In order to learn a language, as a rule, you need two main things: firstly, it great desire. It must be just crazy. And secondly, this enough money. But to learn English on your own, you don’t need any money - all you need is a great desire and a good level of self-discipline. So, English from scratch lesson 1 says - to learn to speak English, you just need to want it. It’s as simple as that – if there is no desire, then nothing will happen. There is a great desire and brutal interest - you will achieve everything you want. In addition, there are 6 more tools that will help you achieve your goal.
- The most important thing is learning new words. In order to learn English from scratch, you don’t need to immediately overwhelm yourself with new words. Every day you need to learn 20 new words, no more. 20 words need to be not only memorized, but learned. An excellent solution would be to hang lists on the walls so that you always remember them. It is advisable to start by choosing words on general topics - for example, colors, names of objects, body parts, professions, animals, and so on. Thus, you will have 24 hours to study 20 words - this is quite enough.
- Read. Stories, articles, fairy tales. This is another good option to learn English from scratch. There is also no need to overdo it - one small article a day is the required minimum, increasing your level of knowledge and increasing your vocabulary. When reading, you should try to immediately understand only the general meaning of what you read, while trying not to look for translations of unfamiliar words in the dictionary - look carefully at the entire sentence. Words in English have many meanings, so it is important to understand the meaning of the entire sentence, not just a single word.
- Songs. This is another way to learn English. Notice how many foreign songs have penetrated our lives - we hum them without even understanding the words. Learning English from scratch according to the program usually does not involve learning songs, but, as it seems to us, it is much easier to learn the translation of already known songs than to learn completely unfamiliar words. Parse, or better yet, only one verse or chorus, paying attention to set expressions that are very often found in songs. Try to select a more traditional type of material to study, without using songs of complex styles, as it happens that English speakers themselves do not understand the words of these songs.
- Along with books, articles and songs, watch movies to learn a language. This is English lesson 4 from scratch. But again, not every movie is suitable. The rule here is - select only those films that you have already watched in Russian translation and that you liked. There are real examples when a person learned a language only from the films or TV series he watched. While watching a movie, write down unfamiliar words and phrases if possible, and then learn them. In this case, of course, you will need subtitles. The main advantage of this method is that you hear words that are unfamiliar to you, but already know how they are translated. This is undoubtedly a big plus.
- The most important point in learning any language is communication with its native speaker. And learning English is no exception. Students who constantly communicate, for example, with the English, achieve success much faster than others, and the quality and correctness of their conversation and understanding are an order of magnitude higher. The secret may lie in the fact that most of the expressions they use in conversation cannot be found in a regular dictionary. Do you know how many greeting phrases there are? In any case, practice is always more useful than theory.
- Learn to speak correctly!To do this, in addition to new words and expressions, you need to study grammar and the correct formation of various sentences. Very often mistakes are made when using such common words as Both, Either, Neither, Nor and So, Some and Any, Little and Few, Much and Many, modal verbs and so on. But their use comes down to just a few rules. After studying these rules, be sure to test your understanding of them using a variety of tests and exercises. They will help you identify weaknesses in what you have learned and consolidate your knowledge.
Learn English. Show others and yourself, first of all, that you can achieve any goal you set in life!
If you have never learned English or you once learned at school, but completely forgot everything, even the alphabet, and now you have decided to start learning English from scratch, then our advice on where to start and how to move may be useful to you. The first and most important thing is to understand how much you need the language, why you need it, and whether you have enough resources to learn the language.
Motivation
Motivation should be your driving force; without it, you will not be able to practice the language daily for a long time. Without daily practice it is impossible to master this huge layer of knowledge. If there is no obvious motivation, but there is a burning desire to learn the language, then you should think about what knowledge of the language will give you - maybe it’s a new prestigious job or the opportunity to read specialized literature on topics that interest you, or maybe you travel a lot and want to fully communicate with people around the world or correspond with foreign friends.
Your motivation may still be in the subconscious. Try to extract it from there, it will play a decisive role in your successful progress in mastering the English language.
Choosing a teaching method
Your next step should be to choose teaching methods or teachers. Now students have access to very good language materials and a large number of teachers who are ready to study via Skype with students from all over the world. Ideal, of course, is to find a good teacher who is a native speaker. But not everyone can afford such opportunities, and some simply want to study independently and for free, at a convenient time, without any stress, according to their own schedule. Then you need to choose a system that you will follow.
Learning English from scratch takes time
Plan time for studying, you need to study every day, at least 15 - 20 minutes, but it’s better to set aside an hour for studying. In our selection of articles “English from scratch” you will find materials for beginners, audio recordings and videos, exercises, a large number of examples, explanations, as well as links to resources that will help you progress faster.
When choosing your study resources, make sure you like the materials. This is important, all polyglots talk about it. Interest plays a major role in language acquisition. It allows you to achieve more with less effort. Just imagine that you need to learn or translate a text on some boring topic for you, but you will fall asleep after the first phrase! On the contrary, if you come across an interesting book, you will definitely find time to read it. Go ahead, friends, devote your time and attention to the language, and you will raise your English from scratch to fluency. Good luck to all!
Let's start lesson 1 ENGLISH FOR BEGINNERS.
Letters and sounds are not the same thing
We begin learning English with the simplest thing - sounds. Please note - not from letters, but from sounds. There is a big difference between letters and sounds. The word is written with letters, and pronounced with sounds. For example, the Russian word milk written with the letters m-o-l-o-k-o, but pronounced with the sounds m-a-l-a-k-o. Thus, sounds and letters are not the same thing. In order not to confuse one with the other, it is customary to put sounds in square brackets - [m-a-l-a-k-o].
In our English course for beginners, we will first learn to pronounce sounds and then find out what letters can represent these sounds in writing. In this lesson, we will first of all learn those sounds that coincide with Russian (or at least very similar to Russian).
Sounds [m], [f], [v], [p], [b]
The following sounds are almost identical in their pronunciation to Russian:
[m] = [m]_
[f] = [f]_
[v] = [in]_
[p] = [p]_
[b] = [b]_
However, the pronunciation of English sounds has some peculiarities:
The lips are slightly stretched.
At the end of a word, the voiced sounds [v] and [b] are not deafened. For example, in Russian, voiced sounds at the end of words are replaced by their voiceless counterparts. Yes, word oak we pronounce it as [dup], i.e. we stunned the final [b]. This is unacceptable in English!
The sound [p] is pronounced energetically and with slight aspiration (aspiration).
Exercise. Listen and repeat:
Play exercise
[m]–[m]–[m]_[f]–[f]–[f]_
[v]–[v]–[v]_
[p]–[p]–[p]_
[b]–[b]–[b]_
The first English lesson for beginners is over. As you can see, there is nothing difficult in learning English. All you need is a little free time and effort.
There is so much information about English that it is easy to get confused!
Dear readers! I know from my own experience how difficult English is for beginners. And the point is not a lack of textbooks or information, but rather an excess of them, information noise that is impossible to understand.
In this article, I have collected and systematized materials from the site that will be useful for beginners, those who are learning English from scratch. In these articles, I share my opinion on where to start learning a language, what online resources and books are best to use, where to find good video lessons, how to choose courses and where to find an online tutor.
Where to start learning English?
If you decide to learn English “from scratch,” then you need to go from simple to complex, from the most necessary to the rarer. First of all, try to lay the foundation for future knowledge and skills and learn the basics of the language. The most basic knowledge includes:
Having laid the foundation, you need to practice a lot and in a variety of ways in all types of speech activities: reading, listening, writing and speaking in English.
Actually, that's all. You've just taken a short course in language learning! The rest is details and particulars.
You can find the necessary materials both on this site (links above) and in textbooks and online training courses for beginners. I recommend that at the initial stage you study using a textbook for independent study (self-instruction manual). In my opinion, the most convenient way to learn the basics of a language is from a textbook, using interactive materials, such as vocabulary cards, as auxiliary materials.
You can also use mine as a tutorial.
What websites are there for English language beginners?
The main advantage of the textbook is that the material is presented in a methodically correct order, in convenient portions. You don’t have the feeling that you are wandering in the dark; the textbook literally leads you by the hand, giving extremely specific instructions. But in addition to textbooks, you can also study using educational programs - they contain a lot of audiovisual materials, and the learning process is built in a game form. The following sites are suitable for beginners:
“Teacher Method” – a step-by-step course for children and adults
“Teacher Method” is an interactive course for different levels, starting from almost zero. It includes courses of three difficulty levels for adults and children, as well as a separate children's course for the little ones.
In the course for beginners, learning begins with the alphabet, all explanations are made in the form of short videos in Russian with explanations from teachers, and tasks are given in the form of interactive exercises. The material is chewed down to the smallest detail. The service is paid, but is available free of charge in a limited form.
Lingvaleo is a service for self-learning English using:
The lesson plan is created automatically and looks like a list of “Today's tasks”, but it is not necessary to follow it. The site has a lot of audio, video and text materials of different levels of complexity - from simple to original materials of foreign TV, so it is suitable not only for lesson-based language learning, but also for practice in reading and listening. Most of the features are free, but for an additional fee you can purchase interactive courses (for example, grammar or English for children) and unlock some word learning modes.
Duolingo
A free interactive course, in which, like in the “Teacher Method,” you need to go from lesson to lesson. But there are almost no explanations here; training is built on a different principle. You need to complete tasks, studying the practical side of grammar and applying the vocabulary learned at the beginning of the lesson in practice: constructing and translating phrases. It is not advisable to take this course as a basis for learning English, but it is suitable as an auxiliary educational game.
English for beginners: free video lessons
Useful Internet resources are not limited to just educational sites. Fortunately, there are now a lot of useful, interesting and free video lessons. Lessons are available in both Russian and English.
For beginners, it is better to start with lessons in Russian. For example:
I believe that it is better for beginners to study with Russian-speaking teachers, and here’s why:
- He better understands the peculiarities of teaching Russian-speaking students.
- At the initial stage, it is better to explain tasks and rules in Russian.
- It will be too difficult for you to understand a teacher who does not speak Russian.
The principles of language learning are very simple and have been known for a long time.
1. Set specific and achievable goals
It is much more convenient to move towards a goal when it is marked than when it is an unclear fog over the horizon. Why did you decide to learn the language in the first place? To get a job as a chief engineer at New Development Engineering? To move in with your aunt in Sydney? Your goals will largely determine how you go about achieving them. For example, if you want to study at a foreign university, you will need to be able to write correctly, which is not so important for a trip to the USA under the Work and Travel program.
It is advisable to set short-term goals in addition to long-term ones. For example, complete lessons 1 – 6 in two weeks, learn 100 words in a week, read the first chapter of Harry Potter in a month, etc. No need to set unrealistic goals. It's better to take small steps, but without stopping.
2. Try to exercise regularly, preferably every day!
Ideally, you need to practice every day for 1-2 hours. In practice, not everyone will be able to do this, but if you really want to, you can set aside at least half an hour a day. The main thing is not to deceive yourself by coming up with excuses about lack of time and crazy busyness. It's okay if you watch half an hour less TV or get things done half an hour earlier.
Even if you are a businessman/supermodel/pizza delivery guy, finding at least 15 minutes a day in your crazy schedule is exactly 15 minutes better than 0 minutes. And don’t forget that you can listen to audio lessons while you’re dying of boredom in a traffic jam.
There is no need to organize crazy marathons once a month either. It is better to exercise for 30 minutes 7 times a week than 210 minutes once a week. What's the point of running a 3-4 hour marathon a day if everything is forgotten within a week?
3. Practice makes perfect
You don't need any great intelligence or talent to learn a language. You just need to practice regularly – that’s all. Pay attention to all aspects of the language: vocabulary, grammar, practice in reading, listening, speaking and writing - and everything will be ok. Don't get hung up on theory and try to practice more.
Language is a means of communication, transmission and perception of information, knowledge, and expression of emotions. They need to be used. Learning a language but not using it is like learning swimming from books without diving into the water. Read and listen more, don’t hesitate to communicate!
“Each new language expands man’s consciousness and his world. It’s like another eye and another ear,” says the hero of Lyudmila Ulitskaya’s book, Daniel Stein. Would you like to expand your picture of the world and find a common language with more than a billion people? For those who answered yes, we will tell you where to start learning English. We hope our guide will help beginners take their first steps and show the right path for those who continue to learn the language.
To get started, we invite you to watch the recording of a two-hour webinar with Victoria Kodak(teacher and methodologist of our online school), in which she answers the question in as much detail as possible about how to properly start learning English:
1. Introduction: When and how best to start learning English
Some adults believe that only children can start learning English from scratch. Some people think that it is a shame for an adult to start with the basics and learn basic rules and words, others believe that only children can successfully learn foreign languages, because they have excellent memory and learning abilities. Both the first and second opinions are wrong. There is nothing shameful in the fact that you start learning a language as an adult, quite the contrary: the thirst for knowledge always inspires respect. According to statistics from our school, people begin to learn a language from the first stage at 20, 50 and even 80(!) years. Moreover, they not only start, but successfully study and achieve high levels of knowledge of English. So it doesn’t matter how old you are, what matters is your desire to learn and your willingness to improve your knowledge.
Many people ask the question: “What is the best way to start learning English?” First, you should choose a learning method that is convenient for you: in Group, individually with a teacher or on one's own. You can read about the pros and cons of each of them in the article “”.
The best option for those who are going to learn a language “from scratch” is lessons with a teacher. You need a mentor who will explain how the language “works” and help you build a strong foundation of your knowledge. The teacher is your interlocutor who:
- will help you start speaking English;
- explains grammar in simple words;
- will teach you to read texts in English;
- and will also help you develop your listening comprehension skills in English.
For some reason you don’t have the desire or opportunity to study with a teacher? Then check out our step by step guide about self-study of English for beginners.
To begin with, we want to give you some tips on how to better organize your studies so that your efforts do not go to waste. We recommend:
- Exercise at least 2-3 times a week for 1 hour. Ideally, you need to study English every day for at least 20-30 minutes. However, if you want to give yourself a weekend, exercise every other day, but in double volume - 40-60 minutes.
- Work on speech skills. Write short texts, read simple articles and news, listen to podcasts for beginners, and try to find someone to talk to to practice your speaking skills.
- Immediately apply the acquired knowledge in practice. Use learned words and grammatical structures in spoken and written speech. Simple cramming will not give the desired effect: knowledge will fly out of your head if you do not use it. If you have learned a dozen words, make up a short story using all these words and say it out loud. We have studied the Past Simple tense - write a short text in which all the sentences will be in this tense.
- Don't "spray". The main mistake beginners make is trying to take as many materials as possible and work with them all at the same time. As a result, the study turns out to be unsystematic, you get confused in the abundance of information and do not see progress.
- Repeat what has been covered. Don't forget to review the material you've covered. Even if it seems to you that you know the words on the topic “Weather” by heart, return to them in a month and check yourself: do you remember everything, do you have any difficulties. Repeating what has been covered is never superfluous. In our blog we have already written about. Familiarize yourself with the techniques and try to put them into practice.
3. Guide: How to start learning English from scratch on your own
Since the English language is still terra incognita for you, we tried to select only the most necessary materials for you. The result is a fairly comprehensive list from which you will learn where to start learning English and how to do it correctly. Let’s say right away that the work ahead will not be easy, but interesting. Let's get started.
1. Learn the rules of reading English
Theater begins with a hanger, and the English language begins with reading rules. This is a basic piece of knowledge that will help you learn to read English and pronounce sounds and words correctly. We recommend using a simple table from the Internet and learning the rules by heart, as well as becoming familiar with the transcription of the English language. This can be done, for example, on the website Translate.ru.
2. Check how words are pronounced
Even if you know the rules of reading by heart, when learning new words, check how they are pronounced correctly. Tricky English words don't want to be read the way they are written. And some of them completely refuse to obey any reading rules. Therefore, we advise you to clarify the pronunciation of each new word in an online dictionary, for example, Lingvo.ru or on a special website Howjsay.com. Listen to how the word sounds several times and try to pronounce it exactly the same. At the same time, you will practice correct pronunciation.
3. Start building your vocabulary
Take advantage of visual dictionaries, for example, use the website Studyfun.ru. Bright pictures, voiced by native speakers and translation into Russian will make it easier for you to learn and memorize new vocabulary.
What words should you start learning English with? We recommend that beginners refer to the list of words on Englishspeak.com. Start with simple words of a general topic, remember which words you use most often in your speech in Russian. In addition, we advise you to spend more time studying English verbs. It is the verb that makes speech dynamic and natural.
4. Learn grammar
If you imagine speech as a beautiful necklace, then grammar is the thread on which you place word beads to ultimately get a beautiful decoration. Violation of the “rules of the game” of English grammar is punishable by misunderstanding of the interlocutor. But learning these rules is not so difficult; all you need to do is study using a good textbook. We recommend taking the first book in the Grammarway series of manuals translated into Russian. We wrote in detail about this book in our review. In addition, we recommend that you read our article “”, from it you will learn what books you will need at the initial stage of learning English.
Do you find textbooks boring? No problem, pay attention to our series of articles “”. In it we lay out the rules in simple terms, provide many examples and tests to test knowledge. In addition, our teachers have compiled for you a simple and high-quality online English grammar tutorial. We also recommend reading the article “”, in it you will find 8 good reasons to take up textbooks, and also find out when you can do without textbooks in learning a language.
5. Listen to podcasts at your level
As soon as you start taking your first steps, you immediately need to accustom yourself to the sound of foreign speech. Start with simple podcasts ranging from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. You can find simple audio recordings with translation into Russian on the website Teachpro.ru. And to get the most out of your listening experience, check out our article “”.
After you have developed a basic vocabulary in English, it's time to start watching the news. We recommend the resource Newsinlevels.com. News texts for the first level are simple. There is an audio recording for each news, so be sure to listen to how words that are new to you sound and try to repeat them after the announcer.
7. Read simple texts
While reading, you activate your visual memory: new words and phrases will be easy to remember. And if you want not just to read, but also to learn new words, improve pronunciation, listen to texts voiced by native speakers, and then read them. You can find simple short texts in textbooks at your level, such as New English File Elementary, or online at this site.
8. Install useful apps
How to start learning English from scratch on your own if you have a smartphone or tablet at hand? Applications for learning English are mini-tutorials that will always be in your pocket. The well-known application Lingualeo is ideal for learning new words: thanks to the spaced repetition technique, new vocabulary will not fade from your memory in a month. And to study the structure and how the language “works,” we recommend installing Duolingo. In addition to learning new words, this application will allow you to practice grammar and learn how to construct sentences in English, and will also help you develop good pronunciation. Also, check out ours and select the programs that interest you most from there.
9. Study online
If you ask Google where to start learning English on your own, the caring search engine will immediately give you a couple of hundred sites with various lessons, online exercises, and articles about learning the language. An inexperienced student is immediately tempted to make 83 bookmarks of “well, very necessary sites on which I will study every day.” We want to warn you against this: with the abundance of bookmarks, you will quickly get confused, but you need to study systematically, without jumping from one topic to another. Bookmark 2-3 really good resources that will help you study. This is more than enough. We recommend doing online exercises on the website Correctenglish.ru. Also check out our article “”, where you will find even more useful resources. And after you master the basics of English, read the article “”, where you can download a file with a list of useful materials and sites for learning the language.
4. Let's summarize
The list is quite large, and we tried to collect for you only the most necessary components of successful learning of the English language. However, we failed to use the most important skill - speaking. It is almost impossible to train him alone. The most you can do is try to find a friend who is learning English. However, a friend with a higher level of knowledge is unlikely to want to study with a beginner, and a beginner like you cannot be an assistant. Moreover, when you work with a non-professional, there is a risk of “catching” his mistakes.
Self-learning a language has one more big disadvantage - lack of control: You will not notice your mistakes and correct them. Therefore, we recommend that you consider taking classes with a teacher at least at the beginning of your journey. The teacher will give you the necessary push and help you choose the right direction of movement - exactly what a beginner needs.
Now you know how to learn English on your own from scratch. We admit that the path ahead will not be easy, but if you have already set a goal for yourself and are ready to work, positive results will not keep you waiting. We wish you patience and perseverance on the path to your goal!
And for those who want to quickly achieve their goal, we offer a teacher at our school.