I had English lessons in my school, grades 4-10.
In the last year my English teacher asked me:
Astra, why don't you learn English as well as you do Maths and Physics?
My answer was: Why would I waste my time on learning English language? I would never ever need it working as a survey engineer in Ukrainian (or any other xUSSR republic) coal mine? Now you have to understand that I was born when communism was the only power in the country. The country was closed to the rest of the world. No travelling, no way to leave (or even having such a traitorous thought!) the country, no books in foreign languages, no films. To cut the long story short, absolutely no need in the knowledge of a foreign language. Not today, not in the future. I learned some 100+ words, such as sister, brother, mother, father, supper, dinner, coat...that was it.
In 1990 I could not imagine that in two years time I will be in Israel. I will go to their best technological University where regardless of how good/bad I was in maths or physics, if I didn't know English I could not read any technical book, because they didn't/don't translate them from English to Hebrew.
After I knew I was accepted to the Uni, I spent 7 weeks (two 1 hour lessons per weeks) with a private tutor grasping the basics of English grammar. It was the first and the last time I ever studied English grammar. However, my vocabulary was boosted by another hundred words? 200+ now?
One day, (1995) after another failed English test, I joined my friend to play Genesis - The Original LPMud. It is online text based role playing game. All descriptions are in English. All quests are in English. People speak in English......Astra wanna team?
quickly browsing my dictionary yields zero results for wanna...by that time people who ask the question suspect that I am lagging and move on. Armour, helmet, leggings, spear, sword, shield, muffin, dwarf, pull, push, lift, move, squeeze, light lamp, extinguish torch, regurgitate gem, climb up, climb through, cast a spell, withdraw/deposit 5 gold coins...one letter wrong, you get an error message. I had to know the spelling, the meaning, etc.
3 years I played the game. I think after two years I decided I like Morgul Mages guild (the most powerful and deadly). Creme De La Creme. I? who barely speaks English, who has next to zero skill in role playing, wants to join the best guild (user base close to a 1000 players and only 15 are Morgul Society Mages?). Anyway, I was allowed in, don't ask me why they let me in. I got a Master for an apprenticeship period. He was (as I learned a later) German, ex Lieutenant who actually programmed this guild because he was LoTR fan who read LoTR ever year starting on September 22. His English was spotless.
I hated him! He demanded from me a report every day for all the tasks I have done, if not why. He corrected my English every time. I hated him!
I still remember him but in a different light. Thanks to him I can write this post now. Forcing me to write reports, he manage to break this mental barrier when you start to think and write in English even though making tons of mistakes, but express your thoughts in written English.
Yes, 3 years of wasted life, but without this game I would never master English.
In 1997 I quit the game.
I started to read magazines. Occasionally, Times but mostly Astronomy. Stupid choice, yeah? Why magazines with unusual and difficult vocabulary? I don’t know. I think Astronomy always sparked my curiosity and I read a few books in Russian. I knew that only reading something interesting could be a good motivation/incentive to carry on, otherwise I would give up. Every word I didn't know was written down and translated in a notepad. This notepad would accompany me every day to a factory where I worked on a couple of machines. I could place the notepad nearby and go through the words every day. The first notepad was full when it contained more than 1000 words. However, I realised I was losing whatever I learned of "spoken" English. I didn't speak English at all, but I could chat on the Internet. I installed mIRC to assist me in sustaining at least the same level of so called “spoken” English and by accident met my future wife
At the same time I decided to expand my fantasy reading beyond The Lord of the Rings. I found Shadow Rising in Russian, in Russian section of a local library in Israel. After I finished it I found out it was book 4 out of many...wanted to find other books and failed. That was a pivotal moment in
my history of learning English language. I ordered the rest of the books (7) in English. Some from Amazon.com some I bought in Steimatzky. Since then, I read in English only. Until I moved to the UK, I kept the habit of writing down and translating every unfamiliar word then memorising the words during my work shifts at factory.
I was admitted to High Intermediate EFL group for First Cambridge Certificate on my third week in the UK that surprised me to no end. Even my future wife was a bit surprised
They didn’t teach us grammar (unfortunately) because it was taken for granted that whoever got into High Intermediate knows all of it. I did learn many useful bits and pieces such as writing formal letters, the meaning of phrasal verbs, etc. The FCC final had 5 exams. Reading, Writing, English in Use (sort of grammar test), Speaking and Listening. Speaking and Listening were the most difficult. I am a slow person. I need time to think when I talk, let alone that I didn’t realise (and for some unknown reason my tutor never explained it to us, maybe because she thought everybody understands it?) that on exam I didn’t have to reply truthfully on every question
. I had to role play and sustain the conversation with my interlocutors. Listening was only marginally better. I got C for speaking and somehow B for listening. Writing and English in Use were A, but Reading, my strongest skill in my opinion, was B (you could call it reading and comprehension).