Thread: good resources for russians learning english

i have a russian friend who wants to improve her english (it's pretty basic). was wondering what online resources (apart from this one that you russians out there use). is there a good russian site that works through and explains the grammar and such in russian?
thanks!

Originally Posted by Lt. Columbo

i have a russian friend who wants to improve her english (it's pretty basic). was wondering what online resources (apart from this one that you russians out there use). is there a good russian site that works through and explains the grammar and such in russian?
thanks!

Why do you think explaining grammar is important? My three year old son speaks English pretty well and he's never had any grammar explained to him.

There are lots of good ways to teach English (I did a program in TESL not long ago), but explaining grammar shouldn't be the main focus of any program (unless you just really love studying grammar for fun). The keys to really learning a language are motivation, a good learning environment, and practice. For self study, by far the best thing a student can do is self directed reading. If your friend finds things she wants to read in English (and if they aren't too difficult to work through), then this is the best way to pick up vocabulary, usage, common structures, etc.

Of course to develop speaking and listening it is best to have conversations.

If you like you could have her contact me through this site and I can send her exercises by email and so forth.

im just helping her out, chatting etc but grammar is important too. i just wondered if there were any good sites set up especially for russians learning english.
thanks for the imput tho, reading is definitely the way forward

Originally Posted by Lt. Columbo

im just helping her out, chatting etc but grammar is important too. i just wondered if there were any good sites set up especially for russians learning english.
thanks for the imput tho, reading is definitely the way forward

See if any of these sites are still working: http://masterrussian.net/mforum/viewtopic.php?t=1656

To say the truth, I, personally, have never read any explanations of English grammar. I didn't learn purposefully the vocabulary either. I find that extremely dreary.
The best way is practice. Chatting, watching films, etc.

Originally Posted by Lt. Columbo

im just helping her out, chatting etc but grammar is important too. i just wondered if there were any good sites set up especially for russians learning english.
thanks for the imput tho, reading is definitely the way forward

I hope I didn't come across as too critical. Grammar is the way language "works" so of course it is important. What I've learned, though, is that it is very DIFFICULT to learn grammar via explanations compared to learning it through use. This is one of the nice things about the Pimsleur method, for instance. There is NO explanation of grammar, but of course you GET grammar as you notice that you have to use different endings, etc.

When you are forced to figure out things on your own, you learn them much more effectively. Also, usually the shorter an explanation is, the better. I love my current Russian textbook because it is almost entirely in Russian. The workbook has 1-2 sentences of grammar explanation in English for each section. That seems about right to me.

here is NO explanation of grammar, but of course you GET grammar as you notice that you have to use different endings, etc.

ya but in pimsluer also u dont actually learn to recognize the grammar... u just learn to reproduce noises.

And if someone says, for example in real life like 'не хочешь чё нибудь выпить' where as pimsluer taught you 'не хочешь выпить чё нибудь'

you probably will be confuse...........!?!?! yes and so you don't really learn grammar (unless you're 3) by listening to people talk.

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

here is NO explanation of grammar, but of course you GET grammar as you notice that you have to use different endings, etc.

ya but in pimsluer also u dont actually learn to recognize the grammar... u just learn to reproduce noises.

And if someone says, for example in real life like 'не хочешь чё нибудь выпить' where as pimsluer taught you 'не хочешь выпить чё нибудь'

you probably will be confuse...........!?!?! yes and so you don't really learn grammar (unless you're 3) by listening to people talk.

Please read ANY of the research on language acquisition from the last 20 years and then come back and let us know what you've found.

i dont know about english, but i dont believe russian can be learned properly without fully mastering at least the cases. when you need to think up independent responses on your own, memorized sentences wont help, unless the case and gender happen to be the same as a previous example. perhaps this is why 99.9 percent of anglo-speaking foreigners speak sucky russian at best. learning a language the natural way is fine if you are younger than 9 years old, after that the natural linguistic acquisition part of the brain is no more. im not trashing pimsluer here, but the best way to learn a language correctly, imho, is to read, watch movies, listen to radio, blast grammar and speak (then go live in the target country), come at it from all different angles. but i guess the most important thing is to recognize what works for you.
oh, and i'd love it if не хочешь выпить чё нибудь was in pimsluer and possibly ну чё, бухать будем?

Tell her to go here http://www.efl.ru/forum/ and read the FAQ. It will contain more than she needs.

There is another less interesting site study.ru with similar FAQ plus onsite grammar lessons.

thanks!

Try this too:
http://career-english.blog.ru/

Originally Posted by valodas

Your friend can improve your English...

I think, Lt. Columbo doesn't need to have his English improved, since he's a native Englishman.