How I Learned English

By Kate Z.

First time I started learning English I was 11 years old. Then I was at 4th grade of a secondary school in Obninsk, Russia.

I don't remember my first English teacher. I suppose she didn't do a very good job. She taught us for several years but apparently we didn't know English after that.

In 7th grade I started working with a private teacher, coming once a week to her home for one-hour one on one lessons. That was very intense and efficient but I had to do a lot of homework and reading and formal writing. Most of the exercises were from that one text book everybody knew - it was very reliable but no fun. I was also reading abridged books like The Quadroon by Thomas Mayne Reid and had to write down all idioms and learn them by heart. At the time I wished I was reading something more modern - and something about teenage girls or boys.

When I was taking exit exam at high school I knew English good enough not to take any time to prepare when I got my assignment and English texts to translate - I went straight ahead with my translation and speech and got my straight A.

Then in college I had to take English again - but it was mostly translation of very technical books and articles. We didn't get to speak English at all. So after graduating I knew how to write in English and translate from it but speaking and understanding from listening English speakers was almost non-existent.

During my first job after graduation I attended one of those so called intensive English courses where we at last had fun: we played games, sang songs, did inventive exersises in small groups, tried on different roles - and adored our teacher. The effect was tremendous and I understood that was the way to learn a language. But it was hard to find good courses like that and expensive too - although I tried many. I remember one of the best pieces of advice I got at that time: If you don't remember a word (or don't know it in English) - don't stumble upon it, you can always rephrase the sentence, say it differently, using the words you know.

English Audio [New Feature]

Majority of people who go to InternetPolyglot learn English. English is a "lingua franka" in the modern world - it means that it is used everywhere on Earth as a common language for communications. And at last you folks can start learning English with even better results because now each English word in our lessons has an audio pronunciation.

For example, go to the following lesson: http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lesson-2102001130 and press any green button with white triangle on it.

Now you can hear the pronunciation of this word!!!

The recording was done with an American guy, so the accent is American therefore. Also there were some decisions that we had to make and these decisions are described in the following essay that this guy has written after we finished recording:

Creation of English audio clips for Internet Polyglot We began the reading of the English words for the Internet Polyglot early in the morning when the male human voice is still deep and resonant. Using a simple uni-directional microphone plugged into a laptop which was running an audio recording and editing program, we began the task of reading and recording hundreds of words in English. Early on, we realized that when practicing English words, we don't generally use the article ("the" or "a") preceding a noun. For example, in other languages it is very important to include "the" or "a" before a word because there may be many different forms of that word depending on the gender of the noun. But in English, the articles are always the same and so we made an executive decision not to include them. However, we found that when it came to verbs, that it made more sense to include the helping word "to" before each verb. For example, "to wet" is a much better translation than simply "wet" which could be misinterpreted as a descriptive adjective. On a technical recording note, we found it difficult at first when reading words that had the hard sound "p" at the beginning without creating a Pounding sound on the recording. Holding the microphone further away to artificially soften the "p" sound changed the volume of the sound being recorded and was inconsistent with the rest of the recorded words. So each time we got to such a word, it was simply softened vocally so as to avoid this recorded unpleasant pounding sound. We also avoided having the words read so that they had any down-inflection to them. For example, if reading down a list of 30 words, it's important not to read the last word of the list as if you're finishing a sentence. For the person later listening to this individual word while studying the English lessons, it would give that particular word a strange down-inflection. We found it better to read each word as if it was the first word on the list so that they all had the same level of vocal importance. It was an honor to be the "voice of English" which will be listened to by people all over the world who are practicing their pronunciation using the brilliant program, "Internet Polyglot".

As a side-note, this guy has his own blog which might be of an interest for many of you, here it is: http://healthyspine.blogspot.com/

InternetPolyglot keeps growing

I have added about 800 new lessons. A smart programming allowed to create various combinations of language pairs: English-Spanish, Spanish-French, French-Russian, Russian-Spanish, etc., etc.

Currently I am working on making urls more pretty. At the same time I am working on trying to find a suitable platform for the future huge community of people who are going to visit www.internetpolyglot.com for fun and learning and exchanging their language learning experience.

Last month there were 60 unique visits, this month there are already 28 unique visits in first 5 days. Not bad process, huh? Considering that Google still keeps me in the sandbox and only search engine that has indexed me so far is MSN.


History of the English Language



The history of the English language is as fascinating and complex as that of the English people themselves. At its root, English is part of the West Germanic language group since it developed from the Anglo Saxon’s Old English tongue. Old English was spoken on the British mainland for the most part, but it quickly spread over to the rest of the British Isles.



Throughout time, nomadic invasions as well as more peaceful contact with the other nations have strongly influenced the English language. French and Latin as well as several other northern and Germanic languages have produced a strong vocabulary increase, diversifying and polishing the mainstream of the English language to what it is today.



Statistics associated with the English Language



The English language is considered today’s “lingua franca”, which means that it’s the dominating language of its era, being used in international affairs such as diplomacy or commerce. Roughly 360 million people use English as their first language and a billion more know it as a secondary language. In addition, many countries use English as their official language.



It is also estimated that over 50 million people are in the process of studying the English language each year, either through organized education, through personal study with the help of free English lessons online or by using “learn English courses” in order to improve their vocabulary, memorize words and so forth.



Learning English online



Even though most schools across the world teach English as the secondary language, organized education can often be improved through free English lessons online or other sources that can offer you a vocabulary increase and help you memorize words easier.



If your typical “learn English" course won’t cut it for you, or if you want to try a more relaxing way of learning the language, you could try out some vocabulary games found online. Playing vocabulary games is a great way to memorize words, improve vocabulary and polish your spelling and possibly your speaking skills at the same time.



In conclusion, we should state that English is one of the easiest languages to learn, not only because of its less complicated grammar, spelling and phonetic structures but also due to the media invasion, which helps us accommodate with the English language. Even in countries with completely different language rules and structures such as China or Japan, English finds its way with the help of Hollywood movies, commercials and international affairs.

Articles about English in different languages:

English Language (in English)
Historia de la lengua inglesa (in Spanish)
Anglais. (in French)
Englische Sprache (in German)
Lingua inglese (in Italian)
Engelse Taal (in Dutch)
Língua inglesa (in Portuguese)
Limba Engleza (in Romanian)
История английского языка (in Russian)
تأريخ اللغة الإنجليزية (in Arabic)


The roots of the Spanish language



Linguists consider the birthplace of the Spanish language as the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula, around the Burgos and La Rioja areas. At that time, the Peninsula was under Romanic influence, hence Latin was the tool of the trade for commerce in the area. Taking this new language and polishing it with their own specific language traits, the locals spread it throughout the entire Peninsula, eventually making it the official language of government and trade in the area.



Therefore, being a Romanic language at its roots, Spanish keeps the basic rules and structure of its parent. However, the local Iberian influence as well as several other nomadic influences in the area has given room for a vast, specific vocabulary increase. From thereon, the Spanish language was formed, which will soon become known to history as one of the most widely spread and used languages on the face of the Earth.



The modern Spanish language



During the colonization era, Spain was a global power and was one of the most powerful nations on water, with an enormous fleet and a great net of commercial routes to back up the claim. This helped spread the Spanish language, as colonists, gold seekers and explorers made their way over the oceans and established settlements in the newfound lands. The effect of this is visible today, with most of the countries in South and Central America as well as the ones in the Caribbean area having Spanish as their official language.



Tips for learning Spanish



Being one of the most widely spoken languages of today, with over 450 million speakers throughout the entire World, Spanish is becoming a learning attraction or even a necessity for more and more people. If you don’t have the chance to study the language in school or through some other form of organized education, you could always do it by yourself through a “learn Spanish” course or book. Of course, these courses usually cost quite a lot and they also have a fixed schedule that you might not be able to follow to the point. In this case, you might be better off looking for a website that offers free Spanish lessons online. These websites provide a great deal of content that can be useful in order to improve vocabulary and to memorize words in the Spanish language.



Speaking of vocabulary increase, another great way to achieve it is by playing vocabulary games. Some websites offer such vocabulary games freely and they can be an extremely fun and relaxing way to learn Spanish. If all fails and you can’t seem to memorize words and improve vocabulary through any of the above mentioned methods, you could try watching some Spanish television, especially if you’re into soap operas. Learning through media is a great way to get things started and you’ll notice a solid vocabulary increase even after a few weeks.

Articles about Spanish in different languages:

The Spanish Language (in English)
Las raíces de la lengua española (in Spanish)
Langue espagnole (in French)
Spanische Sprache (in German)
Lingua spagnola (in Italian)
Spaanse Taal (in Dutch)
Língua espanhola (in Portuguese)
Originile limbii Spaniole (in Romanian)
Корни испанского языка (in Russian)
جذور اللغة الإسبانية (in Arabic)

The francophone World



French is a language that has descended from Latin, hence its main ethnic layer is similar to other Romanic languages such as Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and so forth. Above this Latin layer, French “suffered” from a lot of influences such as the native Celtic, from the Gauls, several other Germanic languages as well as ancient Greek. Each of these influences can be easily spotted today in either pronunciation, spelling or grammar, giving the French language a unique spot among the Romanic languages.



The term “Francophonie” refers to the entirety of the French Diaspora, spread amongst over 40 countries that have French as their official language. Besides France itself, the language is spoken in several European countries such as Belgium, Luxembourg or Switzerland, in Northern America throughout Canada as well as a number of countries in Africa, namely: Algeria, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Morocco, Congo, Niger, Senegal and several others. In all these countries French is either studied as the main language throughout the local educational system, or as a secondary, “official” language right next to the native tongue. “Learn French” courses are popular in organized institutions as well as privately.



3 reasons to start learning French



1. If your mother tongue has a Romanic or Anglo-Saxon origin, learning French is extremely easy, since it shares a lot of grammatical rules and structures as any of the above mentioned languages. Memorizing words will be made easy by the fact that a lot of French words are look-alikes to their English counterparts, so if you’re reading and understanding this, you should also have it easy when you’ll try to improve vocabulary in French.



2. If you don’t have time or money to take up on the various “Learn French” courses that take place all across the World, you can easily opt for taking free French lessons online. The Internet offers a lot of these free lessons in various forms from quiz tests that help you memorize words, vocabulary games that help improve vocabulary and increase your spelling skills or the more classic grammar courses.



3. French is one of today’s 6 international languages, so it is extremely important to know it or at least understand it if you’re in a work field that has the word “international” in it. Commerce, diplomacy, media and several other fields are strongly influenced by French, so taking a few free French lessons online can get you out of a lot of tight spots as well as impress the persons you’re dealing with.

Articles about French in different languages:

The French Language (in English)
La Lengua Francesa (in Spanish)
Langue française. (in French)
Französische Sprache (in German)
Lingua francese (in Italian)
Franse Taal (in Dutch)
Три причины, чтобы начать учить французский (in Russian)
Língua francesa (in Portuguese)
Limba Franceza (in Romanian)
عالم الفرانكوفوني (in Arabic)