Transcription
English for an IT specialist from scratch. A guide. I already had a video about how I learned English myself, where I shared methods that work for me. But after that, I received a lot of questions: what to read, what to do if you are a complete beginner and don't know English at all. Should you also watch series? What to watch, what to listen to? Where to find all these materials? And how to learn? And I have compiled a complete, most complete guide with links, documents, and materials on English for each part, so that you can just take it and push your learning off the ground.
First of all, why learn? This question also arises. We live, many live in Russia or in CIS countries, or in Russian-speaking countries. There is a huge amount of material in English. You can't imagine, it's like an iceberg that you don't even see, because in your field of vision, there is always material in Russian, in your field of vision is what we know well. But we don't actually know how much there is. That is, almost all documentation is primarily in English, articles, videos. That is, a large part of specialists also speak English.
And there is also such a thing about working abroad. Many say, why do I need to work abroad? After taxes, it turns out to be the same in Russia, or in Belarus, it doesn't matter, roughly the same salaries. In reality, remote work is very popular now, and I myself work this way. There are videos about completely remote work. This is when a company is based in Europe, Germany, France, England, it doesn't matter. And they hire completely remote specialists. There is vacancy one, vacancy two, and my example is vacancy three. What happens? The following happens: you often work as an individual entrepreneur, as a contractor, and you pay some small tax. But guys, your salary is European. And they all speak English. And what's important here is not so much technical English, but your ability to speak in an interview, to speak with colleagues, and in general, to simply perceive information. That is, not a pure set of terms, but simply so that you can sit down and talk with you like a person, say, "It's not right here, it's right here, you're doing great, we're promoting you," and so that you understand this, you need to learn English, accordingly, first of all.
Where to find grammar materials? Because if you are a complete beginner, if you are a complete, complete, complete beginner, you will take 300 words, for example, you will start learning them, you have learned them, how to apply them, you don't understand, because you don't understand grammar. Because when there is some sentence, you don't understand how to interpret even the words that are in this sentence. Therefore, it is very important, guys, to understand at least the basics of grammar. English grammar is not as huge and all-encompassing as many people generally think. Therefore, there is guide one for English grammar with articles, reviews of different rules, and so on. There is knowledge base two, again, absolutely free, absolutely free. Just go and learn. But personally, personally, I much prefer the approach when everything is in tabular form, convenient PDFs, tabular forms, and just so that you don't need to go to any website, so that you just have a PDF, you print this PDF, hang it on your wall, conditionally, and practice. Accordingly, link three is in the description. Again, here you can download materials, in principle, on any topic. What I like most is tables sometimes, because tenses, in my opinion, are one of the most important things in English grammar. If you understand how tenses are constructed, then this is, in principle, a large part of sentences. How are they constructed? "I work there," or "I did that," or "I am doing that," or "I am going there." And this part is the most difficult for most people who learn English. Therefore, when you see it in the form of text in some textbook, it is not as convenient as simply taking a table, hanging it on your wall, and simply checking it every time you construct a sentence. So, learn, learn, learn, learn from knowledge base one, from knowledge base two. But what I like most is downloading PDFs, printing them out, guys, believe me, this grammar will be more than enough for you, especially at the beginner level. That is, if you understand absolutely nothing, start with the blog, start by gradually expanding your knowledge, gradually understanding how it is connected. But then definitely move on to these schematics that will help you simply perceive and better navigate texts. That is, grammar is a support for your vocabulary, for your listening, for your speaking. Grammar is, well, a foundation.
Next, we've figured out grammar a bit. What to listen to? They ask me after I said, "Watch series, memorize phrases." They ask me what to watch. I didn't expect such questions, honestly, because I thought, "Watch whatever you want." But specifically for you, there are, first of all, series. From series, sitcoms: Silicon Valley, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory. Simple vocabulary, killer jokes, funny. If it's not funny, laugh and watch. Laugh, watch, and learn. If you don't like the series and would prefer something more educational, for example, there is site one with podcasts, with conversations on various topics. There is site two, simply a collection of listening materials. And what else I like about it is that after listening, you take a test on the material. That is, this is a more standard approach to learning. Listen, listen, listen on your way to work, listen on your way back from work, listen. And it's just when you have the opportunity to constantly hear English speech. If you have outgrown, for example, watched all the series, listening is boring for you, what do I watch first? Any TED talks. Take any TED talk. This is a normal conversation on an abstract topic from people who understand something. And it's like, you know, there's such a concept as "information chewing gum." You seem to have received some information, but it's in an entertaining form. So it's quite cool. There is more complex vocabulary. For example, I really love Y Combinator videos. If you don't know, Y Combinator is a venture fund through which a huge number of startups have passed. Airbnb passed through it, Reddit passed through it. Well, a lot of different startups. And they also have their own blog, knowledge base, and their YouTube videos with experts. Well, and it's just pleasant to listen to, you know, the feeling that you've touched something high, the great world of startups. There are English channels that I watch on YouTube. For example, for me, the channel of Jay is a guy from FAANG. I don't know who he is, a data scientist or a computer scientist, but he has a lot of videos, he has a lot of different sketches, he has a lot of conversational videos. Mostly the content is similar to mine, except that I don't have sketches. There is another channel, Tina Hung, a data scientist, also from FAANG. Her videos are more educational, videos about how to prepare for an SQL technical interview. And you learn SQL, and you learn English, and simultaneously master new vocabulary. And in principle, it's pleasant and useful to listen to. So I also recommend it. There is one more channel that I always recommend in the chat, it's the channel of StatQuest about statistics, data science, analytics. Again, a very clear voice, very useful materials, explains very easily, and with a touch of humor. It's just a treat for those who are learning English and want to pick up a little bit, pick up a little bit of specialized vocabulary. I recommended him in the Telegram channel. Yes, join the Telegram channel, subscribe to the channel, click the bell. Do it right now. I think I've earned it. This is the first part of the video. And watch the second part of the video.
So, if you think, "Well, of course, there's a lot to listen to, but it's all not for me." Guys, there are podcasts. Podcasts about iOS, podcasts about Android. Links will all be in the description. Podcasts about DevOps. Just take from this list of links and find a podcast that suits you. It will be difficult for you to perceive podcasts in English by category right away, perhaps. But this is what you should strive for gradually. Because if you understand a podcast in your specialty, if you understand it, then you can already say something. So, definitely just take these channels, some specialized ones. First of all, you don't need any of this, basic vocabulary. But then, when you expand, the list of podcasts on the one hand, the list of channels on the other hand. Take it all, it will be just awesome. You'll listen to it until you're blue in the face. Well, you'll think, "Okay, fine, I understand, like, what to listen to, where to find grammar, what to read." Oh, I have something for you to read. There are cool forums. Well, Stack Overflow, I think you know it. I won't remind you. You can just go to it even when you're not googling a bug or an error. Go to Stack Overflow, read it, it's a sacred duty. There is a forum that I love, where I hang out: TeamBlind.com. This is a forum for Western IT specialists. Lots of discussions about work, salaries, companies. A very open and honest conversation, and a lot of information that you can't get anywhere else. Accordingly, this is technical vocabulary, this is vocabulary for interviews, this is financial vocabulary a bit, because everyone discusses who got how many stocks, how much they will be worth, where they are going up or down. And accordingly, I don't even know many words in Russian, but I already know them in English precisely because I hang out there. If you didn't know, by the way, you can also read Glassdoor. Go to your favorite company. For example, I love Google so much that I even failed the interview there. And read reviews, interview questions, all sorts of just employee reviews about working at the company, reviews about the interview process. Just read everything, read, read, read. Because these are actually people who went through interviews, especially those who passed the interviews. You just read what they were asked in the interview. The same can be done on TeamBlind. I sometimes just go there, search for "product analyst interview," and read what people are asked in the actual interview for a product analyst, because I am also a product analyst. Do the same with your specialty. Well, or if you are a fellow product analyst, then literally the same thing you can do.
Another option where you can gain professional vocabulary is LinkedIn. I've already written about LinkedIn for job searching. There's a video about how useful LinkedIn is. And by the way, after it, very funny, a lot of people added me on LinkedIn. Hello everyone, thank you all for adding me. Welcome. But guys, you need to add not only me. Add everyone, all random people. If you can't add, connect, you can follow. LinkedIn constantly posts posts, and sometimes the posts are nonsense, you know, like everyone has probably seen: "Like if you're for working in the office, and put OK if you're for working from home. Let's see how many of us there are." There are such posts. And there are more posts, there are inspiring posts, there are posts about careers, there are posts when someone describes their own path. And this is also a lot of content that can be consumed passively in English. Like, you follow some guy, for example, like Andrey Doronichev from Google, Silicon Valley. I think he stuttered because I constantly remember him. And there are guys, for example, a data science manager at Facebook, there's some super software engineer at some super cool level, there's some CEO you can read. They constantly... You find people who write posts and just follow them and read what they write. That is, they are like bloggers, like influencers. For some reason, in Russia, LinkedIn culture is not very developed. I even know why, because LinkedIn is blocked. But many people create blogs purely on LinkedIn. Accordingly, to see who from your specialty. You, for example, a frontend developer. You are looking for a frontend developer, some, and then you are looking for a company, say, Facebook, or Google, or Amazon, Netflix, Binance, for example, if you are interested, or Apple, if you are interested. Someone from there. And you read what people write. Find people with active profiles. This is generally not so difficult, especially if you say, "Well, I don't know, it's somehow difficult." At most, I'll subscribe to your channel and click the bell, of course, I'll like it. Guys, there are also forums. Just go to any, some more populated, some less populated. But yes, let's hang out on forums. We are in a Telegram chat, let's hang out on forums. Personally, besides TeamBlind, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn, I hang out on Reddit. Well, I just love Reddit. I love reading Reddit. I love the subreddits that are on Reddit. In general, Reddit is a huge base of content, articles, pictures, videos. And again, by specialty of interest, you can find a lot of materials, a lot of topics. And what's also cool is the responsive community. That is, in the sense that if there is some subreddit for Android, you can go there, you can go there with a question, you can create a topic, and it's very easy to get into it and very easy to become a part of it, even if you have a small knowledge of English. Believe me, this is already something. That is, you will come there, the community is international. That is, Russia is a bit isolated in this regard, because the study of English is much more widespread. I feel this from working with European colleagues, colleagues from Finland, from Sweden, in the sense that their level of English is higher. I think, "Damn, I know English well, I've watched all the series, but they know it better." And in this regard, we are very shy, in general, to demonstrate our level of English, because, well, it's unusual. That is, in Russia, you are not used to doing it. In Europe, for example, you go from one country to another, then to a third, studied a bit abroad. It's more common, and accordingly, people speak better, accordingly, people are less shy. Let's break this. Let's be less shy. Accordingly, where you can participate, participate. And where you don't want to participate, you just want to read, read. I've given you so much material that you won't have enough for the rest of your life to figure it out.
The next part is the most difficult to master alone: the speaking part. Speaking is definitely with a teacher, with a native speaker. That is, work through, work through, work through. Speak in front of the mirror. Speak with series characters. I always repeat, repeat phrases. I always repeat, repeat phrases from series characters, repeat phrases from podcasters. Pronounce in your head, pronounce aloud. If you already have some basic English, guys, take an interview. What are you afraid of? Do it for yourself. Make a resume. Take an interview. No one will bite you for it. If, I understand, you are in Russia, for example, you are worried, take an interview, because the market is finite. Guys, the international market is infinite. So, if you manage to pass the interview, just get this combat experience, so that you are specifically screwed up, then this will also be very good. But it's generally great to find a partner for speaking English, a teacher, that is, within the framework of some training course. Excellent. Well, and in addition to this, pronounce, go. In principle, this is a complete collection of guides and materials that you can take and take and learn English. In principle, if you start reading, consuming, learning at least half of this, you will already have a good level of English in a year. The main problem, of course, is motivation with English, that it is very easy to quit. But guys, the means are there. I am handing them over to you. I can make a video about it, but that will be a separate video. Thank you for watching. Be sure to check the description for a bunch of links. Write comments, subscribe to the channel, and all that. In general, good luck with learning English. Thank you for watching, guys. See you in the next video. And goodbye.