Unit 3. Lesson 2.

Last time in my blog I gave you a translation into English of Unit 3 Lesson 1 of the Teacher’s Book. Now we go on, with the translation of Unit 3 Lesson 2.

Here are the links to the samples of the Student’s Book and Activity Book on my website.

In this lesson we are learning

Age: “How old are you?” “I am 8 years old.” (“Сколько тебе лет?” “Мне восемь лет.”)

Review / Warm-up

A teacher points at numbers from 1 to 10 and reads them out loud. Students repeat after the teacher, initially all students at once, then each student one at a time.

Reading by syllables

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Teacher’s Book Soroka 1. Unit 3.

Lesson 1.

The translation of my Teacher’s Book has started. I will publish one chapter after another when they are ready, and finally I will publish the whole Teacher’s Book in English.

I am doing that because I have a lot of requests from English-speaking teachers.

The Teacher’s Book can be very useful for you, because it gives you the complete instructions on how to use the Soroka course. Please refer to the pages in the Student’s Book and Activity Book that I mention in the instructions. They are available on my website.

Usually I recommend studying a unit in three lessons.

Here we go.

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How to Drill Russian Words

Words don’t exist by themselves. They are a part of a sentence. You will memorize it better when you try to remember it with other words, in a sentence.

First, as I wrote before, make your own sentence with the new words you study — at least three. If the word has many different meanings, make sentences with all the different meanings. The word соль can be salt or the musical note G (sol). The word ручка can be a pen, a small hand (of a child) or a handle (of an armchair or a drawer).

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Spellcheck in Russian

The good thing here is that you have your spellcheck on. But it might be tricky with Russian. Which word is correct: поедим or поедем? There is only a one-letter difference in spelling. Both words are correct. The first one means “we will eat something” and the second word means “we will go somewhere by a vehicle.” So check your spellcheck! It is very useful, but don’t rely on it blindly.

How to Keep Russian Words in Your Mind

You are very disappointed, right? How can you keep these words in your mind for long time? The answer is easy — use the words.

How? For example, you can make three sentences with each word. You can write a little message using these words.

If you don’t want to write, you can make a voice recording by using a voice recorder in your phone or any other voice recorder.

You can listen to yourself, or send the file to your teacher or friend.

If you want to learn spelling, speaking and voice recording will be useless.

When I want to learn how to spell a word, I usually take a pen and a sheet of paper and write these words as many times as I need, till I memorize the spelling. It helps the muscles of my hand to remember the movements. When you type, a little bit different mechanism works.

If I want to memorize the word without writing it many, many times but rather just by typing it, in this case I rely on my vision. I look at the word carefully, then close my eyes and try to reproduce this word in my mind with my eyes closed. Then I open my eyes and type the word several times.

How to Memorize Russian Words

OK, we have a list of words. Get some blank flashcards, write them down, and put the translation on the other side.

Then read the word aloud. Make sure that you read it correctly. Use talking dictionaries, like Google Translate: Type your word, press the button with a speakerphone, and Google will read this word for you.

There are many other dictionaries that are similar to that.

Now that you know how to read the word correctly, go to the next step: Memorize the meaning, the translation of the word.

Now it is time to flip the card and check your knowledge.

You will memorize a lot of words, but I want to tell you something: Most of these words you will forget in a week or two.

Reading Russian Words Correctly

There are a few tools that can help you to read the words correctly. Most of the time the problem is not reading. It is actually much easier to read Russian than English, for example, but what about the emphasis? Where should it be in the word бабушка, for example? Is the first A stressed? Or the letter У? Maybe the last A? The correct answer is that the first letter A is stressed — бАбушка.

When you hear the word, it is easier to remember where to put the emphasis. You hear and you repeat.

Listening and repeating is an easier way to memorize the words. It is very natural. We are born to be able to speak and to listen. To tell the truth, reading and writing skills are less natural. A person must be trained to read or write. One hundred years ago, most of the people were just illiterate.

Because listening and repeating are more natural, if you can, try to listen to the words first and then repeat them. You should only go and read the word after that. I understand that most of time this method is not possible. Most of the time we receive new words from the written sources: textbooks, books, letters, articles, you name it.

Describe in Russian

It is all about speaking.

Take a picture and start talking about things you can see in the picture.

For example, your topic is Одежда. Take a picture from a fashion magazine, or a fashion show, or an advertisement of a clothes store and start talking about what you see in the picture. Don’t forget about little details. Or you can take a picture of a street crowd. Look at the picture and tell what people wear: what colors they have, are their clothes long or short, small or big, are the heels high?

If your topic is Еда, take a recipe, menu, or food ads and try to say what colors or sizes you can see, or the names of vegetables, fruits and grains.

And of course, you can make a recording of your voice and listen to your speech later. I am sure you will notice something that you need to improve. It might be grammar, accents or word choice.

Another Tip to Improve Your Speaking in Russian

While watching a movie, imagine that you work in the film industry and are going to give the sound of your voice to the actors. You need to make some preparations. What I want you to do is:

Pick a very short segment, one or two minutes.

Listen to it very carefully.

You may write down a few words that you want to practice.

Watch the scene few times.

Then turn the sound off and try to reproduce the dialogue or monologue from the video.

Can you do this? Good.

For beginners it is very good to repeat after the recording: a movie, a tape, radio etc. Just repetition helps.

You can turn your grammar exercise into a speaking practice by just recording everything with your voice recorder.

As I always say: Speaking requires speaking. You must open your mouth and SPEAK. Though reading and other exercises can help improve your language, it is speaking that helps you develop a vocabulary.

No Speaking without Listening

Speaking requires someone who listens to you.

If you are a speaker at a conference or in a classroom, your language level is good enough to give a presentation like that. But I assume that you are a beginner. If you are a beginner, before you go speaking make sure that you understand what you listen to — practice listening and understanding first, don’t jump into speaking.