English is the most popular language studied as a foreign language. More and more people dream of mastering them perfectly and actively using them in their lives.
At the moment, learning English is verypopularly. A huge number of foreign language specialists annually graduate from universities. Universities prepare both professional translators and teachers.
But is English difficult to learn? Is it easy to read?
How difficult is it to learn English?
There is great news for English learners.Because if you make a comparison with the Russian language, it is absorbed much easier. It is known that an English-speaking person needs to expend more efforts in order to somehow express himself in Russian, than to a Russian speaker - to learn English to a similar level. This means that English is easy enough to master, having spent not so much time and effort on it, as Russian studies would require.
A curious fact that English carriers are jealousRussian-speaking. Because they have had the opportunity to own their native language since birth, and the rest have to work long and hard to learn it. But, in turn, Russian speakers, too, are jealous of the British. After all, it is quite difficult for Russians to understand how words are read in English. Of course, this topic is explained at school, but, unfortunately, not all learn it.
In English, a large number of nounsalso acts as a verb, and, most importantly, it happens without changing the spelling. That is, you should remember only one word, and learn two at once.
English is quite easy to use. In most cases, it is very easy to make a phrase in it - as in a simple and logical constructor.
What difficulties can you encounter while learning English?
The main difficulty in English ispronunciation and rules of reading English words. To do this correctly, it is not enough to learn the alphabet and the basic set of rules. Of course, system dependencies are present, but, unfortunately, exceptions are almost half of all words in English vocabulary. Therefore, language learners have no choice, and they just need to memorize the pronunciation of exception words.
It should also be noted that in Englishpronunciation, there is one difficulty that is not easy to handle. It lies in the fact that several sounds have no analogue in Russian. It is necessary to get used to this. However, to begin with, perfectly correct pronunciation is not required at all. It will be gained with experience, in the process of communicating with native speakers of the language. For quite understandable English speech, Russian transcription will suffice first.
The English-speaking world is so huge that in itThere are many different dialects. Therefore, to begin with, the most important thing is to be understood. And you could translate what foreigners say. There is no doubt that with practice the pronunciation will sharpen and get better and better.
And now you need to answer the question of how to read English words.
English letters and sounds
As for the rules of reading in the target language,It is important to note that they are extensive and quite complex, because there are some discrepancies between letters and sounds. What does this mean? The English alphabet has 26 letters and as many as 44 sounds. This affects reading. Different letters can produce different sounds from different positions. This is usually conveyed by a legend called transcription. Therefore, it is very important to know how English words are read, otherwise you can make a lot of mistakes. In the dictionaries, along with the concept in brackets indicates transcription, which facilitates the study of vocabulary.
General rules
Now we will talk about the general rules of reading. After all, every beginner to learn English should know how to read English words. So:
- First, you need to understand that the rules in English work far from all the time.
- Secondly, the language being studied is vocal; therefore, there is a vowel sound in each syllable.
- Thirdly, it is necessary to know that in case two consonants are combined and create a new sound, this is usually called a consonant digraph. These include sh, ch, th, ph and wh.
- Fourth, when a syllable ends with a consonant, the vowel will always be brief.
Types of vowel reading in English
There are 4 types of vowel reading:
- The first type is an open syllable. It ends in a vowel letter, which in this case is read according to the alphabet.
- The second type is the closed syllable, which ends in a consonant letter. In this case, the vowel sound becomes short.
- The third type of reading is the combination of the vowel + letter “r”, which affects the sound of the vowel in the root of the word, giving it a length.
- IV type of reading is a combination of vowel + letter “r” + vowel. “R” in this case also will not be read.
In general, English is not so difficult,however, students will still face some difficulties. To understand how English words are read, it is necessary to memorize not only the rules of reading, but also the word exceptions.
