How can I help my russian friend to speak better English?
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at
4:49 am
My friend doesn't know how to use
DO
DOES
DOESN'T
DID
DIDN'T
in sentences
he also doesn't know how to ask questions with this words in the top and botton:
WAS
WERE
WASN'T
WEREN'T
How can I help him? Do you know some courses in english that could help him know how to use those words?
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Tagged with: courses in english • sentences • weren
Filed under: Russian - Written and Spoken
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I studied English in pre-Internet epoch. There was a brilliant book Иллюстрированная грамматика английского языка / English Grammar by M. Dubrovin ISBN 978-5-17-047074-7, 978-5-271-18298-3 (you can see the cover here: http://www.magaz.by/book/obgumnauki/yaziki/inostrann/english/grammatika/797141.html but this book was reprinted numerous amoynt of times by different publishers)
As for on-line sources, there is a lot of gratis information and exercises here: http://esl.report.ru/_5FolderID_21340_.html It’s for beginners, it’s for Russians, in Russian with many useful links.
Anyway, you have to make it clear to your Russian friend, there are so many conjugations for verbs in his native language + 6 cases for nouns in sing. and plur. – he can really manage a couple of rudimentary forms in English.
Say to him:
ОН, ОНА, ОНО – DOES – in Present
EVERYTHING ELSE (Я, ТЫ, МЫ, ВЫ, ОНИ) – DO – in Present
WAS – БЫЛ, БЫЛА, БЫЛО / WASN’T – НЕ БЫЛО, НЕ БЫЛА, НЕ БЫЛО
WERE – БЫЛИ / WEREN’T – НЕ БЫЛИ
He merely has to learn it like a poem. Internet is a great thing, but hanging self-made colorful posters on the walls of his room can do miracles, because he’ll see them all the time.
As for asking the questions, he should think, that in high Russian (not too high, really) building up the sentence also demands changing the positions of the words and a special word ЛИ:
Он пишет. – Пишет ли он? (Spoken Russian: Он пишет?)
He writes. – Does he write?
So this re-arrangement of the words in English shouldn’t be such a surprise for him, though it works differently.
The conscious approach to his own language is the first step in studying any foreign one.
It’s best to practice practice. Have him listen to you use them and then he can try it out.
if ur russian translate the words to him. if not then get him a book to teach him english and a dictionary RUSSIAN-TO-ENGLISH and ENGLISH-TO-RUSSIAN.
If he is your BIG frieng, send him more than 10 examples with translations with BIG letters!!
Rosetta stone? try speaking in english on a daily basis