In English, I have achieved a certain level of fluency that is sufficient for functioning efficiently in society, but still does not represent my personality adequately. Hence, I constantly work on expanding my vocabulary. A couple of weeks ago, my English-speaking friend mentioned the word “laborious.” I figured out that it derived from the word […]
Private Tutors vs. Language Partners
We live in a wonderful, exciting time. With so many language exchange platforms available today, everybody with a smartphone may learn any language at no cost. Yet, along with LE applications and websites, language learning marketplaces for private tutors and students are booming. Who wants to pay for a tutor, when everybody can practice any […]
How to Memorize the Russian Alphabet
The Russian alphabet scares a lot of people off from learning Russian. This is sad, because the language itself is no more difficult than any other language in the world. Russian children have a little advantage over speakers of languages that use the Latin script, because Latin characters surround Russians everywhere – from vitamins, to […]
Start Writing in Your Target Language Right Now
Every language learner knows that feeling: desperate helplessness when trying to produce a sentence in a target language. You may have advanced to the degree where you enjoy sophisticated books and movies in the language you are learning, but when it comes to speaking, you feel like a beginner – lost, panicked, and embarrassed. No […]
How To Keep Learning In Summer
Summer is probably the best and the worst time for language learners. Summer breaks and vacations give you a lot of spare time. Nobody tells you what to do—no busy office schedule, no boring one-size-fits-all (or rather, one-size-fits-none) curriculum. You are finally free to do what you want, for example, start to read books in […]
How Do We Memorize Words?
When I was working on my master thesis in the university, I found a very interesting book that cardinally changed my perception of speech and language. The book, written by language philosopher and linguist Boris Gasparov was titled rather vaguely: Language, Memory, Image. Behind those three words was the whole new concept of human speech. […]
Another Success Story: Preparing For Russian Certification Exams
The best news a teacher can hear from her student is that the student has successfully passed important exams. That is exactly what happened to me last Friday: I woke up, grabbed my smartphone and found an email from one of my students with the good news inside. My student worked hard and received a […]
18 Meanings Of the Nominative Case. Really?
What can be easier than the Nominative case? It is the basic, the original form of a noun, and its major role in a sentence is to be a subject. This is what I thought until I opened a Russian as Foreign language test guide (Требования по русскому языку как иностранному). Surprisingly, the authors of […]
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Q&A: Practicing Pronunciation And Specifically Щ
Hey! A fellow learner here. I was wondering if you have any tip or site to practice Russian pronunciation, especially words those with “щ”, the hardest Cyrillic letter to pronounce as I have read in some pages. Thanks for your time and help! 🙂 Hi! Pronunciation is probably the hardest part of the second language […]
Rules? What Rules?
A few days ago, I watched a video of an English lesson for foreign students. Observing other teachers working with real students is a part of the Teaching English as Second Language certification, so I watched a young lady explaining to her students how to add the ending -(e)s to English verbs in the Present […]