How to Master Successfully Any Language of the World 12
You get what you practice.
If you practice oral communication, then your oral communication will become perfect.
Practicing writing makes your writing perfect – fluent and correct. And so on. You get
what you practice. Practice up to “acceptable” and your skill will be “acceptable” – not
perfect. Practicing to “perfect” will make it “perfect”. Techniques that I present here must
be practiced – or you never get good results.
Words, Meanings, Dictionaries, Grammar
As I wrote above, communication consists of swapping ideas. A complete idea unit is
expressed by a sentence. A sentence consists of words. In a sentence each word has a
definite meaning.
Most words have a few meanings. Any meaning may relate to a person, an object, a
situation, an action, a process, a quality, an idea, a wish, or it may point at a relationship
between those (i.e. who is the doer and who is the receiver of action, etc). A word may
have a few exact meanings. And only one will fit the context. If you want to understand a
text or some speech, it is vital for you to know the exact, intended meaning of each word
in it. Unfamiliar or unknown words should be looked up in a dictionary immediately.
But it can happen that you come across a word, which is already familiar to you. And still
the phrase seems odd or far-fetched. This is a sure sign, that the word has been
misunderstood, or in other words, the meaning you already know does not fit this context.
Or, you maybe already know a few meanings of the word, but none of them fits the
context. The word has even more meanings, and one of them might apply to the context.
Don’t hesitate and look it up in your dictionary again. Find the meaning that fits the
context exactly, the meaning that does not make the context to seem odd or far-fetched.
It’s quite all right to look up one word for a few times. Our purpose is to understand the
meanings of the word. Not just to make the word “familiar” or to “memorize” the word.
It can happen that your dictionary has no meaning that seems to fit. There may be two
reasons for that. One – your dictionary is too small. It just doesn’t have that specific
meaning. Usually, small pocket dictionaries are not enough for any learning beyond the
Beginners level. Even for the Intermediate you need a bigger dictionary. The second
reason is that there has been another word in the text, which you haven’t understood
properly. Or, that you’ve got a wrong meaning of it. Find that word and clarify it. If you
don’t find the proper meaning, a misunderstood word will cause a gap or loss in
communication and the whole idea will be received incorrectly.
Some dictionaries provide just synonyms, and not explanations. That’s a mean con.
Synonym has ITS meaning, which is always a bit different.
Copyright © 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course – Lessons with Dmitry
Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
