Sviatlana Pirazhok
Language
Homework assignment

Every language has its own set of rules. They can be divided to:
--Phonological rules
--Syntactic rules
--Semantic rules
--Pragmatic rules

Phonological rules is the way we pronounce the language. I could say there are differences in the phonological systems of Russian and English. Therefore, it is relatively difficult for Russians to acquire English standards of pronunciation. For example, Russian language has only 6 vowel sounds with practically no difference between short and long vowels. English has a lot of sounds with very hard pronunciation. Therefore, for me up till now is very difficult to distinguish difference and say correctly bed or bad, seat or sit. Also, It’s hard to say sound like in word “her”, as long as we do not have it in Russian.

Also, there is no such sound in Russian as O and , so it’s hard to say correctly all word contain such sounds: together, thanks, especially clothes for me.
Syntactic rules. This is basically grammar and spelling. I cannot help, but exclaim: This is very big problem for almost all Russian speakers.
For example, Russian language has no articles(thanks God))) And English article system is extremely complex!!! I still have very little idea what article to use in different situation.
And Tenses with Verbs!!! In Russian everything is very simple. There are two possibilities: action either completed or incomplete. On the other hand English has so many tenses, with different use of verbs.
That’s why when we translate word to word from R to E we may say:
“ How you do that?” Or “I have a bath now”
Spelling is even bigger problem. Again in Russian everything is very simple: a word's pronunciation can be predicted from its spelling and its spelling from its pronunciation. In English you MUST know how to spell the word and how to pronounce it. And the same combination of letters can be pronounce differently.
For example I remember the rule, that “OO” read as “u:”, like wood, food, mood.
However, the flood, blood is pronounced as “a:”

Semantic rules is the meaning of word and sentences.
Some English word have several meaning and in order to have normal conversation we have to know what they mean in different situation.
For example: Her favorite flower is a rose. ------ She rose from her seat.
Or. - She can type very quickly. She is not his type.
For example when I just came to USA I could not understand: “I’m going to a date”
The word date for me had two meaning. “Date of birth” or “ Her favorite fruit is a date”
Or some words have same pronunciation, but different spelling and meaning.
Ate or eight
By or buy or bye
Hour or our
And in opposite different words have the same meaning.(at least in translation) I remember the joke, when secretary in small Russian company writes the letter to somebody in USA. It starts:
“Expensive Mr. Smith….” To Russian both words(Dear and expensive) translate absolutely the same.

Pragmatic rules: This is how we actually use the language.
We, for whom English is a second language need to learn how to understand the pragmatic meaning of the sentence in order to avoid miscommunications.
One way is to learn idiom and phrases, that are commonly said.
For example, I heard once: “It is not exactly my cup of tea”, from the beginning I didn’t understand what “cup of tea” my friend was speaking about, we didn’t drink any tea at the moment.
For me, it’s the most difficult rule/s in learning English. I realize, that I perfectly understand Academic English we are using in college. However, when it comes to movies or even conversation I hear on the street, I’m in troubles.
It happens that I live in Russian neighborhood, all my friend are Russian speaking and I makes my learning problematic. As our old ladies said “what we need English for? We do not go to THIS America)” I believe I either have to move to “America” or find some American friends.