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Supporters of English textbooks in the Russian language often cite the differing mentalities of our peoples, implying the necessity to explain many things in one's native tongue.
Let's shed light on these differences in mentalities with "why?" questions:
- Why do the English shake hands, while Russians grip them?
- Why is the Vixen always wearing pants in English fairy tales?
- Why do we say we have many hairs on our head, whereas the English claim just one (though it doesn't look like it)?
- Why, after stepping on an Englishman's foot and politely apologizing (excuse me, please), might you encounter trouble?
- Why do the English "spin something out of thin air", when we "suck it out of our finger"?
- Why do the English, when besting someone in a debate, put someone not "under their belt", but... "into a cocked hat"?
- Why do the English "fall in love with somebody", taking their object of affection along?
The list of such questions could go on indefinitely.
Yet, the answer to all these myriad queries can be summarized with one concise, profound, entirely accurate, and comprehensive response:
Because they're English...
And everything they do isn't the Russian way!
The greater the difference in mentalities between your country and the nation of the language you're studying, the more you should tuck away your own measuring stick, ensuring you don't mistakenly use it to gauge foreign concepts.
Why should they have anything like ours, when both of us formed our languages without any knowledge of each other?
It's the similarities between languages, not the differences, that truly demand an explanation. When, where, and under what circumstances did our cultures intersect, leading one to borrow from the other? Or was there a third party involved that lent elements to both, or acted as a "carrier"?
Once, my friends from France and I had a laughing debate, arguing over who "stole" what from whom. In the end, we had to concede words like "wardrobe", "hood", and "nightmare" to the French, while they only gave us back "bistro".
All the differences between languages are perfectly natural. Attempting to explain them is as absurd as English philologists explaining to their students that a Russian cat has an "o" in the middle (кот) instead of an "a" (cat) because, well, it's so un-English.
As long as we sit on our side of the river, discussing different mentalities and cherry-picking bits and pieces from a foreign language, that language will remain a confusing jumble of tables, "ises", "oses", and perfect tenses for us. The only correct approach to a language is to muster the courage and effort to get up from our familiar spot and cross the bridge to the other side!
So, dear reader, this isn't a farewell. Subsequent books in this series will delve deeply into the methodology we've introduced. A special selection of role-playing games will tackle grammar topics such as articles, prepositions, and word order in sentences. Some books will present principles of creating topics based on literature, poems, and songs. Practical techniques, recommendations for speech development through melodeclamation, logical and artistic dictations, reading techniques through color rhymes, and so much more can be discovered in the series "Secrets of Fluent Language Mastery."
I extend my deepest gratitude to Tamara Nikolaevna Ignatova, my Teacher and Mentor, for her invaluable comments and additions.
I thank all my students - serious and playful, obedient and not so much, who have always been and will always remain my primary source of inspiration. I'm also grateful to their parents for their patience and trust.
A huge thank you goes out to my daughter - Valeria Krylova, without whom this book would have remained an idea. She wore many hats: a co-author and ally, a critic and challenger, a designer and layout artist, a technical editor, and a manager and organizer. And she took on all these roles while being a graduate of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University.
