1...The whole earth had one language and one dialect. 2 Traveling from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Let us make bricks and burn them with fire.” And they used bricks instead of stones, and earthen resin instead of lime. 4 And they said, “Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, its height reaching to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves, before we are scattered over the face of all the earth.” (Deut. 1:28.) 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men were building. 6 And the Lord said, Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not deviate from what they planned to do; 7 Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other. 8 And the Lord scattered them from there throughout all the earth; and they stopped building the city. (Deut. 32:8.) 9 Therefore the name was given to it: Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout all the earth...

(GENESIS)

“...Don’t talk to me in words - you don’t need to talk in words! And don't be afraid that I won't understand you! Let your soul speak to my soul - and they will understand each other! And you don’t need to worry too much about words...”

(FROM CONVERSATION)

Teach yourself!

You, my future but already dear interlocutor to my heart, were, of course, attracted by the title of this book. Couldn't help but attract!

Among the piles of colorful courses, textbooks, books, little books and little books that promise to teach you all the languages ​​of the world in a couple of months, or even weeks, in a pleasant and not at all burdensome environment, this name was undoubtedly an unpleasant surprise for you. I'm quite happy about this. There are many such surprises waiting for you here on these pages. But do not rush to despair and trample this treatise underfoot in a rage like some kind of poisonous insect that is dangerous to you. You don't need to do this for one simple reason:

although the statement that you cannot be taught foreign language, is an undeniable and immutable truth - like the statement that the sun will rise tomorrow morning - you can very well learn a foreign language! That is, you can TEACH YOURSELF!

The difference between these two concepts is fundamental. No one can ever, under any circumstances, teach you, but you can teach yourself - and competent outside help is by no means excluded.

And it says that another 4000 characters are possible?
"plastic card" automatically resets me to the "catalog". You don’t have what’s in the basket, or the payment?

By the way, about purchasing a book in printed form, you need to have an address and, of course, money for shipping. It is hardly possible to reach an agreement with Russian Post to send something to Ukraine. And especially lately. By the way, rubles still circulate in Ukraine; I have a ruble account in Privatbank. I'll try it electronically.

Grade 1 out of 5 stars from Andrushchak Anatoly Mikhailovich 08.09.2016 00:31

Dear Nikolai Fedorovich!
Of course, the horror is that I cannot order matrices for the English and German languages.
What does it matter to me that everyone deservedly praises the book... After a stroke in 2004, I didn’t speak for 2.5 years. Before the stroke I knew both - German from the 5th grade perfectly (after the institute exam candidate minimum didn't pass, could read scientific works, write too - albeit with stylistic errors), English - became an employee of a joint venture in the North of the Tyumen region with a part of 49% of the shares of English and American - could participate in the discussion of geological and drilling issues. Polish language I knew from childhood - my grandmother was Polish... And after a stroke I forgot three languages ​​- I only communicate in Ukrainian and Russian... But these are a thing of the past... So believe that you will take everything you learn to the grave, it turns out that you can kind of like with a tongue but without a tongue. Of course, my right-sided paresis did not go away, but I gave up the stick in 2006, I am assessing the situation - if not directly, then I will have to hobble around the paresis of the foot and lower leg. My arm has paresis of the entire arm, starting from the shoulder. I learned to type on a computer with my left hand, shave, tie shoelaces, etc.
And now I can’t order matrices to update my knowledge. As soon as I get closer to the calculation, after "

Grade 1 out of 5 stars from Andrushchak Anatoly Mikhailovich 07.09.2016 23:58

WONDERFUL!!!

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from Snow_fairy_tale 08/30/2015 21:19

Some people will complain that there is a lot of water in the book. Guys, don't look at this, look at the methodology. She is cool. It is now absurd for me to learn a language in isolation from pronunciation... it’s the same as not learning anything at all.

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from Annie 12/18/2013 07:16

The book is written in a very lively language and offers a method that is radically different from already known methods of learning languages.
In my personal opinion, this method should work, but the matrices are ready to be found..
But in any case, the author is great - write more!

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from Konstantin 03/01/2012 03:02

An excellent book, in fact, from the first minutes it captivated me with the story that in the depths of my soul I always knew somehow intuitively - not a single course will teach you a foreign language. One condition is necessary - an unbending desire, your desire, to learn the language.
The style of narration is built in an exciting, lively and cheerful dialogue - you definitely won’t get bored while reading.
Well, the last thing - regarding the presented Zamyatkin method with the inverse resonance matrix: it is written interestingly and well-reasoned. Whether it works, I’ll test it :) as the author himself said, don’t take everything at face value, but test it on yourself.

Nikolai Fedorovich Zamyatkin

Second edition - diligently corrected and greatly expanded

Good peanuts are well-roasted peanuts. Stepan is on duty. Pavlov’s “Dogs” and so on (sausage scraps)

Of the various foreign language classes that I personally attended (both as a “test subject” and as an observer), I especially remember one “peanut” class. This happened in one of the large Far Eastern cities, where, by the will of fate, I ended up in the mid-nineties. I was doing my traditional daily exercise, passing by a school, on the fence of which there was an announcement about the courses of one of oriental languages taking place in the building of this school. At that time, I had a certain interest in this language, and I decided to see what these courses were like. In addition, I was still interested in the very organization of foreign language courses - naivety at that time had not yet completely left me, and at times I looked at the world with childish eyes wide open.

I arrived at school twenty minutes before the announced start of classes, found the class in which they were supposed to be held, and began to wait. Soon students began to appear, and about five minutes before the start I saw the teacher himself, whom I recognized by his gray hair, his three-piece suit, which was not devoid of some old-fashioned elegance, and his impressive-looking glasses. I approached him and started a conversation. I said that I had an interest in studying this language and perhaps I would attend these courses, but that I would like to first sit in one lesson in order to determine whether the format of the lessons and the level of language proficiency already achieved were suitable for me group. The teacher immediately stated that he had no objections to my presence. I thanked him and modestly took a seat at the back desk, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

As time went. Students walked freely around the classroom, communicating with each other and the teacher. One could have decided that this was the format of the lesson chosen by the teacher, if not for the fact that all the conversations were conducted exclusively in Russian and about completely extraneous things that had absolutely nothing to do with the language being studied. From time to time new students came and joined in the communication. It was clear from everything that what was happening was a familiar routine. No one was surprised that almost fifteen minutes had passed and classes had not started. Nobody paid any attention to me either, which, however, absolutely suited me.

Finally, the teacher interrupted his conversation with a group of students about the local football team's latest game and said it was time to start the lesson. The students slowly began to take their places at their desks, taking notebooks and writing materials out of their bags and briefcases. A few more minutes passed in this manner. But then the teacher loudly cleared his throat and announced to the whole class: “We have an inspector from the UN present in our lesson today!” Please love and respect! Hehe! At the same time, for some reason he pointed his finger at me. Everyone present turned around and fixed their eyes on me. I could hardly suppress the urge to get up and leave the classroom - my mission was not yet completed.

Having admired me enough, everyone returned to their notebooks, after which the “humorist” teacher suddenly started talking about (in Russian, everything is only in Russian!) How after the war he worked as a translator in prisoner-of-war camps on Far East and how his superiors valued and respected him. This speech lasted about ten to fifteen minutes. Everyone - including me - listened very carefully. Periodically, the “speaker” looked at me and asked what the “observer from the UN” thought about what was said. I must say that by this time he - that is, I - was already thinking a lot of things, but very wisely kept his mouth shut, smiling with his impenetrable oriental smile of the seventh dan.

From the prisoner of war camps, the teacher suddenly somehow switched to a balanced diet and began to talk passionately about the fact that many people eat raw peanuts, but that it is extremely wrong to eat and can bring nothing but harm to the body. Raw peanuts are not absorbed by the body at all, and therefore you should avoid eating raw peanuts at all costs! You should only eat roasted peanuts! Moreover, under no circumstances should you overcook it! Saying all this, he looked at me in a special way, obviously suspecting me of being a secret supporter of a sect of adherents of eating raw peanuts, which is why I always wanted to get up and loudly confess everything in the hope that a sincere confession would ease my fate.

Having introduced the audience to his views on peanuts and their unpredictable behavior in the stomach, colon and, to some extent, the duodenum (as well as lightly touching on root vegetables and lactic acid products), our “peanut specialist” suddenly looked at his watch and said worriedly that today time flew by somehow especially quickly - obviously, because of the new interesting material - and the remaining ten minutes are barely enough to assign a homework lesson. He stood up, went to the blackboard and quickly wrote two or three sentences on it with chalk - I don’t remember the exact number, since by that time only peanuts were floating before my eyes, both in roasted and in their original, so to speak, form - he wrote them in hieroglyphs - first foreign words in this lesson. The students frantically grabbed their notebooks and pens and began to write down...

The lesson is over. I muffledly thanked the teacher for so kindly giving me the opportunity to be present and quickly, like a mountain deer, rushed to freedom, into the fresh air, accompanied, it seemed, by a trail of the smell of roasted peanuts...

Since then, I have developed a persistent allergy to peanuts in any form: raw, roasted, pickled, powdered and spreadable - an invention of some “African-American” culinary specialist, of which black Americans are so proud, causing a disgusting feeling of dryness in the throat. I shudder when a flight attendant passes me on the plane, crunching bags of this obligatory “comfort” for air passengers.

Sometimes, when I see someone in a store buying raw peanuts, I go up to him, take him by the button and begin to passionately convince him not to take this rash step, citing the most convincing arguments to prove my undoubted rightness, forever imprinted in my brain many years ago during an unforgettable lesson on learning a foreign language in a Far Eastern city...

So you, my dear interlocutor, still, apparently, do not fully understand the full significance of this issue, but this cannot be underestimated in the organization of modern rational nutrition! Raw peanuts can be extremely harmful! I’ll explain everything in detail now... But where are you going?! Do not leave! Don't be afraid of me! I'm not dangerous! I wish you only the best! Don't you understand the importance of eliminating raw peanuts from your diet?! Wait! I haven't said everything yet! People, don't leave me... people...

Another also interesting, but not so impressive episode of my adventures in studying various languages ​​is connected with ours, my dear interlocutor, our native language - Russian. Russians, of course, as foreigners. This was again in the mid-nineties of the last millennium at one of the universities in Seattle, which is located in the upper left corner of the map of continental America in the state of Washington - many, by the way, do not even suspect the existence of such a state, immediately thinking about the capital of the United States, which is on a completely different side of America. At that time, I met an American who, among his other activities, also dabbled in selling matryoshka dolls, balalaikas and other similar “gifts of Russian nature” on weekends. He periodically went to peddle at various folklore exhibitions, sales and festivals, where his goods had some - always not noisy - success.

And then one day, over a glass of... uh... Coca-Cola, he said that he had met an absolutely “amazing” Russian professor from the university. "Costume! Boredom with a shovel! You just have to see it! Soon there will be a folklore festival at this university, and I will have a table with nesting dolls there. Come and I’ll introduce you to him! For free! Gee-gee!” I succumbed to the genuine enthusiasm of my friend and promised to come.

On the agreed day, I parked my well-worn, but still reasonably fast Pontiac Bonneville near the university and went in search of my friend and his nesting dolls - the starting point of my further journey to the bearded professor of the Russian language. Entering the university building, I saw many tables with “products of vital activity” of a wide variety of peoples, peoples and tribes - from the ice-cold Eskimos to the Papuans and other hot-blooded Estonians. I immediately realized that against the backdrop of all this fair-booth variety, finding our modest nesting dolls would clearly not be easy. Fortunately, almost simultaneously with this thought, I noticed a table on which the samovar stood. I came closer - a girl was sitting at the samovar, wrapped in an Orenburg scarf (although it was July outside), and she was talking about something very interestedly in English with a bearded man - for some reason his beard looked a little... uh... "suggestopedic", or did it just seem to me? - an impressive-looking gentleman who did not take his loving eyes off her. The girl clearly saw this look, she liked it, and the gentleman saw it too, and there was no one else in the world except these two...

On the table, in the most visible place, there was a cardboard with an inscription in large letters in Russian: “SPEAK TO US IN RUSSIAN!” I confess that I recklessly succumbed to this fiery call and disrupted the cooing of these two doves in the late summer mating season. “Excuse me, can you tell me where John so-and-so’s table with Russian goods is?” – I asked. The answer was a blank look from two pairs of eyes. “I'm looking for a table with Russian souvenirs. Can you tell me which direction I should move in?” A complete and unclouded misunderstanding of my question, supported by two open mouths. I realized that the writer of the fiery appeal to speak with the inhabitants of this table in Russian was clearly getting excited, and immediately switched to English, repeating his questions in a language closer to the romantically inclined couple, whose conversation I so unceremoniously interrupted with my, as it turned out, inappropriate babbling in a language clearly unfamiliar to them. Meaning immediately appeared in the eyes of my interlocutors, standard equine-American smiles appeared on their faces, and they instantly explained to me where to go. I answered with a plastic horse-like grin, turned on for exactly half a second (to live with wolves - howl like a wolf!), and set off again, forgetting about this completely insignificant episode of my life as I went.

I easily found the table I was looking for in one of the classrooms of the university building and struck up a conversation with my friend and his rare customers, nevertheless, not forgetting the purpose of my visit - meeting the “amazing” professor of the Russian language. “So, John, where can I find your professor?” - I finally asked, tired of finding witty answers to Americans’ questions, standardized like McDonald’s hamburgers, like “Is it, like, cold in Russia?” or “How many, like, well, bottles of vodka do you drink for breakfast? One or, like, two?” To my question, John immediately answered: “Yes, there he is!”, pointing with his chin at my recent acquaintance from behind the samovar, who, together with his lady love, still covered with a scarf, had already entered our classroom about ten minutes ago and was walking around from table to table, studying the goods laid out by the “peddlers”. “Professor, be so kind as to come here!” – and John waved his hand at him. The professor was kind and came to our table.

John introduced us to each other and we started talking. In English – I didn’t want to put my new friend in an awkward position. He was clearly American, albeit with a muzhik-Russ beard and, judging by his because-of-the-samovar reaction, may not have been in his best linguistic form. I understood perfectly well that a language form can be lost and re-entered - a familiar phenomenon for professionals (and this has happened and happens to me), which does not cause surprise and does not in itself call into question the ability to teach a foreign language.

I began to ask about the methodology of teaching foreign languages ​​at this university, about educational materials and the like. The professor got off with monosyllabic answers - he was clearly not interested in talking about these topics. When I asked who was the author of the university Russian language textbook, he replied that the author was himself. I looked at him with respect and asked if I could look at this textbook or even buy it. The professor looked somewhere to the side and said that currently all his textbooks were sold out in the university store and there was absolutely no way to buy them. For some reason he did not offer me to look at his own copy, from which he was supposed to teach, and I no longer wanted to insist, since the professor began to show signs of impatience, nervously glance at his watch and generally very much resemble a bearded horse, moving its hooves before starting race at the hippodrome. Finally, I asked if I could sit in on one of his classes. He said that the next lesson started at two thirty in the afternoon in building “B” and that I could attend if there was such an interest. I thanked him as kindly as possible, and we parted, if not as friends, then, it seemed to me, on a note sufficiently acceptable for maintaining further relations.

It was about one o'clock in the afternoon, and thus there was an hour and a half left before my lesson. I decided to wander around the campus. Having wished John every success in “sniffing” balalaikas, nesting dolls and other painted rattles to onlookers, I left the room and went outside. It was a pleasant summer day. In the shade of the ancient oak trees, the campus was fresh and calm. I wandered across the manicured emerald lawns - not because of my ineradicable Siberian barbarism, my dear interlocutor, no, but because of local traditions that allow and, in fact, encourage lawn trampling and lawn lying, since traditionally on university campuses the lawn is planted for people, not people for the lawn - from tree to tree, from the monument of one founding father of something to the monument of another father and also the founder, and from one ancient building to another ancient building.

The atmosphere was, dare I say it, “suggestopedic” - I wanted to learn, to absorb the light of knowledge, almost tangibly emitted by all this splendor. I wanted to bow my head to the celestials - the people working here. What knowledge and what wisdom should they possess, having received the cherished right to teach here, in this temple of science, young men and women with wide open eyes reaching for the sun of knowledge! How lucky I am to have met one of these sages! In an hour and a half I will see him in the process of sacred rites - in class!

I especially liked one of the buildings – building “C”, and I decided to examine it from the inside, fortunately I had plenty of time before the start of the demonstration lesson - I only walked for about half an hour. I entered and began to look around. No expense was spared on the interior decoration. Some full-length portraits - one, two, five, ten... you'll lose count... I was about to leave when I suddenly heard a familiar voice telling someone that the lesson starts in two minutes on the second floor. I followed the voice and saw our professor giving instructions to his students. Seeing me, for some reason he was not at all happy, leaving his “horse-smile” unturned, and somehow twitched his beard irritably. “The lesson was suddenly postponed. The lesson was suddenly postponed. It’s a disgrace...” he muttered. I once again asked him if I could observe the educational process, promising to sit quietly, like a mouse in a mousetrap. The suggestopedic beard twitched again, but this time in a nod, and we went to class.

There were few students - about six people. They sat around the table, at the head of which sat our “man”-beard. The lesson went on as usual - an ordinary gray lesson, not remarkable in any way, but not an outright disastrous lesson either. Nobody paid the slightest attention to me. At the very beginning, the professor muttered that I was Russian and called my name - and that was the end of it. After ten to fifteen minutes, I began to get a little bored listening to the exercises and answers - in a circle - of the students, and I began to take a closer look at the materials used. All students had identical computer printouts neatly stapled together. The professor noticed my interest and said that this was the very textbook of which he was the author and which I had expressed a desire to look at.

I asked my neighbor for a few sheets, he kindly agreed, and I began to look at them. Nothing special - the usual mixture of boring translations, exercises in wooden Americanized Russian - almost an immigrant "ersatz language" - and the Americans' favorite questions with a set of answers given below, from which you need to choose one - the correct one. I sighed to myself and wanted to return the sheets to their owner, but something stopped me. I took a closer look and saw that in one word, instead of the letter “ch”, the letter “c” was printed - “What did Stepan buy in the supermarket on Lenin Street?” A run-of-the-mill typo. I again wanted to give the materials to my neighbor at the table, but then I noticed another “ts” instead of “h” - in another word - “At the post office, Stepan buys stamps, postcards, stationery products needed in the household, and then does another shopping.” My eyebrows went up in surprise. I started turning the pages again. The way it is! In all the words that should have contained “ch”, “c” was completely unceremoniously displayed! “After two tsas, Stepan relaxes over some delicious tsas, quotes from the Pravda newspaper and watches a very interesting show about Tsarli Tsaplin.” I asked another student nearby for his materials - an exact copy! Nowhere and no one has corrected or noticed “ts” instead of “h”! I sneakily glanced at the professor’s materials - the picture was absolutely the same...

For several minutes I pondered intensely whether to point out what I had discovered and, if so, in what form to do so. I was in a very difficult situation. The professor’s authority could be in question—an extremely undesirable thing in the educational process. What if this is it?.. No, it can’t be - it clearly didn’t look like a sudden special test organized by some All-American Extraordinary Grammar Commission for the purpose of testing your humble servant for knowledge of the spelling of the Russian language, which I was thinking about - too clumsy work, although who knows these Americans? For some reason it was difficult for me to leave everything as it was - my old-fashioned scrupulosity must have gotten in the way. What to do? What should I do? Eternal questions...

The situation, however, resolved itself - the professor suddenly stood up to his full height, once again shook his “suggestopedic” beard and, announcing that he was expected at an important meeting (I noticed how the familiar Orenburg scarf of the professor’s sweetheart flashed in the doorway samovar), briskly jogged out of the room. All the students also stood up no less briskly and immediately disappeared, without showing the slightest desire to communicate with a native speaker, which I would certainly have done in their place. Hmmm... The apples in this “citadel of knowledge” fell not far from the apple tree. I was left sitting completely alone in the empty auditorium, experiencing, I am not ashamed to admit it, a very significant relief. A few minutes later I got up and went straight - no longer paying attention to the “suggestopedic” architecture - to my old faithful Pontiac, which had already been waiting for me...

I did not appear at this university again, and in response to the surprised questions of the “matryoshka” John, who hinted that through the professor one could try to find a warm place for himself at this university, he evasively said that the professor and I did not see eye to eye on suggestopedic substantivization of improper direct speech in elliptical constructions with weakly expressed predicative relations at the bifurcation point of a compound sentence. To which John scratched his shaved soldier’s head - a former Marine after all - and said that “you really can’t understand your intellectual brother,” he threw another glass of ice-cold... uh... Coca-Cola into his mouth and started singing his, like, favorite army songs...

During my time as a teacher of Russian and elementary French Among the American “Green Berets”, a fairly large number of interesting, to some extent instructive and simply funny cases happened to me, having both the most direct and, at best, indirect relation to the study of languages. I try not to unnecessarily overload you, my dear interlocutor, with examples of episodes of the second kind (once my student from military intelligence almost put me in handcuffs right in class and took me to the local special department for what seemed to me to be a very innocent joke), but sometimes the temptation to do this is so great that I simply cannot help myself. As in this case, for example.

Early summer. A warm breeze shakes the branches of an old oak tree, framed by fresh young leaves, and flutters the curtain, blowing into the window of the classroom where our classes take place. The Green Berets are busy translating the text I gave them. I'm busy watching through the window the life of a typical American military base. Our classroom is on the second floor of a former pre-war barracks, and my window is an excellent vantage point for this kind of observation. Unless our barracks is located in a quiet wooded place near a small lake overgrown with sedge, where not many interesting events of any kind usually take place. However, I am patient and I have time - all day - as well as an inexhaustible supply of texts for my students.

Soon enough - after about an hour or two - my patience is rewarded, and a whole show unfolds below. Two army jeeps and one truck drive up to our building. Five or six soldiers in camouflage emerge from them and begin to confer about something. After about ten minutes they reach the decision to sit down and have a smoke, “that’s the deal.” About fifteen minutes later another jeep drives up, and a sergeant gets out with a clipboard. The soldiers put out their cigarettes and rise. The sergeant approaches them and gives some instructions. The soldiers go to the truck and unload the lawnmower from it. Another meeting takes place, after which gasoline is poured into the lawnmower. After half an hour of various kinds of manipulations, attempts to start the mower, numerous meetings and friendly bickering of an obscene nature, the lawn mower finally comes to life and starts moving. I frown with displeasure - the howling sound of lawn mowers, this scourge of America, overtook me here too - in this quiet military monastery where I found my temporary refuge. The Green Berets look at me with sympathy. I sigh and move away from the window deeper into the classroom.

The howling, grinding and cracking around our building continues for an hour and then another. I walk around the classroom and periodically look out the window with the secret hope that, having “swallowed” another cobblestone, the hated mower will choke. But the most distressing thing for me is that the disposition does not change at all from hour to hour: one soldier walks behind what turned out to be an unusually durable army lawn mower, two guard a canister of fuel, a sergeant and his assistant stand in the shade of the trees, from time to time checking the progress of work with the one included in the tablet. card and approved from above master plan"operations". The rest of the “warriors” are also sitting in the shade under a tree nearby, indifferently watching what is happening.

I look out the window and can’t help but shake my head—my commentary on the military order in “this country” and an invitation to my Green Berets to continue our long-standing conversation with them. They, of course, have been waiting for this for a long time and guiltily begin to make excuses that this is, they say, an army with its own tricks, and they, the “Green Berets,” have not the slightest connection to this (American “Green Berets” traditionally despise the army itself and do not consider themselves as part of it, although they are formally this part). “No relation to what?” - you may ask, my dear interlocutor, because mowing grass, even under the windows of a school where classes are taking place, is not such an unheard of thing, much less a thing for which you need to justify yourself. I completely agree with you. Cutting grass is a very common and even commendable task for America and the American army. But I forgot to tell you that for many years there has been practically no grass around our former barracks, with the exception of rare dry blades of grass, and everything is covered with stones, pebbles, fir cones and sand, along which a soldier drags his lawn mower all day under the watchful eye of his superiors .

I sigh again, turn away from the window and once again tell my guiltily smiling students: “And it was you who lost the Cold War!”...

And another true story, this time having a very direct relation to the study of foreign languages, namely to the methodology of teaching languages ​​in the United States of America. Our Center Director at Fort Lewis has always shown a touching concern for our professional development.

For this noble purpose, she invited various lecturers and methodologists from different parts of the country. They came for two or three days, and sometimes for one or two weeks, and held seminars where they explained to us how to teach foreign languages ​​properly. We were required to be present. Active interest – or at least a surrogate for it – in the material presented was also encouraged. Full agreement with the point of view of the traveling methodologists, although not officially required, was tacitly implied, because if we understood at least something about methodology, we would have long ago become speakers ourselves, instead of being part of the trained masses. However, this view of this question exists not only in America.

The methodologists cheerfully presented a compilation of currently generally accepted views on the study of foreign languages ​​and invited us to agree with their impeccable logic and powerful argumentation, which we, being educated people (and not wanting to bite the hand that feeds us), did, showered with an endless stream of impressive-sounding , but some obscure terms. But one day the smooth flow of classes was disrupted in the most unfortunate way. The culprit of the failure in lethargic calm educational process was none other than your humble servant. I think, my dear interlocutor, that you are no longer very surprised by this.

The following happened. Methodologists began to show us a video film, enthusiastically recommending it as an almost ideal example of proper foreign language teaching, while emphasizing the extreme professionalism and ingenuity of the teachers filmed in this film. The film was made in an English as a Foreign Language class for an audience of “New Americans”—a mix of Asians, Eastern Europeans, Mexicans, and so on. Such classes are standard and are provided free of charge for immigrants who have some kind of refugee status and receive government benefits. One of the conditions for receiving this benefit is visiting free classes English language. The theme of the lesson in the film was the tags on clothes, instructing how to wash these clothes. Everyone knows perfectly well what I’m talking about - the recommended water temperature, hand or machine wash and something else like that. The topic is not so hot: after all, there are almost no words on these tags, but there are symbols - just for the purpose of understanding the instructions by everyone, including those who do not know the language. But with a certain skill, you can beat such a situation and extract from it some material for a lesson - for ten to fifteen minutes. This is what I internally prepared for, expecting after this period of time to move on to another topic. However, this did not happen. Teachers with plastic smiles glued to their faces, saying almost nothing, thrust these tags under the students’ noses for twenty minutes, then thirty minutes and the entire lesson – fifty minutes (we were shown the end of the lesson, so all my doubts about this were completely dispelled) .

Our methodologists completed the show and began conducting a survey of the audience. All my colleagues expressed their impressions more or less admiringly. Then it was my turn. Hmmm... I stood up, and the indignation that had been simmering in me for a long time and could not find an outlet burst out.

I asked on what basis do methodologists urge us to follow the example of the teachers in the film?! In the film shown, the audience consists of adults, many of whom have experienced a lot in life, including the horrors of war, hunger, cold and generally things that are difficult for us to imagine. Even to get to America, they showed miracles of resourcefulness and enterprise. And these are those who know life - and often death! - people are falsely affectionately praised for correctly pointing their finger at the correct temperature symbol, understandable without words - after all, it is designed for such understanding! – to each and everyone. Moreover, they are forced to do this for fifty minutes, expressing delight when they do it! Yes, we clap our hands when a circus dog does something like that! Or some kind of guinea pig! But adults, reasonable people?! What conclusion should they draw from what is happening? Not necessarily formulating it in words and categories, but on a subconscious level?

In my opinion, there is only one possible conclusion - that they are considered here to be complete and utter idiots with an elbow-deep index finger in their nose and drool flowing from their mouths, incapable of ever mastering the English language at any cost! The material chosen for the lesson, its quantity, the method and speed of its presentation, and the entire demeanor of the teachers, which is offensive to any reasonable person, speaks only of this and nothing else! I quite often visited mental hospitals and special schools for mentally retarded children as a translator and am very familiar with the behavior of the medical staff of these hospitals and schools in their treatment of patients.

What would you think about if you were forced to point your finger at a symbol depicting a basin of water when you gave one conditioned signal, and to point at a washing machine when you gave another? Fifty minutes straight? Feigning false delight when you more or less accurately hit the picture? Not to mention, I don't even know a single person who would look at these tags before throwing their pants and shirt in the washing machine! For example, I have never done this, I don’t do it and I don’t intend to do it!

The answer was deathly silence and cautious glances from the “methodologists” in my direction. They did not enter into a discussion with me - the memorized phrases and superficially coherent concepts with which they so habitually juggled clearly did not allow this. After this incident, however, the course of classes was no longer disturbed by anything - I stopped taking what was happening seriously and quietly sat through the remaining days, not really listening to the “scientific” buzz of the speakers and their “discussions” with my colleagues, which was already harmless to me. They didn’t touch me anymore, and they didn’t ask for my opinion... Hmmm...

“Open your textbook to page twenty-five! Look at exercise number three point one! Now we will start doing this exercise! A completely stupid, pointless exercise that brings no benefit! Waste of time! I just laugh looking at this exercise! Ha ha! But we will still carry it out, since it is worth curriculum! It was clearly compiled by fools for unknown purposes, just like this entire textbook! Do it, do it! Don't look at me! I don't have the answers written on my forehead! Now is just the beginning of the lesson, and there is still a lot of time before its end - we will have time to do a lot of such exercises! Oh, so many! Done? Have you done all the exercise? Very good! I feel sorry for you, but you, dears, must open your textbooks to page twenty-seven! Have you opened it? Look at exercise one point two! What a long exercise! Did you think that nothing could be more stupid, boring and useless than the previous exercise? You, my dears, were mistaken, because this new exercise surpasses in its complexity everything that I have ever seen, including the previous one! I love this exercise! Ugh! Well, let's get started! Cheer up! Why do you look so lost? Never seen the exercises before? We are working, we are working! Patience and hard work will wear through your pants! Ha ha! And don’t look at me – I didn’t write these exercises! My job is number ten – my boss orders me, and I carry it out!”...

This is not, my dear interlocutor, just another flat joke, invented by me out of nothing to do from my head, which is full - as it may seem to you - of such jokes. I dare to assure you that even though it is very similar to one, this is by no means a joke, but the most real thing, if I may be allowed to put it this way, an event, and a very sad event. First of all, it is sad for the students who are subjected to such treatment by the teacher. It was infinitely sad for me to observe the “lesson” I described, which was more reminiscent of sophisticated psychological torture, which, for some reason, was not covered by the Geneva Convention, which prohibits this kind of treatment of captured civilians. As for me, I had to sit in this class, indirectly, tangentially, being subjected to this torture, as a “non-targeted” observer-trainee and learn the methods of teaching foreign languages, and the “sadistic” teacher was the star average size in this educational institution and, as it turned out later, a very intelligent and generally not a bad person in his own way. He and I later became quite close, played chess from time to time, and I had plenty of opportunities to observe him outside of work, in his natural, so to speak, habitat. But the work of a teacher was clearly not his... uh... calling. Even though he was, in general, right about the textbook. Hmmm...

But this story was told to me in a letter by a reader of the first edition of my book. Technical university. In Moscow, if I'm not mistaken. Start school year. The first English lesson for those who have never studied it before. I emphasize once again: for those who have zero knowledge of English. A teacher comes and hands out an article to students on... yes, my dear interlocutor, yes! – you guessed it right! - on English language, taken from some newspaper: “Read and translate!” There are attempts to explain that no one here knows English at all - not a single word. Not even a single letter. Indifferent answer: “Read, translate.” The objections fall silent and the students wait for the lesson to end. Someone is talking on the phone, someone is reading a book, someone is doing makeup, someone is looking out the window with longing and incomprehensible hatred. End of lesson: “Translate this article for the next lesson.” Another newspaper article should be distributed...

The following “method” is one of the most impressive - it greatly disturbed my dreamy imagination of a former village shepherd boy. By the way, I found this approach to languages ​​not just anywhere, but in the patent database of our country!

When learning a foreign language, you are offered - you'll never guess! – absorb seaweed, chewing it thoroughly – in no case forget to chew, because this improves the memorization of words! The following bucolic picture immediately appeared in my shocked brain: some... uh... collective farm institution, rows of students (including you, my dear interlocutor, including you!), in front of whom stand troughs filled to the brim with the above-mentioned valuable seafood. Workers in tarpaulin boots and padded jackets with pitchforks in their hands walk busily between the rows, not allowing the troughs to empty. From time to time the air is filled with loud mooing. Somewhere nearby in the fields, a collective farm tractor rumbles muffledly. On the birch trees - anticipating the imminent arrival of spring - crows caw...

One of the readers of my book invited me to visit a certain specialized Internet site entirely devoted to various methods of learning foreign languages. Without delaying this pleasure, I immediately went there. Suggestopedia... secret signals... scratching with the left foot behind the right ear... scratching with the right foot behind the left ear... in general, nothing new or interesting... Wait a minute! Familiar name! Matrix method! Really? No, alas, not my matrix method. The respected author of the approach with a name deceptively similar to the name of my method suggests studying at the same time - sit down, whoever is standing! – five languages, claiming that it is much easier than learning one single language! And I, it’s a sin, thought that only I had a wild imagination (well, and maybe also the “cabbage” author). It is obvious that I was most sadly mistaken about this...

Let's look further. Hey! Erotic method! How could we live without this in our advanced times! The developer of the method, Mademoiselle so-and-so, undertakes to teach you a foreign language through appropriate texts and other highly effective techniques that fully comply with the letter and spirit of the method. I would like to add that on-call service is possible...

If you, my dear interlocutor, think that the purpose of the above stories, which actually took place, is a simple desire to amuse you, to grin at you because there is nothing to do to raise the general tone of your body, exhausted from reading this treatise, then you are most sadly mistaken (except , perhaps, an episode with “lawn mowing”, introduced into the fabric of the narrative solely for the purpose of creating a more prominent background for the main events, highlighting the play, so to speak, of the main characters of the play). These stories that actually happened just show that taking a foreign language course is not at all a necessary condition for your language acquisition. At home, on your good old cozy sofa, you can use your time much more productively than in the classroom, listening to recipes for making peanuts, studying the tag on your “underwear” or reading “stories” about “Stepan on the Post” doing his “shopping” " Even if Stepan is the brain vapor of a professor with the most “suggestopedic” beard. And no arguments, even from a flock of seasoned professors with and without beards, will make me change my opinion on this matter. This way...

Yes, to the question of opinions. Almost everyone to whom I told that I was writing this book had a very definite “opinion” about learning foreign languages. Not knowing the languages ​​themselves and not having the slightest connection to teaching languages. But this did not stop them from confidently arguing that such a book was absolutely unnecessary, since the topic had been properly researched and closed, and nothing new could be added to it. There are no white spots here and there cannot be! To my calm and even somewhat insinuating question about how they would approach learning a foreign language if they had such a need, they answered without hesitation that they would take courses. What courses? Yes to any! Right around the corner! Or you could buy a textbook. Anyone too. Yes, sir, my dear interlocutor, in exactly this way...

In conclusion, I will give a description of funny courses that I myself did not attend, but which one of my casual acquaintances told me about. At the beginning of perestroika, he participated in these courses as a “guinea pig” and is still impressed by them, although more than twenty years have passed since then. He himself called these courses “dog”, but not in the pejorative sense of the word, but enthusiastically describing the method of developing conditioned reflexes among the students, very reminiscent of Pavlov’s famous experiments with dogs.

Dogs, excuse me, the students were placed one by one in an empty room, where there was a display on which foreign words lit up. The student had to repeat these words (and the pronunciation was not graded and, obviously, not even explained), receiving some kind of encouragement for this. My friend no longer remembered exactly which one (I couldn’t resist asking about the whip, to which he seriously replied that they weren’t beaten). But he remembered very well the philosophical message on which these “dog games” were based. The organizers of the courses - an impressive team of psychologists and educators from the relevant ministries - explained to them that when an urgent need arises, a person begins to speak a foreign language - abroad, for example.

I don’t know for what reason, but my friend really wanted me to agree with this fundamental thesis of the entire “dog” structure. Due to the remnants of my former legendary stubbornness that still exist in me - ask the former commander of my airborne company, Captain Kryuchkov - I am still proud of his somewhat nervous comments on this matter! - I didn’t want to do this, which to some extent even outraged him (the situation is made even more amusing by the fact that, by his own admission, he never mastered a foreign language). I didn’t want to upset my impressionable friend at all, but I also didn’t want to agree with the incorrect or even simply false thesis that he was imposing on me at the suggestion of the “dog breeder” teachers. And it is false for the following reasons.

First, before starting any kind of conversation about the correctness or incorrectness of a given thesis, it is necessary to agree on what is meant by “urgent need,” which in itself is a very difficult task due to the vagueness of such concepts. When does “just a necessity” become an “urgent need”? Or “very spicy”? Where is this... uh... "bifurcation" point? Give me clear criteria for classifying “necessities”! And, secondly, even if we reach agreement on this issue (which, to put it mildly, I doubt), there still remains practice that categorically refutes this purely speculative construction. Lots of people – millions! – they have been living abroad for decades, but still do not know the language of the country in which they live. I have already spoken about this and am not going to repeat myself.

In fact, even in this funny “dog” method there is an element that attracts me. This is an empty room with completely bare walls. Yes, yes, exactly that! That is, a strict restriction on the receipt of all kinds of information and simply stimuli not related to the language being studied. The same “monastic” approach that I already recommended.

But as for the display on the wall, then, excuse me, at its very mention I want to breathe quickly, sticking out my tongue, and then sit on my hind legs and with your permission, my dear interlocutor, to howl at the moon...

Don't be scared by the "scary" name! This treatise will dispel your latent conviction that any book about learning foreign languages ​​must certainly make you sad, coupled with a convulsive yawn. This book is written for everyone - everyone will find something interesting in it! Including the organizers of language “scams”, rollicking sellers of “secret signals” and other lively writers of “successful” books who shamelessly promise to teach you the language in three minutes a day: these fellows should know the arguments of the author - their number one enemy!

Teach yourself! 2

Where to start, or Information not for idiots 2

Foreign language courses, or your interrupted flight 4

Debriefing, or A little - just a little! - psychotherapy 5

According to the dictionary! Hmm... 6

Back resonance and matrix 7

Three sources, three components of Marxism... uh... foreign language 7

"Children's" method, or Dancing until you drop 8

Physical process, or your black belt 9

Articulation and speech apparatus, or you are dancing fandango 9

Accent, or Interior Polytyk in Honduras 10

About the orchestra and musicians, as well as about various things 10

Listening and reciting, or Napashikhonisyobylatikha 11

No Time, or Expanding Universe 13

Peripatetics and drowsiness, or Yoksel-moksel in a sheepskin coat 14

Another reality, or I would go to Stirlitz... 16

Distracted attention, or Crows in our lives 17

Warming exercises and biologically active points 17

Technical details of preparing matrix dialogues 17

Matrix-pioneer story with a red horse and a talking basin 19

Interference, or well-fed horses beat their hooves 19

Intensity, or wasted matches 20

Reading Plutarch, or Fandorin at the Baobab 20

From the matrix to reading, or Red Heat in a police uniform 25

The dangers of the matrix approach. Yes, there are those too... 26

Matrix ram, or How to become a young stoker 26

Age factor - it's good that we are adults! 27

About benefits and exercises. Ugly story 27

Parallel texts bloom and smell 28

"Immersion" or immersion? 29

The principle of excess pressure - in your head 31

The tongue escalator, or Children playing on Street 31

True story No. 002. Without any subtext, but with direct and clear practical conclusions 32

On the issue of building houses and dog kennels (especially for my oligarch friend!) 33

Feelings of guilt, or Wash your hands before eating! 34

Resistance from loved ones, or How smart you are! 34

How much do horses cost now, or My little oligarchic serenade 35

Do foreigners know foreign languages, or Spring flowering of dandelions 35

What are they singing about? 38

Another Chinese warning, or My recipe for making kvass 39

Sweet pill from our Bulgarian "brother". Sad suggestopedic true story 39

Good peanuts are well-roasted peanuts. Stepan is on duty. Pavlov's "Dogs" and so on (sausage scraps) 41

Don't grab the hard drive, or your sixth finger 45

Computer courses: easy, fast, enjoyable and no hassle! 46

Olala! Or your cure is also possible 47

Comrade Furtseva has been warned. The long-awaited hamburger tastes bitter in Fokachuk's mouth. And this is fact 48

Not a bad compote, or a few words about professionalism 51

Your questions and my answers 52

Complete Works of Lee Won Yan 55

Not a single thought in your head? You are on the right track! 56

A log, gentlemen, a log! 58

The fulcrum and taste of the tongue 59

Conclusion and the same beginning 60

Postscript 60

Matric results: 60 students speak

Air defense - constant questions and answers to them 62

Nikolay Zamyatkin
(featuring the incomparable Lee Won Yang)
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TEACH YOU A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Third edition

An honest book to the last comma, which immediately became a classic of the genre and required reading for anyone who is at least somewhat interested in languages.

A paradoxical book, inexorably destroying myth after myth, fable after fable, error after error. A book that frees you from the shackles of widespread, old misconceptions that prevent you from mastering a foreign language. Anyone who is studying or planning to study a foreign language is simply obliged to read this book, which has no analogues either in the accessibility of the author’s language (this is not a standard “manual” with its deadening language!), or in the quantity and quality of useful advice.

The brilliant style and relaxed humor of the presentation make this book interesting for those who have already “studied” a foreign language at school or university and, as a result, finally believed in their “inability” to learn languages ​​- they will understand why, after all these painfully long years never mastered it - and could not master it! - language, remaining within the generally accepted “learning” format.

Those who speak foreign languages ​​will be pleased to be convinced of the correctness of their approaches, which allowed them to escape from the dull and dull chamber filled with cases, conjugations and frightening anyone normal person gerunds.

Thus, this book is written for everyone and for everyone - everyone will find something interesting in it! Including the organizers of language “scams”, rollicking sellers of “secret signals” and other lively writers of “successful” books who shamelessly promise to teach you the language in three minutes a day: they must know the arguments of the author - their enemy No. 1!

Epigraph

1...The whole earth had one language and one dialect. 2 Traveling from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Let us make bricks and burn them with fire.” And they used bricks instead of stones, and earthen resin instead of lime. 4 And they said, “Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, its height reaching to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves, before we are scattered over the face of all the earth.” (Deut. 1:28.) 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men were building. 6 And the Lord said, Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not deviate from what they planned to do; 7 Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other. 8 And the Lord scattered them from there throughout all the earth; and they stopped building the city. (Deut. 32:8.) 9 Therefore the name was given to it: Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout all the earth...

(Genesis)

“...Don’t talk to me in words - you don’t need to talk in words! And don’t be afraid that I won’t understand you! Let your soul speak to my soul - and they will understand each other! And you don’t need to worry too much about words...”

(From a conversation)

And it says that another 4000 characters are possible?
"plastic card" automatically resets me to the "catalog". You don’t have what’s in the basket, or the payment?

By the way, about purchasing a book in printed form, you need to have an address and, of course, money for shipping. It is hardly possible to reach an agreement with Russian Post to send something to Ukraine. And especially lately. By the way, rubles still circulate in Ukraine; I have a ruble account in Privatbank. I'll try it electronically.

Grade 1 out of 5 stars from Andrushchak Anatoly Mikhailovich 09/08/2016 00:31

Dear Nikolai Fedorovich!
Of course, the horror is that I cannot order matrices for the English and German languages.
What does it matter to me that everyone deservedly praises the book... After a stroke in 2004, I didn’t speak for 2.5 years. Before the stroke, I knew both - German from the 5th grade perfectly (after college I did not pass the minimum candidate exam, I could read scientific works, write too - albeit with stylistic errors), English - became an employee of a joint venture in the north of the Tyumen region with a part of 49% shares of English and American - could participate in the discussion of geological and drilling issues. I knew Polish since childhood - my grandmother was Polish... And after a stroke I forgot three languages ​​- I only communicate in Ukrainian and Russian... But these are a thing of the past... So believe that you will take everything you learn to your grave, it turns out that you can sort of do it with a tongue but without a tongue. Of course, my right-sided paresis did not go away, but I gave up the stick in 2006, I am assessing the situation - if not directly, then I will have to hobble around the paresis of the foot and lower leg. My arm has paresis of the entire arm, starting from the shoulder. I learned to type on a computer with my left hand, shave, tie shoelaces, etc.
And now I can’t order matrices to update my knowledge. As soon as I get closer to the calculation, after "

Grade 1 out of 5 stars from Andrushchak Anatoly Mikhailovich 09/07/2016 23:58

WONDERFUL!!!

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from Snow_fairy_tale 30.08.2015 21:19

Some people will complain that there is a lot of water in the book. Guys, don't look at this, look at the methodology. She is cool. It is now absurd for me to learn a language in isolation from pronunciation... it’s the same as not learning anything at all.

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from Annie 12/18/2013 07:16

The book is written in a very lively language and offers a method that is radically different from already known methods of learning languages.
In my personal opinion, this method should work, but the matrices are ready to be found..
But in any case, the author is great - write more!

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from Konstantin 03/01/2012 03:02

An excellent book, in fact, from the first minutes it captivated me with the story that in the depths of my soul I always knew somehow intuitively - not a single course will teach you a foreign language. One condition is necessary - an unbending desire, your desire, to learn the language.
The style of narration is built in an exciting, lively and cheerful dialogue - you definitely won’t get bored while reading.
Well, the last thing - regarding the presented Zamyatkin method with the inverse resonance matrix: it is written interestingly and well-reasoned. Whether it works, I’ll test it :) as the author himself said, don’t take everything at face value, but test it on yourself.