I don’t remember my age

When I was younger, I had the full control of numbers. If someone woke me up at night and asked how old I was, I would immediately reply. Not anymore. After I turned 30, something happened to me. Either it is an aging factor, which caused me the related memory problem or... it is the…

You Can’t Write

This is a story from my early childhood. I was around 3 years old. In those times, we didn't have smart phones and computers were a luxury. This meant that my parents wrote letters to my grandparents. Sometimes it took months for a letter to deliver, since the post was not a fast service either.…

Day, 29. Piano

I am not sure how old I was back then, 4-5 years old, I guess. Our neighbors had renovation in their apartment, and they stored their piano at our place for a couple of days. What a nice surprise for a preschool child! Big strange machine, which produces noise. Yes, this noise doesn't make sense,…

Day 26. Flight Attendant

As you have guessed from the title, the topic is related to a flight attendant today. No, I have never been a flight attendant, but I almost went for it in November, 2016. It was November, 2016. I was overwhelmed with so many things, and I was hardly happy about anything. You know, there are…

The Trouble with Russian Parents

Obviously, I am switching from being a travel blogger into a life blogger. In this post, I want to discuss the child- parent relationship. Indeed, a tough topic. On the other hand, I am not making a history as the generation problem has always been there. Parents do love their children, and I won't argue…

Why Do We Have Accent?

Traveling abroad we become more conscious about different accents. But why do they exist? You can read it in my other blog, which is related to language learning.

Learning Languages with Elena

A very distinctive part of non-native speakers’ speech is accent. You probably heard a foreign person speaking your native language and struggling to pronounce some sounds correctly. The same occurs to us when we speak a foreign language.

Accent is something that distinguishes native-speakers from non-native. But why do we have an accent? We are born with the ability to pronounce any sound; however, our mother tongue ‘filters off’ the sounds which it doesn’t contain. This means that after 6 years old, our ability to learn other sounds (ones which are absent from the own language) is declining. Thus, we end up having accent in a foreign language in adulthood.

The accent is shaped by the peciliarities of the mother tongue, and the level of accent varies depending on the language we learn. What does this mean? Here is example: I am Russian, and I noticeably will have accent speaking…

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2 Language Learning Myths

Here is the start! Two contradictory misconceptions on language learning.

Learning Languages with Elena

Today I will discuss the 2 misconceptions on language learning that I hear frequently.

1. “Languages are not for me”. I met many people repeating this phrase over and over again. Wrong! Languages are for you, for me , and for anyone else. The “not for me” misconception is usually based on:

• Self-belief, which affects all our activities. “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.” -Henry Ford.
• Lack of desire to commit or simply lack of motivation.
• Unappropriated learning strategies. We have our unique way to learn, what works for one person, may not be suitable for another.

2. “There are magic tools, which will make me speak the language within a week”. There are definitely tools and practices, which assist our learning immensely. However, the main aspect is still COMMITMENT. You do need to make an effort to acquire vocabulary and understand the…

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New Blog

Hello! I have briefly introduced my career path in one of the posts. Now I am starting the second blog, which name is 'Learning Languages with Elena'. The blog is about foreign language learning, where I cope with stereotypes about the learning process and introduce practices, which can be useful for a language learner. I…