Сообщений в теме: 83

[ixthUA]

In school i had good grades in russian, ukrainian and english, despite skipping school a lot. Even now i do not know a single grammar rule of those languages.

What i do is read a lot, including books - russian, ukrainian, english. Last book i read was 'Vampire Lestat', and before it - 'Interview with the Vampire'. I also liked books, translated from japanese to english, - 'Spice and Wolf' and 'Vampire Hunter D'.

I think that reading improves my language skills a lot, without the need to know grammar rules. Also there are a plenty of expressions that do not follow rules.

To learn the proper spelling i watch movies and games with english voice and subtitles.

I am not sure about how efficient these methods are, but at least they work and are free.

[CopperKettle]

In school i had good grades in russian, ukrainian and english, despite skipping school a lot. Even now i do not know a single grammar rule of those languages.

What i do is read a lot, including books - russian, ukrainian, english. Last book i read was 'Vampire Lestat', and before it - 'Interview with the Vampire'. I also liked books, translated from japanese to english, - 'Spice and Wolf' and 'Vampire Hunter D'.

I think that reading improves my language skills a lot, without the need to know grammar rules. Also there are a plenty of expressions that do not follow rules.

To learn the proper spelling i watch movies and games with english voice and subtitles.

I am not sure about how efficient these methods are, but at least they work and are free.

 

Reading and listening are the best way of learning a second language, according to the linguist Stephen Krashen, and he is not a fringe scientist - his ideas have gained acceptance, only they are somewhat hard to implement on a school-wide basis. Or not exactly "hard", but maybe they require a drastical deviation from the current approach, and thus nobody risks trying it out on a large scale. There are studies in schools where a paricular group of pupils were taught through consumption of material - listening, reading - without much emphasis on grammar rules, and the reported results have been encouraging - at least based on my perfunctory perusal of the literature. I have not delved into this research area deep enough to judge. 

 

See also: Free voluntary reading, extensive reading. 

[CopperKettle]

Curious etymology of the day: French word "chic" /ʃik/ (fancy, elegant; considerate), is probably from German Schick (“elegant appearance; tasteful presentation”). The word is akin to Dutch schielijk (“hasty”), schikken (“to arrange”), Old English sċēon (“to happen”).

 

Hence Ukrainian шикування (equal to Russian построение (солдат), which is from a different root) is cognate with German "schiken" (to send; to hurry; to be decent/appropriate), which comes from Middle High German schicken (“to outfit oneself, fit in, arrange appropriately”), from Old High German *skihhen, from Proto-West Germanic *skikkijan, from Proto-Germanic *skikkijaną (“to order, send”). This represents the causative of Middle High German geschehen, geschēn (“to happen, rush”).

[CopperKettle]

Schizophrenia Is the Price We Pay for Minds Poised Near the Edge of a Cliff, a new (10 May 2025) blog post by Awais Aftab

 

This post discusses cliff-edged fitness functions by Randolph Nesse (psychiatrist and one of the founders of evolutionary medicine) and the 2024 paper, “The cliff edge model of the evolution of schizophrenia: Mathematical, epidemiological, and genetic evidence,” by Philipp Mitteroecker and Giuseppe Pierpaolo Merola.