cook? Look for recipes in English, try to cook according to them. The language should be useful to you - otherwise, why learn it?

Techniques and exercises for self-learning a language

We offer several English learning techniques that can help you.

  • Find the lyrics of your favorite songs in English, translate, learn and sing along with the performer.
  • Spend your holiday in a country where English is spoken: combine useful language practice with an enjoyable holiday.
  • Try to start thinking in English, comment on actions, events, daily occurrences to yourself.
  • Study the culture: This will be useful if you want to travel to a country where English is spoken. Find out what is valuable to the people you will interact with. For example, find as detailed a biography of Winston Churchill as possible - it is similar to the plot of an exciting book. Read about it (ideally in English, but it all depends on your level of language proficiency). Not interested in politics? Read, watch films about key moments in history, outstanding figures of art, science, the development of fashion, automotive industry, social phenomena and customs of countries.

Learning a language is interesting. You didn't know?