why did I start learning English and was the language useful in my work?

Hi all! My name is Pavel, I work at Alfa-Bank as a QA Tech Lead. In this article I would like to share my vision and experience of using English in everyday and professional life. I can’t say that my English is at the highest level, but it’s enough to read technical documentation and watch some videos.

Spoiler: English could be useful to me in my work twice. But more on that below…

What prompted you to study the language?

Why did I start actively learning English? The first is, of course, this whole situation that began in 2022. There is uncertainty, as well as a lot of information that many have left to work abroad.

And secondly, when in Turkey I was traveling from Marmaris to Oludeniz by taxi and the taxi driver tried to tell me in English about the beautiful places that we met along the way. But I understood practically nothing of what he told me.

First steps

In general, my first acquaintance with the language was in college, at the beginning of the 2000s. But, as you probably know and understand, it is very difficult to learn a language in secondary schools and colleges. Because they teach the very basics there.

Then there was a long break and only after college, somewhere in the year 2014-2016, I returned to the issue of learning English. Why? Yes, because from all the “irons” they shouted that English is needed now, like air, and this opens up opportunities that you could not even imagine. Traveling to almost any country, working in foreign companies, watching films with original dubbing, etc. by the list. And at the end there is a link to the online marathon.

Okay, Yandex – how to learn English?

I started by opening Yandex and entering “How to learn English” – I had to start somewhere. A ton of information fell out on me from Yandex. I had to figure it out and go through everything experimentally.

I went to a private school that taught English. There were just tons of them back then, and even now. But the price tag of 70,000 rubles for the year cooled me down a little. A little expensive. Although it was possible to get a loan or installment plan, I don’t remember. As a result, I didn’t go and continued to look for ways to learn the language on my own.

I tried to read books, watch some videos in English.

And finally, I downloaded the Duolingo app. That's when it seemed to me that it was possible to learn a language with the help of this wonderful application. For about six months (or even longer), almost every day I went to the website or application and completed tasks, as well as recommendations.

Yes, indeed, the application is wonderful, but it is impossible to learn a language only with it. But I didn’t understand this right away. Therefore, if you want to learn a language normally, only through a program, no matter how wonderful it is, it’s unlikely to work.

How to learn a language “normally”

When a friend appeared in my life who organized an English club, where guys gathered and chatted in English as in Russian, then I realized that I did not understand anything of what they were saying. And I began to suspect that I was doing something wrong. But he stubbornly continued to learn English through Duolingo.

This went on for several years until I decided to take courses in December 2022 and learn the language properly.

Now I have been studying the language in courses for more than a year and have reached level B1. And most importantly, I began to enjoy the learning process. Although this did not come to me right away, even after the start of classes. After all, a lot depends on the teacher. And yes, I don’t like teaching online and remotely, so I stomp my feet to school and teach live. I think this is the best and fastest way to learn.

And now let’s talk about whether English was useful at work

During all this time, English could be useful to me at work twice.

• The first time was when at my last place I corresponded with the Germans about equipment. And then, in this case, Google translator helped me.

• The second time was when at one of the interviews I was asked to communicate in English, because the company had foreign employees. As you can guess, the interview ended there.

English was not useful to me at Alfa-Bank. Is it just for reading some technical documentation? But I didn’t want to work in foreign companies, and I don’t want to.

Practice, practice and more practice

In the courses where I am currently studying English, in addition to regular classes, there is also practice. This is when students of approximately the same level gather and talk for 1.5 hours on a certain topic.

Also, recently friends invited me to go to a bar where expats gather and speak only English. And just a little bit in Russian. At first it was unusual, because it was my first experience of this kind. Therefore, for the first 10-15 minutes, my friends and I explored the situation and tried to understand what and how.

The event started at 18:00, but by 20:00 the bar was almost sold out, which can be seen in the photo above. As in any community, people divided into groups and communicated on different topics. First I talked to a girl who was also there for the first time. She turned out to be Russian and it was easier to communicate, because if I didn’t know some words or expressions, the interlocutor helped me.

Is it useful to go to events where you don’t understand much?

When I returned to my friends, quite a lot of people had gathered at the table. There was a young guy from Israel with whom a friend and girlfriend were talking. Then a cheerful guy from Turkey came up. He told me about his wife, how they came to Russia 1.5 years ago and his wife was indignant that she did not understand anything in Russian. From time to time, various expats and Russian guys came to our table and talked to us on various topics. Of course, also in English.

I can say that I did not understand everything, and it was quite noisy. I also don’t speak perfectly, I still confuse words in sentences and my vocabulary is not rich enough to communicate fluently in English.

However, the atmosphere and setting itself is inviting. I didn’t notice any negative reaction or condemnation if I said something wrong or wrong. Everyone tried to understand and help. Although it was not easy. When you are left alone, without a teacher who can explain something or help with pronunciation, your brain begins to work completely differently and you leave the comfort zone that you observe in class.

I think this is not my last trip to this kind of event. This is great practice that helps you progress and, in my opinion, can replace several classes in the courses.

Let's sum it up

Let me give you a short summary of everything described above. Is it worth learning English now? Definitely worth it.

English is still one of the top 3 most spoken languages ​​in the world. Yes, many places say that you need to learn Chinese. But in the same bar (above) there were several guys of Asian appearance. I don’t know whether they were from China or not, but it doesn’t matter, because they also spoke English. Knowing another common language really opens up new possibilities and broadens your worldview.

The main thing is to understand why you are learning it and why you need it. If there is a clear goal that I am learning a language for this or that, for example, to travel, or to earn more, or for self-development, or to watch films in the original, then learning will be interesting and useful.

And finally, I would like to recommend one of the ways to learn a language that I learned about not so long ago. As one of my teachers told me during the course, it’s called Save Hill. But I could be wrong with the name of the method.

The point is that you just listen to English for six months without trying to speak it. What's the point. If you remember how young children learn a language, they first listen to adults, and only then begin to pronounce sounds and put words into sentences. It’s the same here – connections and associations will form in your head before you start speaking.

That's probably all. Thank you for reading, I hope it was interesting and useful.