It is not difficult to become polyglot

This year I have been published by the next five books and a series of articles. Obviously, not idle words, if solid publishers willingly take them, and readers are sold out. At the same time, I work alone, I have neither secretaries, nor subordinate employees, nor positions that allow the use of their work as their own. Meanwhile, I work a lot, regularly, but not so unremarkable. Colleagues are surprised at my performance, and the focus is simply revealed: I lived for a long time, worked a lot and accumulated a lot of developments and materials, as well as the skills to be in a disposal of work, now I put them in the course. Among the factors contributing to this is knowledge of languages. Books that many with difficulty and pointing have to be translated, I just read or see.

I was lucky: in the family I am the second university generation. Parents were doctors, therefore, they owned Latin, and spoke other languages. But we, children, were not specially taught languages, taught music. We mastered the languages ​​from his youth ourselves: we wanted to have access to information that the authorities did not devote to us. Therefore, the school paid serious attention to German, and independently began to teach Polish and English. Why Polish? Because of the “countries of folk democracy” Poland was the most advanced to freedom, and Polish radio was not jammed and Polish books were sold in stores. And Polish is easier: close to Russian and Belarusian, and we owned Belarusian. English was mastered after Polish and German. Languages ​​came in handy more than once in a life. At the front, I was actually used as a translator. When I went unemployed, he worked part -time with translations.

A sample of polyglot is usually given by the famous archaeologist Henry Shliman. He spoke many languages, but everyone is bad. He taught Russian according to the dentifier and archaic poem of Trediakovsky. Even having lived for 20 years in Russia, he spoke Russian with hilarious mistakes. Sophia called his Greek wife in letters to Russia "My Homeric Wife". Similar mistakes in Russia caused his Russian son -in -law (the brothers of the first wife) a homeric laughter when he said that he wanted to perform in Russian journalism.

The program of independent language learning has developed gradually from my own experience. I describe it in my memoirs, but here I repeat. It is based on several considerations. We learn the language for many years at school and institute, and outside special schools few more than two or three common phrases. And the child, not knowing any language, assimilates him in a year - freely! So we teach incorrectly. Of course, the children's brain is adapted to such assimilation, but after all, we, adults, have reason, experience and will. We must look at how the child assimilates the tongue. He does not teach words, does not teach the rules. He captures whole phrases in the appendix to specific situations, and then thinks that individual words in such a phrase can be replaced by others, and on the move he assimilates the rules of such a replacement.

The words themselves are remembered by not isolated memorization. So it is incredibly difficult to remember them - try to seal the page of the dictionary! But the page of a meaningful text is already easier, even easier - poems, but quite easy - a song. The greater the organization of the text, the easier it is to memorize it. And so you need to memorize.

In the language of at least 200 thousand words - this is when you memorize them! But in reality we never use all wealth and native language. We do not know all his words (the passive dictionary of any person is the least of all the dictionary of the language), and we use even less (our active dictionary is much less passive). We do not know what the word “a hundred -bearing” means, but we know how to use it. The dictionary of famous writers-several tens of thousands of words, the active dictionary of an ordinary person-more than the dictionary of Ellochka-cereal, but still only a few thousand, passive-more.

To master the language, we do not need to know the whole dictionary. The linguists found out (this is written by a wonderful researcher and my colleague in the Trinity Variant R.M. Frumkin) that if in some text it is destroyed randomly up to 30% of words, then the text is still understandable, over 30% is already misunderstood. But 70% of the text is not 70% of the dictionary! After all, the words are repeated, and there are words that are repeated very often. The so -called frequency dictionaries of the language have been created - where the words are located according to their use (starting with the most used). So it was established that 2000 of the most used words of the language make up 70% of any text! It is enough to learn these 2000 words - and any text is clear! On one condition: what you speak the grammar of this language.

Knowing the grammar, you can understand a lot in any phrase. Academician Shcherba invented a phrase consisting of completely meaningless (nonexistent) words, but built according to all the rules of Russian grammar, with all the ends: "Gloka Kudra Shteco boiled and courjachita." Full Abracadabra. But who acts in this phrase? Kudra. What kind of kudra? Gloka. How many times did she boocked Bocra? One, otherwise it would be: Budlala. Who is the sides? Of course, the cub cocra, etc.

So, learning the language is not at all difficult. It is only necessary to master the grammar system and rationally learn the necessary not so much of the dictionary. But for a distinct understanding and good impression, the correct pronunciation is also necessary.

Therefore, proceeding to the language, I began with the development of pronunciation. To do this, I took a university or other textbook and phono -recording - now this good is as much as you like. There are also radio. It is good to use knowledgeable acquaintances, they will not refuse to check.

Then I took the grammar. I drew myself the tables of declension and conjugation and trained in the run of individual words according to these schemes. Then he searched for exercises in textbooks, especially built as models-frazes in which it is necessary to replace certain “details”. Tables are drawn in which the phrase is painted in all columns, and under each word there are those that can be replaced so that the meaning changes.

Having worked like this for a couple of months, I took some interesting foreign book to me (certainly interesting to pull to it) and began to translate the phrase behind the phrase with the dictionary using his knowledge of grammar. About three months of translation was enough so that in many words it was no longer necessary to climb into the dictionary every time. For someone, this period can drag on longer-it depends on the time that everyone can devote to classes: someone half an hour, someone for two or three hours.

Especially dependence on the dictionary will decrease if you take reverse translations: today from foreign to Russian, tomorrow - from its Russian translation back to a foreign, and to verify.

Having reached such a state, you need to take the next step, psychologically very important: a gap from the dictionary. You put off the dictionary to the side and translate by the hunch, and then fill the empty places in the dictionary. Now you can read the whole book to the end.

One or two books will be enough to be free to read literature. But this is not the knowledge of the conversational language. For the development of colloquial speech, you need to teach foreign thematic dialogs, the meaning of which is clear to you, by heart. To teach them how the artist teaches the role - representing himself in this situation. If this is a scene in a restaurant, then once thinking of himself in the role of a waiter, another - as a visitor. At the same time, change some words, adapting a dialogue to your situation. The more dialogs you learn, the greater the range of your conversations. Yes, your possibilities will be initially narrow, but you can not support any conversation in Russian. And I'm not anyone.

At first it will seem to you that you are doing, doing, and now there. But suddenly a foreigner turned to you on the street for help, you understood and answered the question, he asked another thing-he answered again. And suddenly I realized that you were talking!

Well, there are still additional funds - to memorize a day on the everyday phrase from the phrasebook, learn songs, develop a system of repetitions (repeat the next day, then after three days, then slightly in a week). But certainly engaged every day. Subsequently, exercise the language, especially by helping foreigners, correspondence and independent composition of their speeches, which you have to speak regularly.

In the understanding of grammatical structures, the ability to catch an analogy with the Russian language helps a lot. For example, German Perfekt immediately becomes clear, if you suggest that it is in Russian, then it is in a colloquial dialect. For example, when an illiterate old woman says about his son: "He (is) departed . " The verb -binding “is” in Russian falls, in German and English -No. What does it mean? That he left and has not yet returned (that is, that the action of the verb continues). This is a typical Perfekt: "Er ist Gegangen." And if it is said: “When you came last time, he was Leaving ? » This is plusquamperfekt (in English Past Perfect).

There are also articles in Russian dialects, only they are not facing nouns, but after them. In the provinces they say: "Husband-with his wife was beaten, and the children were crying." What is this - from , - TU , - those ? These are typical articles: change by childbirth and numbers.

And one more remark: the second foreign one is twice as easier than the first, and the third is three times easier. Because, firstly, there are a lot of common words, and secondly, subconsciously (or even consciously) some inter-sized correspondences, grammatical schemes, the general structure of the language, and the logic of speech are absorbed.

In a word, it is not so difficult to become a polyglot. Only observation, systematicity and a little impudence are needed.