Transcription
Hello, friends. I am glad to welcome you to the first episode of our educational super-series, which is dedicated to training the brain, to the perception of English speech by ear. To the decoding of English speech. Before we get down to working together, I would like to, as they say, agree on the shore right away and outline the rules of the lessons in our course. The first and most important rule is that we are not in a hurry, because we are working with the brain. This is a very serious part of our body, as you understand. Therefore, haste will only do harm. Do not think that you can speed up a process that cannot be sped up. Even if you want to speed it up and start rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing, it will only be to your detriment. Plus or minus a week, plus or minus a month. What is that compared to eternity? You understand yourself. Therefore, my friends, no haste. In connection with this, the next point. Do not skip episodes, please, do not skip parts of episodes. You must move sequentially. 1, 2, 3, and not 1, 3, 5, under any circumstances. If we want to achieve results, then do not skip a step, or two. I understand, of course, you want to do it faster, but this is not the case when you need to perform some somersaults in progress. Do not. Go calmly. The first episode, the first part of the first episode. Do not skip. Believe me, we do not have the task of moving faster than is possible. This is a very important moment. Sequential, strategically verified movement. That's what's important. A strategy that is verified ensures results. Not the speed of your video viewing. Do not skip. If you think there is too much talking, be patient, because it is important for us to understand what, why, and how it works, why something needs to be done, and something, on the contrary, needs not to be done. And since I have no other way to convey information to you except by talking about it, I will tell you about it. Do not skip, please, the theoretical talks. This is a very important thing. It is like preparing the soil for planting a plant. When we plant a plant, we first prepare the soil, and this takes a large part of our effort and time. I have already used this analogy and will constantly remind you of it. The planting of the plant itself, well, it takes minutes, well, if not seconds. But the soil needs to be prepared, prepared, prepared. Prepared soil is the key to the rapid growth of a healthy plant. Therefore, we will have to talk, or rather, I will have to talk, and you will have to listen. And I really hope that it will not be boring, but perhaps even interesting and engaging. The next rule that I would like to state is not to expect that everything will happen with a snap of your fingers. Of course not. Everything takes time, including learning. I am sure I have not discovered America for you. Of course, there are teachers who say: "English in 15 lessons, fluent English in half a year." No, no, no, that can never happen. And it's even strange to me that one can fall for it. Well, of course, you know, when I want to deceive myself, I will deceive myself and fall for it. No, I am not promising you that the effect will be lightning-fast, but it will definitely be there. Moreover, it can be delayed. What do I mean? This means that you study, study, study, and suddenly you stop studying. The course is over, but the bright effect has occurred. Any work, work with the brain, I mean, takes time. And this delayed effect is very, very characteristic of the type of work we will be doing. Therefore, we do not expect that everything will happen with a snap of our fingers. No, we understand that everything takes time. We will move calmly, with joy, because our lessons are joyful, interesting, curious. You will observe the changes that are happening to you. And so that not only you observe your changes, but all participants of our event, so to speak, see your changes. I, of course, too. Because I, in general, am also a participant in our event. I hope you understand this. Oh, before I forget, I'll tell you a terribly funny story, which has become a system. I was sitting, when I still had an offline school, sitting in my office, waiting for students to come. A student enters and says: "Oh, is no one here?" I say: "A big hello from no one." That is, usually teachers leave as if outside the group. No, I am exactly the same participant in our event as you are. Therefore, please write comments. Comments with questions, comments with feedback, because this is what will give us the opportunity for effective lessons. I will be able to answer comments, I will be able to post additional posts that will help to understand what was unclear, or to correct what did not work out. Therefore, feedback is everything for us, so that it is not a one-sided game. Well, I think I have said everything I wanted to say. Yes, and one more safety system. When you do articulation exercises, please do not do them at night, because the brain will get tense and say: "Sleep now." How so? It will get excited, it will like it. Well, you shouldn't provoke it into this. And do all articulation exercises, please, either in the morning, or in the afternoon, or not at all, as you wish, but preferably not at night. I will talk about this constantly during our lessons, but just in case, I will say it at the very beginning. So, these are approximately the rules we have. And now let's start our lesson. Our meeting today will be dedicated to the beginning, the beginning of neutralizing this very Russian filter, through which we perceive foreign speech. In order to neutralize it, we need to get acquainted with it. What is this Russian filter? How is it structured? How does it work? When we understand what it is and how it works, it will be very easy for us to start neutralizing it. That is, first understand what we are neutralizing, and then I will tell you how we will neutralize it. I will give you a system of basic exercises and send you off in peace. This will be the beginning, I want to emphasize again, this will be the beginning of neutralizing this filter, because what you have built your whole life, we will not neutralize in one go. Keep in mind, we are not talking about destroying this filter. Why do we need our own native filter? Why destroy it? We just need to neutralize it for the time we are in English. We return to Russian, let it return, dear thing. And when we are studying English, we will have an English filter, which will, in fact, neutralize the Russian one. But let's take things one by one. So, get ready for a theoretical talk. It is very important, do not skip it. Let's start with history. In the last century, in the 20th century, there was a scientist named Penfield, who was a neurosurgeon, that is, a practicing person and a scientist. As a result of his scientific and practical activities, we obtained a map of the cerebral cortex. Thanks to his research, we know that our brain best sees the hands. That is, the hands are best represented in the cerebral cortex. This is why children's fine motor skills are developed. If, God forbid, there is a traumatic brain injury or a stroke, how is a person rehabilitated through fine motor skills? Why? Because by engaging in this very fine motor skill, we directly address the brain. It begins to react to it. The second most represented in the cortex, yes, is the tongue and lips, that is, the speech apparatus. For us, this is a key factor. That is, our brain sees us through the tongue. Through the work of the tongue, to work with the brain, besides hands, we can work with the tongue and lips. The tongue is slightly more represented, so we start with the work of the tongue. I think you are already close to understanding what we need to do. Yes, we will have to work with the tongue. We will have to work with the tongue as a speech organ. It is not for nothing that in English, the native language is called the phrase "mother tongue." Tongue is the organ of speech, that is, the mother's tongue, the mother tongue. It turns out that language as a cultural phenomenon, which is usually called "language" in English, is related to the tongue when it comes to the native language. Mother tongue. So, we already have a key in our hands. This means that in order to switch our brain to English, we need to change the work of the tongue. Do you understand? That is, it turns out that in order to enter the English language system as a linguist, we need to work with the tongue as a speech organ. It's quite logical, isn't it? Well, now a little practice. Let's watch a few fragments of my master class, which I gave to teach how to speak English. But in order to teach how to speak, we need to change the work of the tongue. I want to emphasize that our task, the task of our series, does not include teaching how to speak English, but speaking and listening are very, very, very closely related. If a person speaks English incorrectly from the point of view of articulation, they also do not hear the speech. That's the thing. Therefore, teaching speaking is simultaneously related to teaching listening comprehension. And in order for us to switch our brain to English resources, we need to learn to articulate correctly ourselves. This means that we need to switch to the English articulatory base. So, please watch the fragments of our master class. First, we identify the Russian articulatory base to understand, in fact, what we have been dealing with all our lives. Please watch, first let's figure out, Georgy, this will be your task, let's figure out the Russian articulatory base. I suggest you say the Russian sound "l". >> L. >> Excellent. The Russian sound "t". >> T. The Russian sound "n". >> N. >> And the Russian sound "d". >> D. >> Uh-huh. Now we will have to do the same, but we will already have a task. Before you do this task, you need to prepare for it. The fact is that the tongue is not an organ that is easy to control. That is, physically, literally not that organ. We are not used to working with it consciously. Therefore, we need to now, uh, identify the tip of the tongue, which will interest us the most. So, how to do it? Well, like this. Scratch it so that there are mild painful sensations. Found the tip of the tongue? Yes. >> Excellent. Now let's move on. Now that you know where the tip of your tongue is, I will ask you to pronounce the sounds I will name, paying attention to where the tip of your tongue was during the pronunciation of these sounds. I say the sound "l". Let's >> l. >> L. >> Uh-huh. Where was it? Where was the tip of your tongue? >> It was pressing against the upper teeth. >> Wonderful. Let's move on. Let's say the Russian sound. T. >> T. So. >> Uh-huh. And where was the tongue, the tip? >> The same place, the same place, it was pressing against the upper teeth. T. L. >> Now let's say the sound "n". Russian. >> N. The same. N. >> And the sound "d". >> D. Again, the same. It presses against the upper teeth. >> That's it. We have now, without being doctors or speech therapists, determined the Russian articulatory base. Yes, it is called dental because it is related to the teeth. The tongue, the tip of the tongue presses against the teeth. And now we will switch to the English articulatory base. Please look at how we do it with Georgy. To understand where to place the tip of the tongue, where it should press, we need to know what alveoli are. Usually, normal people don't know what they are or where they are. How to find them? From the teeth. We go deeper into the oral cavity. And the first obstacle we encounter, such rough bumps, these are the alveoli. Try, please. >> It's quite deep, right? There >> no, no, no, no, not there, otherwise you'll get into the boat. No, no, right at the first obstacle. Such bumps behind the teeth. >> Yes, yes, yes. Got it. Uh-huh. >> Got it. Excellent. Press them with the tip of your tongue, so you understand where they are. >> Yes, I'm pressing, right? >> Uh-huh. Now slightly close your mouth, uh, the tongue there. >> Uh-huh, uh-huh. Look at me, please. Yes, and you can see how my face has changed, just like mine. Look, see how it's slightly elongated, >> became, became more strict, >> yes? More strict and more elongated. So, this is precisely because the tongue is positioned, the tip of the tongue is positioned on the alveoli. Now it is very important that when you pronounce the sounds I will name, the tongue will want to go home, it will want to go to the teeth. Do not let it go there. Therefore, to trick it a little, we place the tip of the tongue a little deeper. Just a little, not on the fleshy part of the alveoli, but a little deeper. For what? The tongue will want to go home. Oops, we caught it here on the alveoli. Let's try now. I will speak in the Russian base, okay? And you will speak in English. And also help yourself with this a little bit. Yes. Yes. Let's try. So, I say a Russian sound, and you interpret it in the English articulatory base. Uh-huh. L. L. Perfect. Let's say the English sound T. Just control your tongue now, please. The English sound T. Uh-huh. >> T. T. >> Uh-huh. >> Excellent. Not a Russian T at all. Note, this is an English T. It's not T at all. >> Let's move on. We return to the English articulatory base, because the tongue has already slipped. And let's say the English sound "n". >> N. Do you hear how nasal it is? >> Yes, all sounds are nasal. >> Let's move on. We return to the English articulatory base. The tongue on the alveoli, the tip of the tongue, and let's say the English sound "d". >> D. D. Yes. >> La. You have now informed your brain that you have an English resource there, and it can see you completely differently. Congratulations. And anyone can do this. And now, please listen to the Russian and English sounds in contrast, so that you hear the difference, seemingly identical sounds, because from a formal point of view, it is the same sound. Please listen. L. L. T. N. N. D. D. That's it. So, now we have understood how to switch to the English brain resource. How to tell our brain: "Dear friend, that's it, I am now English for you." And you are now working in English mode for me. In order for this to happen automatically, I suggest you do exercises. Exercises that, in fact, you saw when we were working with Georgy at the master class. That is, you pronounce the Russian sound "la". Then you move your tongue from the teeth to the rough bumps, which are called alveoli, as you already know. You are crawling, as if rubbing your tongue and pressing on the alveoli. It's better to go a little deeper behind the alveoli, because, as you now know again, the tongue will want to go home, to the Russian base, to the teeth, but we won't let it, we'll outsmart it. And when pronouncing the sound, striving for the teeth, it will reach the alveoli. Like this. Such a little trick. We need to do this in order to teach our tongue to work as we need it to. When it learns to do this, it thus informs the brain what the brain needs to do, how to perceive us. I hope you understand this connection. This was an important basic moment, friends. Do not do this exercise before bed. No need, the brain will get excited, it will get tense, it will want to, let's say, continue the party, don't do it. Therefore, do it either in the morning or in the afternoon. And one more important point is the safety system. Do not do this exercise a lot. One or two rounds are enough. Why? Because this is very serious work for this part of our physical body. It, this physical body, can react. We don't know how. I don't want to scare you, so just take note. Do it twice and that's it. And calm down. It will not affect, I mean the number of repetitions. It will not affect the speed of switching. It will affect the quality. Slow work, very thoughtful. That is, you need to feel everything, how it happens. How your tongue moves from the teeth, how you press against the alveoli, how you go a little beyond them. That's what's important. Slow and little. That's our safety system. I have warned you. Please take note of this. So, we have now understood what exercise to do in order to switch our brain to English resources. It would seem, what could be simpler? To make this exercise even more effective, we can involve our hand, our hand, as an image of the tongue. The fact is that, uh, as you already know, hands are very brightly represented in the cortex. Therefore, by working with your hand, you additionally help the brain to orient itself in what is happening. Look, if you are right-handed, then take your right hand. If you are left-handed, then take your left hand. While you are just starting to do these exercises, I will later explain how to modify them a little to make them more difficult. But for now, right-handers take their right hand, left-handers take their left hand. And we imagine that this is an image of the tongue, the root of the tongue, from where the little tongue grows. The tip of the tongue. You say a Russian sound, well, let's say, "la". You move to the English position with your tongue. The tongue is on the alveoli, and the hand changes its shape. Here are the alveoli, these are the tips of the tongue. Like this were the teeth, alveoli. Here they are. Well, let it be like this. We work with only one hand. I just showed you what it all looks like in the oral cavity. So, this is for English, the Russian sound "t". We crawl. Work is happening there. T. N. N. D. D. Your hand will get tired, and this will be an indicator that your brain is giving you a signal. Guys, this is hard for me, it's giving a signal. You will feel how your hand gets tired. It will be amazing. What are we doing there, dear God? Nothing. But there is a reaction. Here's the answer. Doctors explained it to me like this. When I asked them: "Why, what is it?" Listen, I am a trained person, strong adult men's hands get tired. That's the story. A person is a very interesting creature. Let's continue. I have just shown you an exercise involving the hand. You should not start with this. That is, first, for a few days, do it without your hand, because it's hard to coordinate everything, believe me. But when you feel that, okay, it's normal, it seems I can do something, yes, it's working out, I'm not getting too tired, okay, let's connect the hand. I repeat, the first stage, when we connect the hand, right-handers take their right hand, left-handers take their left hand. Now the next stage. We create an additional difficulty. Left-handers take their right hand, right-handers take their left hand, and we train in the same way. That is, the image of the tongue, the root, the tip, and everything the same as we did. In this way. In this way, we switch from the Russian articulatory base to the English articulatory base. We are restructuring the brain's work. We are not just mechanically doing something. Why? When a person simply repeats by ear after a speaker, a teacher, I don't know, an actor, it's a so-so story, because simply imitating the sound does not allow the brain to switch. I am just imitating, I speak as I hear. I speak in the Russian base. I don't know another base. I have my own native one, in which I live. Based on it, I imitate as best I can. If we do not listen to someone else's speech, but do the work that we have started to do now, oh, then it's a completely different story. Then your speech will be natural when you start speaking. And the brain restructures. And by virtue of this brain restructuring, we help to neutralize the Russian filter, which I will now tell you about. What is this Russian filter? What is this filter at all? It is what is called a phoneme. The concept of a phoneme is defined differently. That is, there are different definitions of the term phoneme. What interests us now is this. The phoneme I am talking about is a kind of abstraction. That is, you need to understand that a phoneme does not exist in life, it is not real. It is an abstraction that lives here. What is this abstraction? How did it settle here? We will now talk about Russian phonemes in order to move on to understanding, what to do, what to do. So, when we were very young, we heard Russian speech 24/7. And our brain in childhood had a remarkable ability, the ability to generalize different modifications of the same sound into one ideal image. I hope you understand that speech is individual. If we all speak in the same Russian language system, yes, the system is one, but each person realizes it differently when they start speaking. We all have slightly different voices, slightly different intonation, we have slightly different articulatory abilities. As many people speaking Russian as there are speeches, that is, a huge number. And so the child hears these different speeches and generalizes similar modifications of the same phoneme. We call them sounds, but in reality, it's not like that. It's a phoneme. It has many different modifications. These modifications are called allophones. And these allophones, they are slightly, slightly, slightly different. Our ear, our brain, rather, through the ear, generalizes these allophones, these different modifications into one ideal image, for example, into the image of the phoneme "a". And the fact that different people pronounce this "a" as "a", "a", and so on, our brain doesn't care anymore, it has generalized it into one beautiful, ideal phoneme. And so it happens, or rather, it happened with all sounds. They were generalized, these allophones were generalized into an ideal phoneme, into an ideal representation. And we have many of them, naturally. But thanks to this generalization, we do not perceive the speech of different people as speech in different languages. We understand the speech of all Russian speakers. But if there is no strong defect, then it's another matter. Or if there is no strong accent. Now we will talk about a very important scientific concept that is related to zoning, to such a concept as zoning. I hope you understood what a phoneme is. And now let's figure out what zoning is. The term is so-so, but it is very understandable, and it will now give us the opportunity to understand why it is so difficult for us to understand bad accents, complex, heavy accents. Why don't we understand people with speech defects? What's going on there? Now I will draw it for you, and everything will be clear. So, look, here is our wonderful, ideal representation, which is called a phoneme. It lives here. And around this ideal, wonderful representation, there are peripheral zones. That is, this is the nucleus, and these are the shells around it. And when a person speaks, if they speak Russian well, clearly, they fall close to this phoneme, in a close zone. Of course, it's unlikely to be ideal. Well, who knows, that might happen too, but in any case, they fall into a close zone. And we recognize what the person said easily, because here it is. And our phoneme reacted with joy and attracted this sound to itself. An allophone. Do you remember, right? That the realization of a phoneme in life, when we speak, is allophones, that is, its individual modification. Each has its own. Someone else spoke and fell here. Uh-huh. Well, still. The zone is quite normal for recognition. Excellent. We understood the person without any effort, but we heard some peculiarity of theirs. Well, no big deal. It doesn't prevent us from understanding them. And it happens that someone fell into this zone. See, a little further, it's already difficult to recognize, but we still understand, because it is the near periphery of this nucleus of ideal representation. And then it started. Oops, it fell here. Oops, it fell here. Yes, our phoneme can no longer understand. It no longer hears all this. It's so far from it that this phoneme does not react to these strange allophones, these little sounds. Where did you come from? It doesn't hear, it doesn't react. Hmm. But what happens here? After all, besides this one phoneme, we have many more. And here is the nucleus of another phoneme. And this allophone, which was intended to be here, which belonged, as it were, to this phoneme, it fell into another, because that's how it was said, and it fell into the near periphery of a completely different phoneme. And, for example, you meant one sound, but you said it in such a way that it did not fall into the correct phoneme, but fell into another. And your interlocutor heard a completely different sound than you intended, because a different phoneme reacted. You fell into it with your unclear pronunciation of this sound. This is how this mechanism works. You must agree, it is absolutely logical. That is, here in what I have just told you, there is nothing that an ordinary normal person cannot understand. Yes, it is structured this way, it is, well, it is logically structured, there is an ideal representation. Then we either fall close to it, or fall far away, or don't fall at all. And therefore, when people speak with a strong accent, we don't like it, because we strain. We strain, our brain strains. It tries to recognize this modification of the sound, where to place it, into which phoneme. Yes, strong accents irritate us, and largely because the brain has to do extra work to recognize these different little sounds. Where to place it, into which phoneme to fit it. This is very important. If we understand this, then everything is absolutely clear. Here is our filter. Here is our dear, native Russian filter. This is how it is structured. We have Russian phonemes. They are formed, they feel great. But here's what's important to understand? This ability to generalize allophones into phonemes closes, as a rule. I'm not talking about unique cases. We are talking about average people. This ability closes around the age of 7. At the latest, 5-7 years. That's it, the brain no longer generalizes these allophones into phonemes. Well, there is no such ability. What to do? The Russian filter has formed. Wonderful. Now, what happens? We, and everyone says, well, everyone who is not lazy, perceive foreign speech through the filter of our native language. Here is this filter. We have Russian phonemes. And our brain tries to place the allophones or sounds, let's say for now, of the English language into Russian phonemes. They are not there. We have our own phonemes, which do not attract, do not perceive English sounds. Some sounds that are close to ours, we recognize them, but some we don't. And when there is a stream of sounds, oh, forget it. This is the Russian filter. This is how it works. This is why it works. Because English sounds, you already know this, from the example of the four basic ones, are completely different from Russian ones. Consequently, our phonemes do not react to English sounds. Logical. Absolutely. I have described the mechanism of the so-called Russian filter. The question is, what to do? What to do? Because we can no longer form English phonemes from the outside. That is, from the outside, by listening, yes, speech, we cannot generalize it into phonemes, into an ideal representation. That is, we will develop a habit for certain people, for certain accents. Everything else we will understand with great difficulty, and some things we will not understand at all. Why? Because these little sounds that we hear from outside have not been generalized into an ideal phoneme. There is no ability. Look at your passport, how old are you? More than seven, everything. Once again. Habituation can occur, but it is not generalization into a phoneme. Of course, there are different cases. What can be said here? People are all very different. I hope I haven't opened America for you. Someone might have, but someone was lucky, it generalized. Well, I envy, so to speak, such a person. It didn't generalize for me at the time. Now I will tell you a funny story that was, you know, a trigger for me. Perhaps I realized that something like this, when they say that you will live in an environment, and you will understand, and you will learn to understand, and everything will be fine, you will watch movies and understand that something is wrong here. I had a period when I lived in America, lived in an English-speaking environment, lived with Americans, with my American friend. And I understood her perfectly. That is, I had no problem understanding her speech, I had no problem understanding her husband's speech, because I communicated with them all the time. And it really seemed to me that we were speaking the same language. That is, I didn't see, there was no barrier at all. But when she pushed me into the store, I was in wild stress because I didn't understand the people in the store who were speaking English to me. I didn't understand the cashier, I didn't understand other people who were walking around with those carts, I didn't understand. And, uh, somehow my friend pushed me into the store. I said: "No, come with me, you'll translate." She said: "What are you, you really don't understand that I and the people you want me to translate for, or rather, for whom you want me to translate from their language, that we speak the same language, their English and my English. And what will I translate for you from?" She said to me. You know, that hit me hard. And I was sure that, yes, she was translating for me. And she speaks the same English. She just repeated another person's English speech, but in her own words. And I understood her English speech, but I didn't understand the other person's speech, even though it was the same English. Why? I have just illustrated the fact that I did not have a formed phoneme. Neither the first, nor the second, nor the third English phonemes were formed. I just got used to my friend's English speech. You can also achieve this, that is, get used to a large number of speeches. You can go another way, you can start building this phoneme from within. What we have already started to do today. Yes, yes, yes. That is, by changing the work of the tongue, what we did at the beginning, we gave the brain a signal, friend, this is how English works, this is how English sound works, this is how English resource works. That is, we have physically switched our brain to perceive English speech, by activating, so to speak, the English resource that lives here naturally. We can, m, if we were born in another country, we would understand another language. Right? Right. So, it turns out that a person potentially has access to any language. You just need to do it, you need to switch it. So, this switch is our tongue. By changing its work, we switched the brain to another resource. And now we will start to hear English sounds much better, because representations of how it works in English are beginning to form there, from within. And we have just done the most basic, the most difficult work. That is, we have made the transition from one base to another base. That is, right at the foundation of these bases. But we have given the brain a code, or rather, a key to the code. This is the key that will help the brain to further decode English speech sounds by building these very phonemes from within. We have given the brain a key to the code. And this is a great achievement that has happened to us today, with which I congratulate you, my friends. So, imperceptibly. We are beginning the neutralization of the Russian filter. Here is the Russian filter. We have drawn it. And here we are building an English filter, which will not negatively affect our Russian filter at all. No, it will simply neutralize it. It will turn it off for the time we are in English. Here will be our traps for English sounds, English phonemes, little traps that will catch English sounds, English allophones. Like this. Russian filter, English filter. And they will be friends, they will not be in competition, because your brain will clearly know which language you are in by the work of your tongue. It is not by chance that we do the exercise. Transition from one language to another using what? The tongue as a speech organ. We are working with the brain, working with the transition from one system to another, from one system to another, so that these systems are in harmony, so that they are friends with each other, so that they are not in competition or conflict. And this needs to be done gradually, moving calmly and confidently, which we will do. Thank you for being with me today. See you later.