Chapter 2. Problems of English learning.
Hi everybody! It's me, again. As we like to say in such cases: 'The gap between the first and the second must be little' :)
Hello again, Tricia, and thanks for the new words and patterns. It will be easy to remember some of them like 'sleet' because it resembles russian word 'slyakot' for similar situations. I can't say why exactly I started with talking about the weather. May be, the weather plays significant part in our life. We often make our plans in accordance with the weather forcast and as that one could be easily wrong our life can go erratic. The other reason why I told the weather might be semiconscious following Anglo-centric way. I read some books about England in my childhood (my favorite one was 'David Copperfild' by Charles Dickens) so I'm aware of some England traditions. It's a shame of me, but I haven't read those books in English yet. And speaking about clothes... It's understandable when uniform makes you wear sertain things, but I can tell You, there are lots of young girls over here who wear short skirts and jackets just because it's fasionable. It looks nice, but I reckon it's not too healthy to be with a naked navel when it's cold. That makes me really wondering.
And now I'd like to discuss some problems which I've been facing while learning English. First af all, it's articles. We have no artcles in Russian so it takes significant time for me to decide whether I should put an article in front of a noun and if so - which one. Pondering about the problem, I've come to conclusion that Russian language is full of implications. When we speak something we're keeping many things in mind. And we don't need to specify subjects. Due to this we may use constructions like this: 'take this with this and put it into this' :) Sounds weird, doesn't it? I think in English such phrases impossible. Am I wrong?
Another problem I faced with is patterns including phrasal verbs etc. Sometimes parts of a pattern are placed at a distance in a sentence. And it's difficult to distinguish them as one pattern. Espesially in oral speech.
It would be great if someone share with me his or her view on these problems as well as on other problems which he or she faced with while learning English. And how do you cope with them.
See you tomorrow.
Comments
Hi Alex So nice to read yr blog. It really takes my breathe away cos yr problems of studying English are quite similar to me! U know what, I have met such problems for a long time. Now I am trying to overcome those. U too? Firstly, U said that articles make u confused I see. Like u, not only me but my friends are hardly decisive while writing complicated sentences with articles. But why don't u try to solve it by reading the reference books or online pages? It proves to be very useful and won't let u down, Alex. Wish u improvement! Secondly, like u, phrasal verb is a big problem! I don't know why they have so many, many such similar phrasal verbs and so many meanings!:) Maybe it's due to English! Some days ago, by mistaking between "fall thru" and "fall down", I let myself down and got a bad mark! I still remember that last year, I had to stick many, many notes of phrasal verbs on the wall to study... My teacher provided us with many different verbs. It's not very terrible but a bit confusing, is it? I'm now a 17-yr old student and studying at a high school of Quang Ngai. Honestly, I love yr work very much. Would it be okay if u tell us more about yr interesting work? There are so many amazing stories to tell? Hope u well. Hien. ps. Could I ask u sth relating to yr softwares. Ah, have u used any software to improve yr English? Write soon.
Hello Alex! Our languages have the same roots, so I have the same problem with articles.I omit them very often.In Bulgaria there is a funny story about the word "takova" which is similar to "that" ot "such".If I translate it literally, you would not understand it.The essense is that in some regions people often use "takova" as a verb, as a noun, as an adjective and (whatever you can think) at the same time.And you can express yourself using only some forms of this word. Of course it is some kind of dialect. For people who are not aware of that fact it is very confusing.I had a friend from Poland who had lived here for years.His spoken and written Bulgarian language was excellent. But he sometimes lend in troubles,when his boss order something to do and he could not understand him. Bye-bye Diema
Hi. I have problem with the articles too. I don´t know when I can use it and when not. Some times I spend a lot of time when I try to write something in English:o)). We don´t have any articles too in Czech and It is really problem for me.:o)
To Alex, If you are not sure if you should use a article or not, it is better in English to use an article 'a' or 'the' to describe something, and be wrong rather than not use an article at all, which English people would not understand. The and a are the most common articles before any verb. I have friends from Bulgaria and they have articles at the end of the word and they have to be male or female article, which is hard. In English people who learn have trouble with the letter c which can be said K or C in Russian and said K or S in English which is very confusing for learners.
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