По ту сторону баррикад (in English)

Я люблю получать длинные письма. Читая, всегда представляю, как человек долго собирался с мыслями, выкроил время, переодел мысли в слова за чашкой ароматного чая... Письма от учеников - особый деликатес, ясная возможность посмотреть на изучение русского языка другими глазами. 

Мне часто казалось, что обучение преподавателей - процесс, имеющий совсем не много смысла в сегодняшней действительности. Всё идёт своим чередом, без всякой необходимости перемен. Благодаря таким письмам, я снова вижу, что смысл есть, ведь не хватает самых простых решений. А обмен опытом - важнейший элемент развития, ключ к изменениям, которых многие ждут. 

Hello!

 

I am a beginning student of the Russian Language. I seldom see a publication that tries to adhere to several first principles that seem to me to be elemental of all language learning. I say this from my own singular view point. Even so, these first principles might help others and probably will hurt none.

For me three items are needed at the same time for every Russian word that I learn.

1.      The word printed in Russian.

2.      The English translation of the word printed in English.

3.      An audio file that can be listened to repeatedly while looking at the two words above.

 I am curious to know if anyone can learn to speak Russian well without any of these three items. Can anyone learn to read a Russian word well without having seen that word in print? Can anyone learn to say a Russian word that he has never heard? Can anyone learn efficiently the meaning of a Russian word without having seen a translation for it?

 

One can follow a long list of learned rules for each word, but by the time all the rules are considered, many more words have passed by when listening to speech, and others who are waiting to hear what the student is going to say when speaking may have already decided that he cannot say it before he gets through the long list of things to consider.

 

For me, spelling, writing, grammar, aspects and so on, can only come after the elemental three items above. If fluency is to be reached through fragments taken out of their context in the books from which they are taken, then the elements must be added to each fragment before I can learn even a single word. There will be no other way for me to review and retrieve forgotten words quickly enough when fragments are taken for lessons from books that I do not have in my possession unless the elements are added to every bit of every fragment. Even if all the books are in my possession, looking through many of them is to slow. 

Что вы бы ответили на это письмо?