More than 100 years ago, the playwright Oscar Wilde, through the mouth of one of his heroes, said that in England and America "today everything is the same, except, of course, the language." It turns out that, according to linguists, he was not far from the truth. Recently, however, the two languages ​​have begun to converge.

Languages ​​change over time, some faster than others. Some languages ​​reflect the changes taking place in the world around them, highlights a new study published by the Royal Society of London (Royal Society). Universal and historical factors are influencing, and languages ​​have been found to change at different rates.

The authors of the study used the Goole Books Ngram corpus database to analyze the use of words and expressions over the past five centuries in eight languages. They analyzed 8 million books, which, according to Google's own data, is approximately 6% of all published books. Google also scanned these books, thus creating a corresponding database. Linguists have always been aware of the differences in language changes, but this time the gigantic Google database was explored, which in its volume far exceeded all previous objects of research.

The group of scientists participating in this work turned out to be international in composition, which, paradoxically, caused its own language problems.

The study's lead author was Søren Wichmann, a Dane at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Its co-authors were Valery Solovyov, a linguist at Kazan Federal University, located in the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia, and astrophysicist Vladimir Bochkarev, also from Kazan, whose interests include languages. This study was carried out at the Kazan Linguistic Laboratory.

The work was complicated by the fact that Wichman does not speak Russian, and Bochkarev does not speak English.

Wichman's wife sometimes acted as an interpreter. When it wasn't there, they used Google translator, which wasn't always helpful.

In this study, participants analyzed written languages ​​that are more conservative in their forms and did not study spoken languages ​​for which the necessary data had not yet been collected. They mainly paid attention to how often the words were used. Each verbal form was considered a separate word; words such as "parking" (park) and "parked" (parked) were counted as two different words.

The process they used is called glottochronology by linguists.

Language is shaped by culture

“One word that used to be special can take on a broader meaning and replace another word that had an equally broader meaning,” Wichmann noted. Sometimes it's just a matter of fashion, sometimes external events have an influence. So, for example, in early English, the word "hound" was used to refer to a dog (dog). Today the word "hound" denotes a special breed of dog. The reverse process probably occurs with the word "vodka" (vodka), which sometimes replaces the word "liquor" (alcohol).

“Any important change in society is reflected in the frequency of the use of words,” Wichman said. For the most part, languages ​​change at the same rate, according to the researchers, but that rate is usually measured in time terms such as half a century, unless something special happens, such as a war. According to Wichman, the vocabulary of the language changed faster during the wars, as new words like “Nazis” were included, and people began to think about things that they had not thought about before the outbreak of hostilities, Wichmann noted.

During the Victorian era, at the height of the British Empire and at a very stable time for Britain, the language remained fairly stable. With the advent of unrest and chaos in the 20th century, change in the vocabulary of the language began to occur more rapidly.

Since about 1850, British English and American English have been the same - except that the British version was about 20 years behind. New words entered the lexicon of American English, and in Britain they appeared only 20 years later.

Then, starting in 1950, under the influence of the media, these two languages ​​began to converge. Today they are much more similar than before, Wichmann noted.

Challenges related to language learning

I have always been interested in the question of why some languages ​​are more difficult for adults to learn than others? According to the researchers, our languages ​​contain what linguists call a "kernel lexicon", that is, a list of words that make up 75% of the written language. If you know these words, then you can understand most of the literature. These are also words that are less susceptible to change even if the language itself changes. The basic lexicon of the English language includes less than 2400 words. If you know them, then you can read 75% of the text. The basic lexicon of the Russian language includes approximately 24,000 words. Although there are about 600,000 words in the English language, and Russian has only a sixth of this number, without knowing the 21,000 basic Russian words, texts written in Russian will be largely incomprehensible.

“Just because a particular word may be in active use in a given period doesn’t mean it has to be new,” said Brian Joseph, noted professor of linguistics at Ohio State University in Columbus. So, for example, at present, the word “cupcake” (capcake) has a similar trend in English.

Sometimes words are combined, as happened with the word "labradoodle" (labradoodles).

Definitions also change. Some words in Shakespeare's time meant one thing, but we use them to mean something else, said David Lightfoot, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The word "scientist" is present in the modern lexicon, but until the 19th century, people in this profession were called natural philosophers."

Sometimes vocabulary changes can tell us more than we think. In recent years, the word "divorce" has become more common than the word "marry" (marry), Wichman noted.

Here, perhaps even more tellingly, the word "information" (information) replaces the word "wisdom" (wisdom).

Joel Shurkin is a freelance journalist based in Baltimore; he is the author of nine books on science and the history of science, and teaches journalism at Stanford University, the University of California, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

In order to do something, the first and most important thing is to believe that you can do it.

There is a good parable about a master and a student, it ends like this: "... And I also want to tell you a terrible secret, my boy. The fog does not fall on the ground to prevent your shot, the wind starts to blow not to take you away your arrow to the side, the hard bow was not created by the archer to make you aware of your weakness. All this exists by itself. It was you who decided that you could hit the target accurately under these conditions. Therefore, either stop complaining about the difficulties and start shooting, or pacify your pride and choose an easier target for yourself. A target at which you can shoot point-blank."

In learning English, it turned out like in a scary fairy tale: a lot of fog was thrown in, which scares away from starting to learn it. Various fantasies greatly slow down those who have already begun. There are three reasons for this:

1. Student inattention

What happens when you sit in class and instead of studying, write messages on social networks and hear only half of what the teacher said? Naturally, you remember no more than 10% of new information, and this gives rise to "dark spots" and serious gaps in your knowledge.

2. Disinterest of the teacher

Often a teacher is a hired worker, and it is important for him to just serve his hours and get paid for it. They are very cute, and the students love them, but what is the result? As a result, you have an understanding that in a year of study with such a “good” teacher you have hardly advanced in your knowledge of the English language, which means that English is very difficult!

3. Desire to get results right away

You are starting to learn the language using good, effective technologies and are already drawing pictures for yourself of how you easily chat in English. You start studying every day, but a lot of time passes - as many as 10 days - and you suddenly realize that you still can't speak English so easily and freely. This gives rise to frustrations and fantasies about the titanic work that must be done to learn English.

To dispel the fog, here are 4 cool advantages of English over Russian that dispel all myths about the difficulty of learning it.

Benefit #1: There are no cases in English!

Just remember the Russian language: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental, Prepositional. How many different endings do you need to know in order to speak Russian correctly! In English, this is not - you learned one word and that's it. An English noun can have an ending only when it is plural, and even then not always. There are a limited number of endings in English, and their application is very easy to understand.

This advantage alone covers a number of subtleties that at first, when learning English, seem difficult.

Benefit #2: English grammar is one of the best

I would even say one of the simplest grammars in the world. All situations that exist in life clearly fit into verbal formulas, and there are only 7 basic formulas.

"ABOUT! - you say. - Formulas! I don’t understand mathematics or physics from school.”

Do not worry: all formulas in English are approximately at the level of 3 + 4 and 7 + 8 in terms of complexity. If you got the answer 7 in the first example, and 15 in the second, then you will easily understand and master all the formulas of the English language.

Benefit #3: How many words have moved from Russian to English?

Matryoshka and vodka, and they are used extremely rarely. And hundreds of words came to the Russian language from English: lamp, class, car, situation, plan, engineer - the list is endless. It is said that we now actively use over 10,000 words borrowed from the English language over the past couple of centuries.

Thus, you already know a large number of English words. It remains to learn only the most necessary words and learn how to correctly use grammatical formulas in a conversation - and you will be happy that you were able to do it so quickly and easily.

Benefit #4: English is very easy

Words are formed in a banal way. Imagine that you come to the garden, see a berry, taste it and call it simply “black berry” (this is how the word blackberry [ˈblækbərɪ] is literally translated from English into Russian) - and for some reason we in Russian call it blackberry.

Or you come to visit a country house, and you are offered to sit not near the fireplace, but near the “fire place” - fireplace [ˈfaɪəpleɪs]. There are hundreds of such words - knowing this, you will easily understand English.

There's another cool thing about English that makes it quick and easy to learn, and that's the magic of conversion, the main hallmark of the English language. Do you want to know what it is and quickly learn how to speak English?

Come to me for a free online training "". In two hours of training, you will receive practical exercises, tips and tricks that have already helped hundreds of beginners to quickly speak English.

Learn English, because by learning we make the world a better place!

Is it easy to learn English? Usually this question is asked by those who only think about how important it is to master a foreign speech. There are two answers to this question at once: yes, it is easy and no, it is very difficult. It all depends on the person and motivation, how the chosen method of teaching English is suitable for a particular student, and whether enough time is devoted to classes. However, there are general principles that allow us to classify learning English as simple or complex tasks.

Why lightweight?

English can definitely be called easy compared to other languages, and here's why.

1. It is the most common on the globe, as it is considered the simplest and most logical in terms of grammar among the languages ​​of Europe.

2. Habitual writing of letters. The entire language is based on 26 characters, while Chinese has over 80,000 characters, some with 30 strokes.

3. There are a lot of borrowed words in Russian. Even a beginner in training knows more than one hundred. For example, business, office, football, basketball, jeans, soundtrack and others.

4. Adjectives used together with numerals do not decline for cases, numbers and genders.

5. Nouns can be singular or plural, but they are declined in only two cases.

Why complex?

Like any other foreign language, English takes time. You cannot learn it in 3 months and reach a professional level. This period will not be enough even to understand the basics of grammar.

The following factors can also be attributed to the difficulties.

1. A large number of tenses compared to Russian: the main 3, but each of them has 4 aspects, plus a passive voice. As a result, more than 20 are obtained, while in the native there are only 3.

2. Articles. There are few of them, but since they are generally absent in Russian, it is quite difficult to understand why they are needed and when they are used.

3. Management of verbs. These parts of speech in English are used with various prepositions that have different meanings.

4. Complicated grammar and the presence of many paradoxes.

The difficulties described are the most common, but there are others: someone cannot accurately reproduce some sounds, and someone does not remember the spelling of certain words well. However, as practice shows, the most difficult thing is the development of discipline and a responsible approach while teaching English.

Make a firm decision, start with the simplest and methodically move forward towards your goal, and after a year of hard work, answer yourself the question: is it easy for you to learn English?

There is an opinion that English is a very simple language and it is not difficult to master it. Probably, if this were true, then, even with all the disadvantages of Russian education, many would have mastered the language. But it's not. A very small percentage of people, graduating from school, and sometimes university, master English, at least at a basic level. And there are many reasons for this. Let's try to consider the main ones:

The ambiguity of the teaching system

There are a great many methods of learning English, as well as words in it, besides, new methods appear every year. However, upon closer examination, you realize that they are all similar to each other or basically have a similar idea. The main methods of language learning can be divided into 2 groups - classical and communicative. The communicative method looks more interesting, but often our respected teachers do not miss the opportunity to add something from the classical language learning course to it. Namely, grammar. Of the minuses of the communicative system, it is worth noting the need to know the elementary rules of grammar. What about the classical teaching system - its main drawback is a huge number of boring rules, coupled with a significant lack of speaking practice.

Serious differences in the grammar of Russian and English

Russian grammar, and especially punctuation, is considered one of the most difficult in the world. But for native speakers it is not difficult to master it, it happens by itself. As for the grammar of the English language, here, first of all, there are differences due to the philosophy of the language. The main problems in mastering grammar arise with tenses, verbs, prepositions and articles.

There are as many as 12 tenses in English, against 3 in Russian, but we always use different particles and additional words to clarify the meaning. - For example "What are you doing now?" And "What are you even doing?". In English, there is a time for each case. - For example "What do you do?" And "What are you doing?".

As for verbs, this is the main wealth of the English language. There are many, many verbs. But the worst thing is not the quantity, but the fact that there are irregular verbs whose forms you have to learn, and verbs like "set", "get" and "way" that have many different meanings. For example, the verb “set” has 44 of them. And if you want to master spoken English at a good level, you will also have to remember phrasal verbs, of which there are many.

Next on the list are prepositions and articles. As for prepositions - nothing complicated, just some of them do not coincide with the use of prepositions in Russian. Phrasal verbs are also formed in conjunction with prepositions. But with articles it is more difficult. They simply do not exist in Russian, which means that we simply have nothing to compare with, find differences, etc. You will have to come to terms with this and master the rules for using articles, which is not so difficult to do. By the way, you will be forgiven for any mistake related to the use of articles, since some of the subtleties of their use are almost incomprehensible to a foreigner.

Imbalance of theory and practice in teaching.

For some reason, teachers in our general education schools put too much emphasis on the grammatical component. On the colloquial part remains 15 percent, at best. Dry grammar is boring, and with an insufficient number of examples, it is also incomprehensible. Schoolchildren have 2 ways - to cram or write off from somewhere. In universities, this situation is also not new. As a result, people who have spent an average of 10 to 15 years studying English cannot speak it.

We were all once small children and also mastered our native language. Without any rules, they just learned from adults, repeated, invented, experimented, etc. As a result, at the age of 6-7 years, having come to school, we could communicate freely without knowing any (well, almost any) rules. With English, it’s the other way around – we are first bombarded with grammar, and only then, maybe, we will start talking. No wonder we have a very high percentage of people who cannot overcome the language barrier.

All this sounds very frightening, but you should not be afraid. All the difficulties that we have considered are very easy to get around. To achieve a result, so that learning English is interesting and exciting, you need only 2 components:

1. Your desire and desire to master the language. Good motivation has never hurt anyone, set a goal and go for it.

2. Suitable teacher. If you are good with grammar, focus on practice. If you need to improve your grammar as well, find the right teacher who can give you the best combination of theory and practice.

Learn the language and enjoy your progress!

More than 100 years ago, the playwright Oscar Wilde, through the mouth of one of his heroes, said that in England and America "today everything is the same, except, of course, the language."

It turns out that, according to linguists, he was not far from the truth. Recently, however, the two languages ​​have begun to converge. Languages ​​change over time - some faster than others. Some languages ​​reflect the changes taking place in the world around them, highlights a new study published by the Royal Society of London (Royal Society).

Universal and historical factors are influencing, and languages ​​have been found to change at different rates. The authors of the study used the Goole Books Ngram corpus database to analyze the use of words and expressions over the past five centuries in eight languages. They analyzed 8 million books, which, according to Google's own data, is approximately 6% of all published books. Google also scanned these books, thus creating a corresponding database.

Linguists have always been aware of the differences in language changes, but this time the gigantic Google database was explored, which in its volume far exceeded all previous objects of research. The group of scientists participating in this work turned out to be international in composition, which, paradoxically, caused its own language problems.

The study's lead author was Søren Wichmann, a Dane at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Its co-authors were Valery Solovyov, a linguist at Kazan Federal University, located in the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia, and astrophysicist Vladimir Bochkarev, also from Kazan, whose interests include languages.

This study was carried out at the Kazan Linguistic Laboratory.

The work was complicated by the fact that Wichman does not speak Russian, and Bochkarev does not speak English. Wichman's wife sometimes acted as an interpreter. When it wasn't there, they used Google translator, which wasn't always helpful.

In this study, participants analyzed written languages ​​that are more conservative in their forms and did not study spoken languages ​​for which the necessary data had not yet been collected. They mainly paid attention to how often the words were used.

Each verbal form was considered a separate word; words such as “parking” (park) and “parked” (parked) were counted as two different words.

The process they used is called glottochronology by linguists. Language is shaped by culture “One word that used to be special can take on a broader meaning and replace another word that had an equally broader meaning,” Wichmann noted. Sometimes it's just a matter of fashion, sometimes external events have an influence.

So, for example, in early English, the word "hound" was used to refer to a dog (dog). Today the word "hound" denotes a special breed of dog.

The reverse process probably occurs with the word "vodka" (vodka), which sometimes replaces the word "liquor" (alcohol).

“Any important change in society is reflected in the frequency of the use of words,” Wichmann emphasized.

According to researchers, for the most part, languages ​​change at the same rate, but this rate is usually measured in time terms such as half a century, unless something special happens, such as a war.

According to Wichmann However, during the wars, language vocabulary changed faster as new words like “Nazis” were included, and people started thinking about things they hadn’t thought about before the outbreak of hostilities, Wichmann noted.

During the Victorian era, at the height of the British Empire and at a very stable time for Britain, the language remained fairly stable. With the advent of unrest and chaos in the 20th century, the change in the vocabulary of the language began to occur more rapidly. Since about 1850, British English and American English have been the same - except that the British version was about 20 years behind. New words entered the lexicon of American English, and in Britain they appeared only 20 years later.

Then, starting in 1950, under the influence of the media, these two languages ​​began to converge. Today they are much more similar than before, Wichmann noted.

I have always been interested in the question of why some languages ​​are more difficult for adults to learn than others?

According to the researchers, our languages ​​contain what linguists call a "kernel lexicon", that is, a list of words that make up 75% of the written language. If you know these words, then you can understand most of the literature. These are also words that are less susceptible to change even if the language itself changes.

The basic lexicon of the English language includes less than 2400 words. If you know them, then you can read 75% of the text. The basic lexicon of the Russian language includes approximately 24,000 words. Although there are about 600,000 words in the English language, and Russian has only a sixth of this number, without knowing the 21,000 basic Russian words, texts written in Russian will be largely incomprehensible.

"Just because a particular word may be in active use in a given period doesn't mean it has to be new," said Brian Joseph, noted professor of linguistics at The Ohio State University in Columbus.

So, for example, at present, the word “cupcake” (capcake) has a similar trend in English. Sometimes words are combined, as happened with the word "labradoodles" (labradoodles). Definitions also change. Some words in Shakespeare's time meant one thing, but we use them to mean something else, said David Lightfoot, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The word "scientist" is present in the modern lexicon, but until the 19th century, people in this profession were called natural philosophers."

Sometimes vocabulary changes can tell us more than we think.

In recent years, the word "divorce" has become more common than the word "marry" (marry), Wichman noted. Here, perhaps even more tellingly, the word "information" (information) replaces the word "wisdom" (wisdom). Joel Shurkin is a freelance journalist based in Baltimore; he is the author of nine books on science and the history of science, and teaches journalism at Stanford University, the University of California, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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