How to Master Successfully Any Language of the World 27
his own story on the same topic and then you may discuss with the teacher both stories –
yours and your teacher’s. Discussion-related phrases may be a separate topic by itself.
Choose texts for learning from teenage or (rarely and only those simplest) women
magazines. They might include topics on Human Body and Personality, Personal Care,
House and Home, Family and Relationships, Economy and Politics (only most basic day-
to-day issues), Social Institutions and Social Issues, Vacations and Travel. These can be
modern short stories for children and teenagers. For listening practice, stories and audio
plays intended for children and (rarely and only those simplest) for teenagers may be
chosen, as audio texts are generally more difficult then written ones. Learning popular
poems and songs by heart and reciting them to yourself is very useful, as it sets many
commonly used phrases in. By the way, this tool is used by many educational systems to
improve native language skills of a student. Moreover, you will be able to understand /
quote phrases or rhymes, that only native speakers are expected to known. This brings
you much closer to the native speaker level and you will be treated as such. Proper
vocabulary work should be observed, while working with any text.
At this stage, the best way you can use a teacher or a native speakers is to ask them to
correct your mistakes immediately. As well, swap ideas or narrations with native
speakers and hold informal discussions with them.
Continue using audio recordings as I describe it in the Beginners section.
More on Meanings
At this level you expand your vocabulary significantly. You need to understand lots of
new words. It is a widely spread stereotype, that one should “memorize words”. That’s
false. It is not about words – it is all about meanings. One word usually has a few distinct
meanings. When you hear or read a word, you must immediately fetch the meaning,
which the speaker or the writer intended. And on the opposite side, when you are the
speaker or the writer, once you think of some idea, you need to fetch correct words,
corresponding to this idea. We are not dealing with words. We are dealing with ideas
and meanings which are practically the same. And we use words as substitutes for
them. We represent meanings by words. And sometimes one meaning may be
represented with a group of words.
When we speak our native language, we usually don’t have any problems about fetching
words for our ideas or about getting the correct meaning of a word, we have just heard or
read. We have actually drilled it through the whole life.
And when we learn a new language, we still need to drill it. The first step is to
understand, which meaning will be represented by a word. Each word may represent a
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
