Guys, we put our soul into the site. Thanks for that
for discovering this beauty. Thanks for the inspiration and goosebumps.
Join us at Facebook And In contact with

Over the past 15 years, I have learned 8 languages ​​in which I can communicate, read and write fluently. Learn new language not easy, but it becomes even more difficult if you do it in the wrong order. When I started with English, I asked myself questions: where to start - with grammar or with a dictionary? how to learn to speak correctly and not be shy when talking? how to learn a language quickly? how not to give up on this? It's time to answer these questions.

Step #1: YouTube Video

It may seem strange, but it is better to start learning from YouTube. There are many channels with useful and free content that will help you not only learn new words, but also learn about the peculiarities of culture, which is also important.

Here are some good channels:

• Dmitry Petrov's course "Polyglot". You can learn more in 40 minutes than in several years of studying English at school.

Jobs School And Movie English- channels that talk about English from movies and TV shows. Useful for understanding slang expressions.

BBC Learning English- a channel from the BBC, where they talk about everything in the world. You can turn it on in the background, it will help not only improve English, but also learn a lot of new things.

EngVid- one of the best channels with teachers from different countries who will teach you everything that is possible. In addition, the lessons are very lively and fun.

Rachel's English- one of the best channels dedicated to pronunciation.

Step #2: Tutorials

What I did not immediately understand: do not do much, but often. Of course, everyone wants to go faster, but if you do something in large volumes, it can discourage all the hunting, motivation and reward you with fatigue. Focus on a marathon, not a sprint: do 1 page a day - this way you will significantly increase your level.

Speakout, English File, Navigate- these are modern textbooks of complex English, which are compiled by native speakers. They will help in the study of grammar, contain interesting texts, dialogues and include listening.

Step #3: Skill "speaking"

The only thing you won't be able to work with on your own is the spoken language. Therefore, there is a need for practice in the form of communication. The first experience of communicating with native speakers is always difficult. You learn the language and it seems that you already know everything, but as soon as you meet a foreigner - everything, your head is empty, your tongue does not turn.

One of the best ways to overcome this- to practice speech with the teacher. I advise you to choose a foreign teacher, because he will speak without an accent. And aged to have a great experience.

Step #4: Grammar

Many begin to learn a language with grammar. It is important, but not as important as many people think. It is worth taking up grammar only when there is a good vocabulary base. If you just want to talk to people, then grammar is not needed at all. You will remember many designs over time, watching movies, TV shows, reading articles.

But if you feel that the grammar should be worked out more carefully, then I can advise The best tutorials in my opinion:

• English Grammar in Use . A textbook by teacher Raymond Murphy who has taught hundreds of students from around the world. The lesson takes only 2 pages: on the left - theory, on the right - practice. and this channel the teacher explains each topic from the textbook.
• Oxford Practice Grammar. A similar and no less famous textbook than the previous one. Unless the theory is explained in more detail here.
• Grammarway. I taught grammar from it, although many teachers consider this textbook outdated. Unlike the previous ones, 1 lesson here takes several pages. And the exercises are given after each rule, not a block. Read the rule - fixed. Pinned again at the end of the chapter.

Step #5: Useful Services

You can learn a language without various sites and services. But some of them are still useful, stir up interest and help to practice a little bit at any time. For example, sit in line - opened the site, did a couple of tasks.

YouGlish can find any English word among the videos on YouTube and shows the desired piece. Helps understand the pronunciation and use of the word in context.

En.news is up-to-date world news turned into free lessons. Every day you choose interesting news, complexity and read the text to it, along the way marking new words to remember.

Memrise is designed specifically for vocabulary replenishment. It uses the method spaced repetition, which will not let you forget a single word you read. It uses a simple visualization.

Lang-8 - service for working on writing. The scheme is simple: you register, write a text on a specific topic, after which a native speaker makes the necessary changes.

Little things that will help you learn a language faster

• Translate the system on your computer and phone into the language you are learning. Difficult at first, but you'll quickly get used to it.
• Get in the habit of mentally asking yourself the question: how will it be in English? For example, you make pizza and pronounce the name of each ingredient in English.
• Watch or read in English what you already know well (film, series or book). I constantly rewatched The Avengers because it has simple words.
• Subscribe to your favorite English-speaking actors, bloggers, singers and read what they write and talk about.
• Start with a list of the most common words. These words will come in handy in 80% of situations.
• Consume content in its original language, watch movies and news, read magazines, articles and newspapers. You can also listen to podcasts in English.

Good afternoon, dear readers! I am fulfilling what I have long promised: I share the methods of learning English from personal experience.

And I will not start with theory, no! I'll start with such a thing as setting goals And motivation. These are the very things without which even the most capable student of foreign languages ​​​​will not be able to put a couple of thousand words in his head, and if he can, then not for long. I tested all the methods presented on myself, so you should not consider the article unfounded, but useful links after the useful text below, enjoy learning!

Where to start learning English (foreign) language

They tried to teach me English from childhood, starting with relatives and ending with the fashionable at that time courses “by mail” (Eshko, for example). It would seem that a child learns the material better than an adult, so why, after going through the same circle several times, I still have nothing left in my head, except for a couple of simple phrases and a few words?

I would not say that I had absolutely no desire to learn English, rather the opposite, it was, but these desires boiled down to something indefinite like “It would be nice to know English, Lena knows, but what am I, a redhead?”, “ knowledge of a foreign language is fashionable”, or when I got older “knowledge of English is required when applying for a job”. In fact, these are not goals, thoughts of this kind do not create intention and the initial fuse is only enough for a couple of activities that you will exchange for something more attractive at the first opportunity (TV, favorite toys, walking with friends, etc.).

I have tried a lot of all sorts of methods and courses, and I can say one thing, if there is no clear motivation / goal for which exactly you are going to learn a language, then even if you give a lot of money to the best teachers, you will not learn it. That is, you need to sit down, think and answer yourself clearly why I want to know a foreign language. Thought? And what thoughts came to mind? If something similar to what is described just above, then do not waste time. If this is something more serious, then we try.

The next question arises, but how to understand whether it is serious or not. The answer is simple: think about whether you can do without a foreign language, if so, then the goals are not serious, if not, you can work. The examples are always clearer, let's talk about personal experience.

I started my trips, practically not knowing English, in the first couple of days it was enough that I could exchange basic phrases with the population to show the way, find a roof over my head or buy food. If it was completely tight, then she expressed herself with gestures. I would not say that the language barrier interfered with me, in any case, I got what I needed, even without knowing the language, so there was no strong need for it, but with each trip the desire to learn English grew.

The turning point for me was Myanmar, on the way there I met the same travel lover - Andrey from Germany, who easily spoke "bourgeois". While we were traveling around the country, he easily communicated with foreigners and locals, and I, as a lover of communication, was limited in this, and could only envy. It was then that I finally decided that I would take up learning English seriously. Initially, I heard about Pimslere, with him my present began education.

Methods of learning a foreign language

From all that I “dug up” and “shoveled”, I concluded that there are 2 effective methods for learning any language. Which one to choose depends on your mindset and perseverance.

1 way. I would call him child method (or NLP method). Let's remember how exactly young children learn language? They do not memorize words and generally have no idea how to build a sentence, which they try hard to “shove” into the heads of students in various schools.

A small child just looks after mom and dad, the people around him and tries to repeat what they do and say. In this case, live communication with a native speaker or with an English tutor via Skype is very suitable.

By the way, a good offer from a personal training program without leaving home. Specially for blog readers! And if pay for the package before November 2, 2018 then you will get discount up to 25%!

And if there is no opportunity to communicate with some foreigner? Then watching movies is fine. Naturally, the film should not be popular science, cartoons are also not suitable, because. there is no real facial expressions and movements of the human type.

• it is advisable to choose one that you have already watched in Russian translation,
• good diction of the actors (movies in translation are not suitable, only the original),
• maximum emotionality of the characters.

Watching a film in a foreign language, we look at the emotions of the actors, and exactly repeat their dialogues, along with facial expressions and movements, while it is desirable to turn off the brain altogether, just repeat everything like children. Such training helps to bring phrases and words straight into the subconscious, and emotions in this case will serve as an anchor for restoring them in memory. After a while, you will be able to speak without thinking.

And of course, do not forget about the regularity of "training", preferably every day for at least an hour. Unfortunately, I'm not very patient, so this technique did not suit me.

2 way. The second is more likely not a method, but an integrated approach. That is, this is the use of techniques for different areas of perception, more specifically, it is self-study using the course, lesson that is right for you, plus parallel reading of books and watching movies. Here we will talk about this method in more detail.

Pimsleur Courses

To begin with, I was very satisfied pimsler- This polyglot who developed a system for studying various foreign languages. The course is suitable for learning the language from scratch. Those who already know something will be bored at the first stages, but don't underestimate the basics. I also wanted to quickly jump over the basics, since I knew many words. However, I had problems with composing sentences, Pimsler just teaches both words from the basics and composing phrases when communicating.

The course consists of audio tracks - 90 lessons of 30 minutes each, the lessons are composed with a certain exposure of pauses, calculated for correct memorization. Officially, only the first part of 30 lessons has been published in Russia, but thanks to enthusiasts, the remaining 60 lessons can be used, even if not of the best quality.

You need to practice at least 1 time per day, and preferably 2 (morning and evening), however, it is strictly forbidden to listen to 2 lessons in a row. Each lesson must be completed as many times as you remember everything (at least twice). And don't be lazy, skip what you "sort of" know.

After 30 lessons, you will be able to somehow communicate with foreigners, and after the whole course you will feel even more confident. Unfortunately, this will not be enough to communicate fluently in English.

Educational videos

Plus to Pimsleur exchange rate I found a simple series in English on the Internet. At first glance, the video looks like an ordinary youth series (like Helen and the Guys, if you remember this one), but in fact it is a training program designed in such a way that many words and phrases can be understood purely subconsciously, since the characters are very emotional and often point to the things they are talking about. The series are only 20 minutes long, you can watch every day, in addition, it is very funny, I recommend it, it is called ExtraEnglish.

For pulling up grammar, I would advise one more video course, released on the channel "Culture" under the name "Polyglot. English in 16 hours”. The program is built according to the type of a real lesson: the presenter, as a teacher, on the one hand, and little-known actors as students, on the other.

Right at the “lesson” various grammatical tasks are given, and if something is not clear, it is immediately sorted out. Lessons are 40 minutes each, and since the lead teacher gives 2-3 days to work out the tasks, they are easy to combine with films of the type described above.

A little about applications for Android systems

I understand that it is very difficult to force yourself to do all this, especially if the teacher is “virtual” and cannot give me a “deuce”. Especially for such "lazy people" as I have created a cool application for smartphones and tablets on the Android OS, called exactly the same "Polyglot". Each grammar lesson is based exactly on assignments video lessons so everything should be clear.

English, as far as I know, is one of the easiest languages ​​to learn. If you asked this question, if you really want to learn English language, then you will succeed, the main thing is patience and daily vocabulary replenishment. Grammar is an integral part of the English language. It is not difficult to study it. You can learn grammar from scratch using Golitsynsky. Everything is quite simple and clearly explained. Rules and to consolidate the exercise. There are answers on the Internet where you can check yourself. I also want to recommend a program such as "Memrise", there are videos with native speakers along the way, with the help of which you will learn the correct pronunciation, which is very important. "Duolingo" is also very good program, where you can replenish your vocabulary for a certain group of words. To learn English better, you need to immerse yourself in the English environment, I think you have heard this 300 times already. Read everything that comes across in English. Titles after the movie, advertisements, posters, graffiti... Your brain will gradually get used to this language and it will come to you more easily. To immerse yourself in the environment of the most beautiful English, you need to read books and watch films in English. If books can be translated in Google as you read and write down unfamiliar words in a dictionary, then with films everything is a little more complicated. English is hard to understand by ear. Yes, it is worth distinguishing between English: British and American. I think, for listening perception, first watch American TV shows. The dumbest, they have the most simple and easy to understand dialogues. If you want to master noble British English, then by studying grammar, irregular verbs, idioms, etc., the main thing! replenish your vocabulary, you can start watching Sherlock, there is the purest British English. I only advise you to watch it with subtitles, because Benedict's speech, even for a true connoisseur, is difficult to hear. Watch serials without Russian subtitles, because that way you won't learn English. Try to think about their speech, intonation, gradually you will begin to understand the meaning. When reading subtitles, you will not catch the construction of sentences, construction, pronunciation, and you will not pay attention to their speech at all. I speak from experience. Take a series like How I Met Your Mother or Sex in big city", then it's your choice. Watch half of the series with English subtitles, half without. At first you won't understand much, and then you'll think in this language. Seriously. Books. Books in English definitely need to be read. Even from scratch. Take "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". The simplest book. You have to memorize the construction of sentences, so that later, when writing or speaking, you instinctively build sentences correctly. It's like when you read a lot of Russian classics, you become more literate. Everything is the same with English. Books in general work wonders. I forgot to mention one more useful program. "EWE" is a very useful thing. Here you choose a movie / TV series / cartoon, learn all the words you need to watch it in the original and you will be happy. Then watch, understand English speech without difficulty and experience pride in one's efforts.Verb tenses.The English don't use all the tenses, they need 3 at most. She is very complex. But if you master it, you will be incredibly proud of yourself. And self-education and self-improvement are very important things. Music. One of the most enjoyable ways in learning English. Just listen to your favorite bands every day. All. Get used to speaking English. You can start English by watching cartoons. For example "Peppa Pig", there is basic English. "Gravity Falls" is already more difficult, but very interesting and funny. I've re-watched season 2 about 30 times. Read articles on the Internet in English. Twitter posts. A very useful thing has appeared on Instagram that translates foreign speech. It works like this. 1. Subscribe to the person you are interested in from England / America. 2. Read the entry under the photo. 3. Translate it. Sami. 4. Click on the "show translation" button and check yourself. I think you know about it. English is a very easy language. Nowadays, it is especially easy to learn. So many manuals, courses, useful things on the Internet. IN in social networks There are groups for learning foreign languages. They work, tested on myself. It's up to you whether you scroll through the post about English or read it and become a little smarter. Personally, how I learned English: Golitsynsky (green reference book), applications on the phone, series. Applications are very useful. Ride the subway, open the app, learn a couple of new words. Practice it. Speak out loud in English. Write stories or letters with words you know. That's the whole secret.

There are many different ways to learn English, but not all of them are effective. It often happens that people study for 3-6 months or 1-2 years, but there are no expected results. Imagine how much time, effort and money wasted.

Is it possible to understand at an early stage whether the training will be effective or not? Of course yes. You just need to know what to look for.

I will tell you about 5 signs by which you can do it. You will learn how to correct the situation and direct your learning in the right direction.

Rake or why I decided to write this article?

For 10 years, many people came to our courses who had previously studied English in different places: at school, in other courses, with a tutor, with a native speaker, via Skype, abroad, etc. Many of them had negative learning experience which I want to talk about.

One person studied with a native speaker for 3 months from scratch. As a result, his level did not change, since he did not understand the teacher well (with a zero level), but the classes were fun.

One girl studied computer courses for a year (under a contract that she could not terminate). As a result, she improved her grammar, but she could not speak. As a result, she signed up for Level 3 with us, which can be achieved in just 3, not 12 months.

One man studied at a foreign school according to the classical method for 5 months. As a result, he knew the rules well, but could not speak English.

If all these people understood and knew what to look for in the learning process, they would have avoided these failures. Now I will tell you what you need to look at during training so as not to step on the same rake.

Sign 1: You are forgetting the words you learned

Do you know the situation when you went through a new topic and learned a list of 10-20 words, and after a few weeks you can remember only 2-4 words from them? Does it happen to you that you are trying to remember a word that you recently passed, but you can’t?

If you're having these problems, then it's time to make a change in the learning process. After all, if you learn words, and after a week forget them, then waste a lot of time. Isn't it a shame to waste your time and energy and not get results?

Let's see why this happens and how to deal with it.

Reasons for forgetting words:

• You learn words by heart (cram)
• Do not reinforce words in conversational practice
• Don't use the words you've learned
• Don't do your homework

What should be done in order not to forget the words?

Recommendation: In order not to forget words, you need to learn them correctly. What does "correctly" mean? We have talked about this many times on the blog. In this article, a step-by-step procedure for learning new words is written. Just do everything step by step, and you will stop forgetting them!

Sign 2: You are confused when building sentences

Are you familiar with situations where you think: use present time Simple or Present Continuous, put the article a or the, put to before the verb or not, say I were or I was? If you have these and many other questions in your head, this is another warning sign.

Everything is connected in English. Simple topics add up to more complex ones. If you miss something at the very beginning, in the future you will not be able to correctly form sentences and speak English.

You will constantly have to return to the topics covered and clarify them. As a result, you have a mess of English rules in your head.

Causes of errors in the construction of sentences:

• You learn the rules without clarifying or understanding them
• You do not fully understand how to correctly compose sentences using the rule
• Do not practice their use in writing and orally

You also need to document the use of these schemes in writing. The best way to do this is to write your own sentences using the rule. Please note that exercises from textbooks where you need to fill in gaps in sentences are useless.

Sign 3: Don't speak English in the course

You have been studying English for a month, but you cannot say a single sentence within the framework of the material you have studied or maintain a dialogue on a topic you have recently studied?

If this is the case, then you need to change the teaching method as soon as possible. We learn language in order to communicate. It is not enough to know and understand the rules, to easily do written exercises. It is imperative to speak.

Reason for not being able to speak English:

• Complete in class
• Conversational practice is present in small quantities
• Lots of writing exercises and reading texts
• Learning texts by heart

When you go through the rules, you gain knowledge. Immediately after that, you should develop the skill of using the rule, that is, you should make a lot of oral sentences with this rule.

For example, you have a lesson of 1.5 hours. You are going through the verb to be in the present tense. First, you will discuss when we need to use it and how to build affirmative sentences. On average, it will take 10-20 minutes.

Sign 4: You do not see the result of training

Being engaged in English, you should see the result of learning immediately. In English, it is easy to measure - it is the ability to speak correctly.

If you speak better, more correctly with each lesson, your speech becomes more literate, then everything is fine. That is what you need to focus on.

How to track all this? Let's look at the result using the example of a person learning English with 0. Explanations under the table.

	0 week	end of 3 weeks	end of week 5	end of week 8
Knowledge of times	0	present simple	present simple past simple	present simple past simple Future Simple
Ability to speak	0	present simple	present simple past simple	present simple past simple Future Simple

At first, you start learning the language almost from scratch: you don’t know how sentences are built, naturally, you don’t know how to speak (week 0 in the table). It does not matter where and how you study (in courses, at home, with a tutor), the program will include the study of the times of the Simple group (Simple times).

If you study correctly, in 2 months you should it's easy to talk within these times. This is your end result.

But you will also have intermediate results. Having studied the Present Simple tense, by the end of the 3rd week you should understand how sentences are built in this tense and should be able to do it orally.

This way, you will already be able to speak within this tense and move on to the next one.

If you cannot speak within the framework of the material covered, then continuing to study as you study, you will not get a result.

Reasons for the lack of results:

• Irregular classes (1-2 times a week)
• Short class time (up to 2 hours)
• Long break between lessons (more than 2 days)
• Lack of speaking practice

If you have no progress in learning, then your classes are either not organized correctly, or are aimed only at obtaining theoretical knowledge.

Sign 5: You are afraid or embarrassed to speak English

Have you ever wanted to ask a foreigner something while traveling, but didn't dare to do it?

It would seem that everything is going well: you understand the rules, you can read and write, but you have a fear of speaking English with other people. Why is this happening?

Reasons for the barrier:

• Lack of speaking practice
• Communication with only 1 person

Moreover, it is desirable to do this not with one person, but with different ones. If you talk to 10 people, then you can easily do it with the 11th.

Plus, each person has his own way of speaking, his own pace of speech, etc. Communicating with different people, you will not experience discomfort and problems in understanding someone else's speech.

For example, by attending group classes or a conversation club, you get used to communicating with different people, and in real life you are unlikely to encounter such a problem.

If you follow them or restructure your training for them, then you will see the result immediately (learn/begin to speak).

If you cannot change your studies due to circumstances, for example, you study in courses or with a tutor, then consider changing them. As I wrote above, you should see the result immediately. If you have been studying for a month and still do not speak within the framework of the material covered, then, unfortunately, nothing will change later.

I described the consequences of improper training at the beginning of the article.

So, what you need to get the result of training, you need:

1. Learn words correctly
2. Understand the rules instead of learning them by heart
3. Reinforce every rule/word in speaking practice
4. Speak English with different people, not just one person

Only then will you be able to practice effectively and get the results you expect.

Me Lately for some reason, people often ask where and how I learned English, that I speak so well. Moreover, Americans are asking this question more and more often, which I consider a great achievement. I speak, of course, far from being perfect, but in all domestic and professional situations I can quite cope with communication. I even studied for a certificate, where for all students and teachers, except for me, English was their native language.

I hope my experience will be useful to someone.

So, what do you need to learn English. Lots of letters :)

School and university English lessons are completely forgotten, I passed the exams not for the top three - and well. At one time, while still at school, my mother tried very hard: she sent me to a language tutor, because I was far behind. I can’t say that school and university somehow strongly influenced my language skills, but the tutor managed to drive into me a table of English irregular verbs, about twenty or thirty. I still sometimes confuse them, because some of the forms in that textbook, as it turned out, do not correspond to reality.

By the end of university, I could say "Hi" in English and slowly read a short article from a children's dictionary book (or better yet, with a duplicate translation on the next page). In general, the standard level of English for the average non-translation student.

For the next few years, I didn't need English, except for a very limited technical vocabulary, so I happily forgot everything I knew and learned earlier.

Then an epiphany happened.

Two events coincided at once: a colleague, an American of Swiss origin, came to my husband at work, and we went somewhere out of town for a corporate party. She chatted merrily with her Russian colleagues, who already spoke good English, and I sat to the side and looked at her with all my eyes. Then for half an hour I decided to come up and say "hello, how are you, I'm Nina." She came up, spoke out, mixed up all the letters and words and did not understand the answer. But she was persistent, did not leave the foreign guest and tried to communicate (which, I think, made her sick). She asked to show her the city the next day, communicating mainly with gestures. So there was an interest in the language.

The American left, but the interest remained. I tried to warm it up as best I could: pumped up free Stanford lectures on psychology through iTunes (I was just studying at the Psychology Faculty), tried to master some books.

I listened to lectures on my phone every day, on the way to and from work, on the way from school to school, and just in every free moment. I did not understand anything, except for familiar terms that seem to sound in Russian. The lectures turned into the usual background noise, and I still did not understand anything.

I somehow didn’t think of online forums and irts. But I came up with another solution: when I heard some of my colleagues (hello, Katya!) talking to clients on the phone in English, I asked if the boss had any objections and wrote a confused letter to our English-speaking (British) colleague with a request to speak to me sometimes by Skype.

The colleague agreed and we started talking for an hour a week. At first, he mostly spoke, but I listened and did not understand anything, as was the case with my lectures. Hearing an interrogative intonation, I tried to quickly collect the meaning of the question from the understood pieces and tried to somehow answer it. She spoke slowly, badly and inappropriately, and answered the wrong questions that were actually asked. Thank you patient colleague :)

Three months later, a colleague informed the boss that I was making progress. the beginning new era my English became the following case. One of our British clients had an urgent situation: it was necessary to order a server from a hosting company with certain settings, and at that time there was no special person who was responsible for communicating with this client and knew what to do. And I knew the configuration of the server that was needed.

And so, at one fine moment, the boss called me and said, "Nina, help me out!". Whether it happened by accident or on purpose, I don't know. It was necessary to call a live client in Britain, explain to him that everything is fine, clarify the requirements, and then call the hosting provider in America and negotiate with them. For about ten minutes I looked at the phone without breathing, then I asked a colleague for an extracurricular conversation, and then finally made up my mind and called. Everything turned out to be easier than I thought!

Since then, that client has become "my" client, and over time, others have appeared. It got to the point that I communicated in English every day, whether by short letters or by phone.

Movies were also a good help. First with Russian voice acting and English subtitles. Then - on the contrary. Then - with English subtitles, and eventually without them at all.

I read my first book in English with great difficulty when I was in the hospital with pneumonia in early 2009. I just decided that I wouldn’t take anything else there, there was no Internet either, and somehow I didn’t get a dictionary. Forced myself to read almost every word aloud, whether I knew it or not. I understood from there about twenty percent maximum, basically that in the middle it was bad, but it ended well. The book was called "Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance".

Then we moved to America. "Yeah," I thought, "I'm smart now and I know English." No matter how.

Somehow I could only communicate on technical topics, somehow I understood only the British accent. At first, I was terribly frightened of cashiers in supermarkets (they are trying to talk to me!), I asked to repeat everything four times, and then again slowly. Go-in-ri-te-yas-not-e. But a joke or a polite greeting repeated five times ... well, you yourself know.

The first impulse was to puppet, look at everyone gloomily and stop communicating with those who do not understand the Russian language. Post-movement depression, that's all. I don’t know how or why, but I didn’t let myself do it and kept trying. Then I started going to meetups (local "gatherings of interest"). Then she stopped hiding on them. Then I began to timidly answer questions about where I was from.

Accents gradually became more understandable, both their own and those of others. I carefully looked into the mouth of each "native speaker" and tried to absorb how they pronounce sounds. Very often I needed a "rest" from English, but each time after the break I understood a little more and spoke a little better. The brain needs time to adjust.

Rather long than short, but my knowledge of the language has reached the point of "I can communicate normally." I started working at the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and I started speaking English every day again. Even though my immediate boss was Russian-speaking, the rest of my colleagues didn't speak Russian at all. Then I began to do more for a "brotherly" software project, and very soon my immediate supervisor was the chief of the chief, a Native American.

Now I rate my English as native. Yes, I don’t know some words (it happens rarely), but very often I can either understand their meaning from the context, or by asking an English-speaking colleague for an explanation, remember the meaning. As with the terms in Russian. Yes, I still have a Russian accent, but I already intotone almost like a local. My accent gets stronger when I'm nervous, and I sometimes forget some words, but I can always explain what I wanted to say. I can understand what the interlocutor said to me, even if he has an accent, he speaks too quickly or jumps from one to another. Sometimes "native" Americans even compliment me.

Well, I will end this long post with a summary (if anyone is too lazy to read). What helped me personally:

1. Listen to as many recordings in English as possible, preferably in your area of ​​interest.
And it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand anything in them: the subconscious mind still captures and remembers the structure of sentences, word forms, and so on. This is how children learn English, and they do well!

2. Watch movies with English voice acting.
Best of all with English subtitles to remember both visually and aurally. Best of all sitcoms or TV series: they are usually designed for the "average" viewer, and many situations can be understood intuitively. Films that have already been watched in Russian are also doing well.

3. Try to speak/write/communicate in English.
The Internet is a great thing. You can find people on thematic forums, on Skype, on special sites. You can enable voice chat in games. The main thing is to overcome the initial fear that “what if they don’t understand”, and try again and again.

5. Keywords: interest, persistence.
There will be failures. You will not be understood, you will want to cry from your own helplessness and stupidity, you yourself will not understand a word. Especially at first. This is a normal process, as it should be! The main thing is to be persistent, try again, and good luck will overtake you unnoticed.

Interest will help keep you motivated even through setbacks. The main thing is to look for books, films, lectures, radio programs and the like - in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bits interests. If you are not interested in reading about the types of bearings in Russian, it will be even more difficult in English. If you are touched to the core by the fate of penguins in Australia, read / listen about them in English.

And it doesn't matter if you don't understand anything right now. The main thing is to watch, listen, try! Soak up everything you can get your hands on. The rest will come with time.