Today you can often hear the expression “language barrier”. Moreover, each of us, most likely, has encountered this problem at least once in our lives. What is a language barrier?

A language barrier is any difficulty that arises in communication between native speakers of different languages.

Communication problems mainly arise among beginners who have just begun to learn a new foreign language. Because of this, many may mistakenly think that over time, fear and discomfort during communication may disappear on their own. In reality, not everything is so simple. People who speak the language at an advanced level may also face the problem of a language barrier, while others, after just a few lessons, can quite confidently conduct a conversation, skillfully using the small vocabulary and grammar that they learned in class.

This happens because there are two types of language barriers.

The first of them is the linguistic barrier. It is caused by the fact that a person does not have enough vocabulary or knowledge of grammatical structures to express his thoughts. Overcoming such a barrier is relatively easy: you just need to continue studying, memorize more vocabulary, do exercises on grammar, listening or speaking, read books in foreign language. The main thing here is not to be lazy.

But the second type of language barrier – psychological – is much more difficult to cope with. The main reason for the emergence of such a barrier is the fear of making a mistake, appearing stupid or uneducated to your interlocutor, fear of not understanding your interlocutor, or fear of the unknown caused by lack of self-confidence or knowledge.

How to overcome the language barrier?

Tip #1

Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Think about the fact that you are not taking an exam, and your interlocutor is not a teacher. His task is not to check how well you have mastered a foreign language, he is simply interested in talking with you. Moreover, remember that most people are quite friendly towards foreigners learning their native language. They understand how much work it is to speak a foreign language, and will try their best to help you.

Tip #2

When you learn new words, learn them not silently, but out loud, thoughtfully pronouncing each word. Try to immediately come up with an example for the word and use it in a sentence to check how well you can use the learned word in your speech. If it is still difficult for you to come up with examples on your own, learn by heart and recite the dialogues. Human memory is associative, therefore the memorized “patterns” will themselves emerge in your memory in certain communicative situations, and from them it will be much easier for you to construct a complete statement.

Tip #3

If your language barrier is associated with the fear of not understanding your interlocutor, then do not hesitate to ask him to speak more slowly or ask again if you did not hear or misunderstand something. Think about the fact that if you yourself do not explain to your interlocutor that you are having difficulty understanding, he himself will not guess about it, and, therefore, will not be able to help you.

Tip #4

A good way to overcome the language barrier is to set small communication goals for yourself and achieve them. For example, if you are on vacation abroad and need to buy something from a local store, try to focus on the task itself, and not on how you will complete it. If you feel that you do not have enough vocabulary to communicate with the seller, use gestures. Don’t be afraid if during the conversation you stumbled or confused your words, because, in essence, the main thing is to achieve your goal, i.e. carry out the planned purchase.

Tip #5

6 tips to overcome the language barrier

Do not forget that for comfortable communication in any language, a relatively small vocabulary is enough - only about 800 words. If you don’t know the appropriate word in a foreign language, try to select analogues, use descriptive constructions, explain complex concepts using simple examples. After all, in the end, the speakers themselves sometimes do not have enough words to accurately express their thoughts, and they have to express themselves “on their fingers.”

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Who else, dear students, knows how difficult it is to overcome the language barrier, how to speak the desired language without hesitation, and how to avoid making mistakes in speech. This article will be devoted to the so-called language barrier and school online learning English will help you cope with all difficulties.

Facing a language you don’t know is like returning to your infancy when your mother tongue used to be a foreign language to you

Coming across a language you don’t know is like going back to infancy, when your mother was that foreign language for you.

The language barrier is the most common communication barrier that creates misunderstandings between people. Let's try to figure out what the essence of such a barrier is: the reasons for its occurrence and ways to overcome it.

The language barrier can become a serious problem in communication between people.

Reasons for the language barrier

Language differences

No matter how trivial it may sound, most languages ​​are very different from each other and this main reason language barrier .

Since childhood, we get used to certain language forms and having mastered them quite well, we no longer get hung up on some grammatical phenomena and don’t really think about how to formulate this or that thought - we just talk. Why doesn't it work out so easily with another language?

The main reason, of course, fear of making a mistake. We are frightened by everything new, unusual to us; another language appears to be a Chinese script.

Accents, dialects and pidgin languages

Very often, even people living in the same territory, in the same state, have different accents and dialects. Although technically the language is the same, but under the same meanings people use different words or create new ones, which can lead to various misunderstandings.

For example, if a Scottish farmer talks to a man from London, they will both not understand most of the words, even though they both speak English.

As for the pidgin language, it is a simplified language used by several people who do not speak English. common language. However, the consequences of the words and phrases of this invented language can give rise to the same misunderstandings.

For example, the abbreviation LOL originally used for chatting with meaning Lots of Love(with great love), which eventually turned into Laugh Out Loud(laughing out loud).

So you need to choose your words carefully so that you are understood correctly. Use abbreviations and similar linguistic phenomena according to context and necessity.

Blurred speech

People who speak quietly and unintelligibly are difficult to understand. Such people can tell something, but the information from their lips can be perceived in a very distorted interpretation, even if people speak a common language. Similar can become a significant barrier to communication.

Blurred speech English language can also be explained by the fact that many sounds are pronounced very differently in native language speaker. It takes some getting used to

Be sure to take into account the native language of the interlocutor. It will be easier for you to adapt to his speech

Use of jargon and slang expressions

Jargons are technical words, used in communication, which vary in various professions, specialties and various fields human activity. For example, the vocabulary used by doctors and lawyers is very different from each other.

If they start speaking professional themes, they will be completely misunderstood by each other. For example, let’s take words like “adjournment” (legal transfer, postponement (court hearings); “BP” (medical blood pressure), etc. Such words can make it difficult to understand.

Choice of words

The choice of words must be treated with extreme caution.

Words with multiple meanings, homonyms (skate (glide on ice) and skate (the fish)), homophones (merry, marry, and Mary), homographs (bear (verb) – to support or carry; bear (noun) - the animal ) try not to use, as they can distort the meaning of your words and be interpreted in a meaning other than what you intended.

Literacy and linguistic skills

Some people may have enough short lexicon , while for others it is quite high.

For example, if a person with a rich vocabulary and good linguistic skills talks to a person who cannot boast of the same, then he simply will not understand many words, which will lead to misunderstanding.

But these problems can be solved. You just need to never stop there, even in your native language, and constantly expand your vocabulary by reading books.

Here the main reasons for the emergence of language barriers in communication. However, there are also others, such as speech difficulties, noise, distance, i.e. not psychological or linguistic problems, physiological physical ones.

Some barriers can be overcome by practice and similar methods (for example, by translation, interpretation, attending language courses, visual methods, etc.), others are some kind of personal problems of the person and they require other methods.

let's consider the most effective strategies to overcome the language barrier.

Ways to overcome the language barrier

Speak slowly and clearly

Concentrate on speaking clearly and slow down even if you are in a hurry. Misunderstanding or lack of understanding of what was said to you is of no use.

If you rush, you'll just end up spending more. Extra time explaining what has already been said or correcting a speech confusion that has arisen. If your interlocutor speaks quickly, just politely ask him to speak more slowly and they will definitely accommodate you.

To be understood correctly, speak slowly and clearly. You can use gestures (only those that will reflect a better understanding of your words)

Ask for an explanation

If you are not 100% sure of the correct meaning of what was said, kindly ask you to explain this or that word or phrase.

Avoid just skipping words, which you do not understand, immediately stop on them. Otherwise, it may lead you to a dead end at the end of the conversation.

Check understanding periodically

Check how much you understand everything that has been said. and how clear others understand what you are saying. Practice reflective listening to check understanding, such as using a phrase like “So what I hear you saying is...” and repeating what the other person said.

Also use questions that allow different answers, the so-called “ open questions" For example, instead of “Is it clear?” (Everything is clear) say “What’s your understanding of this process / problem / issue?” (How do you understand this process/problem/question?)

Be careful with language phenomena.

The richness of a language is determined knowledge of various linguistic phenomena such as idioms, phraseological units, metaphors, jargon and so on. If you can give examples of similar things in a foreign language, that's great.

But be careful! It is not necessary that your interlocutor will be familiar with them. Don't embarrass him or yourself, otherwise you'll have to explain what your words mean.

Especially do not try to literally translate these phenomena into a foreign language from your own! It won't be what you have in mind.

In custody

It's no secret that all our problems are the vigorous activity of our brain and imagination. We often imagine situations that may never happen to us as completely real.

We imagine ourselves speaking English, but we make some mistake and a native speaker begins to laugh at us and make fun of us. Of course, all this is a figment of our wild imagination. The real reason The language barrier lies deep in the subconscious.

Everyone must simply decide for themselves what is more important for them - to stay where they are and cross out all the years spent learning the language or take that very difficult first step towards interesting world who speaks a foreign language.

If your thoughts are confused, your mouth is dry and you have forgotten everything you previously, it would seem, carefully learned English words and phrases are symptoms of a “language barrier”. Do you know these feelings? Then you've come to the right place! Our article will help you identify the reasons and all possible ways to overcome the language barrier in learning a foreign language.

How to overcome the language barrier? Indeed, this question torments not only the student, but also the teacher, who is racking his brains over how to help the unfortunate student. For many, the language barrier is associated with the indestructible Great Chinese wall, which cannot be bypassed or bypassed. All our most optimistic endeavors in learning a language dissipate like smoke as soon as the teacher asks us to say a few words impromptu. Most often, at this moment a person feels panic and completely forgets everything previously learned. But what is this fear and what are we really afraid of? Let's find out the real background of the language barrier, and based on this, determine effective ways to overcome it.

1. Fear.

Truly, this is the most common reason, because it is better to remain silent and say nothing at all than to say with mistakes. What is the reason for this fear? Firstly, this is a bad experience of learning a foreign language at school, as they say, we all come from childhood. Each of us remembers how often teachers at school gave us bad marks for mistakes, constantly correcting us, interrupting us. The lucky ones are those who have not encountered this. Of course, this complex remained for life. In this case, the student, when starting to speak, subconsciously expects that the mistake will be pointed out to him right away, and worst of all, he will be given a bad rating. Secondly, oddly enough, it is shame. Yes Yes! Although we all know that we have the right to make mistakes, because we are homo sapiens, we cannot afford to be imperfect. We especially often feel shame when we speak with native speakers. After all, they certainly won’t miss the opportunity to laugh at our grammatical and lexical errors, not to mention our pronunciation.

How to overcome the language barrier caused by fear.

Have you ever wondered why young children learn a foreign language so easily, and by the age of five or six they can say not only a lot of words, but also entire phrases? At the same time, they do not miss a single opportunity to introduce a “foreign word.” This is because they learn language naturally by imitating and copying the teacher. In addition, the whole process takes place in a playful way, so they have absolutely nothing to fear, because their mistakes are corrected without scolding or criticizing, but simply by repeating the correct option.

Overcoming this particular reason is the most difficult. A lot depends on your teacher, who should also be a kind of psychologist. In this case, we can advise you to find a teacher with whom you feel free and comfortable, have many common interests, etc. He is in mandatory should encourage and praise, and mandatory item, do not correct your mistakes while speaking. In any case, this does not make sense, since, firstly, it knocks the student out of rhythm, and secondly, the error is indicated, but work on it is not carried out, so next time, in the same speech situation, you will make the same the most mistake.

Of course, in order to overcome the language barrier caused by fear and complexes, you need to be patient, try not to be too critical of yourself, notice your successes and sincerely rejoice at them. Only in this case is there a chance that one fine day you will speak easily and freely without any “fear and reproach”.

2. Lack of active vocabulary.

In this case, the reason for the language barrier lies on the surface - we do not have enough words to express everything that we are so striving to say. Any person who begins to learn a language mentally formulates phrases in his native language, which, in fact, does him a disservice. After all, in our language, which we know perfectly, we can express ourselves using all kinds of synonyms, antonyms, metaphors and epithets. Of course, when we try to say the same thing in a foreign language, the most “language barrier” arises. That is, mainly we forget about main goal communication - communicative.

How to overcome the language barrier caused by a lack of active vocabulary.

This reason can be easily corrected, although the solution may seem tedious and boring to many. But, whether you like it or not, to overcome this language barrier, you need to learn as many words as possible, read books, watch movies and the like. In addition, you should try to use newly learned material as soon as possible. Then the passive vocabulary becomes active. There is no need to try to use too complex phrases, thereby piling up the speech; often, a person who speaks a foreign language fluently expresses himself in rather short sentences. Remember, it’s better to say it simpler, but faster.

3. Lack of training system.

Quite often there are students who say that they know a lot of words, understand foreign speech quite well, but still cannot speak. In this particular case, the main problem is fragmented knowledge. That is, figuratively, it can be compared to a puzzle, crushed into small pieces that do not want to be put together. As a rule, this is because we start learning a foreign language several times, go to language schools, take private lessons or study on our own, but never finish the job we started.

Here are three main reasons, one might say three stumbling blocks, which every student encounters to one degree or another. Are there ways to overcome them? Of course there is, otherwise there would not be a huge number of people who speak a foreign language fluently.

How to overcome the language barrier caused by the lack of a training system.

In scientific terms, a system as such is a set of interconnected elements that form a unity. Accordingly, only on condition that all grammatical structures, as elements, are interconnected, and their meaning and the speech situations in which they are used are clear, will the student be able to express himself freely in a foreign language. If you understand that this reason is the basis of your barrier, do not start learning the language from the beginning, that is, from the alphabet. This does not add self-confidence, and besides, this level does not correspond to the actual state of affairs and your knowledge. Start the course one level higher. Thus, the scattered pieces of the puzzle will, as it were, be integrated into the system. In addition, it is necessary to listen more, since all kinds of dialogues form the context, without which understanding and assimilation of grammatical structures is impossible.

So, the language barrier is a problem for many people learning a foreign language. But, as in any business, the most important driving force is motivation. If you have a burning desire to speak a foreign language, you will be able to overcome it and one day you will realize that you can easily communicate on a variety of topics.

And now you can.

Hi all! And this time greetings from America. Because today we publish advice from one good man, who moved to the USA several years ago and experienced first-hand what the language barrier is. The article will be especially useful for those who want to quickly adapt to the language environment.

I think English is especially relevant now. Today, many people work on the Internet, and earnings in the English-speaking segment have become very profitable due to the growth of the dollar.

How long did it take you to learn the language? In general, how does one overcome the language barrier? Tell me, it’s very interesting.

More than a year. But in this matter you can improve endlessly. I have an average level, because... there is no goal to integrate into society or socialize. I'm not interested in local news, sports, politics, etc. Accordingly, the vocabulary in these areas is weak.

The language barrier, it seems to me, is associated with several factors. Firstly, this fear of making a mistake and, as a result, the feeling that you are talking nonsense and looking like a fool. 🙂 Another problem - insufficient vocabulary when there are simply no words to express thoughts. But this can easily be solved simply by memorizing a sufficient amount of words (frequency dictionary for 1000 of the most common words). Plus what is in the books below (by topic and the most commonly used idioms).

A bunch of courses that exist, in my opinion, at the initial stage are not only useless, but also harmful. The courses should be taken later, when you have already started talking and there is a need and motivation.

The following advice follows from the above.

Improve your vocabulary

Vocabulary is the basis for both speaking and reading. First of all, read these three books first:

You just need to read 10 pages of them every day. You don’t need to learn anything. Everything will be stored in your head and will come up when needed. This is what is used in everyday speech. Plus, if the level is generally the most basic, learn a frequency dictionary for the 1000 most common words. I was able to learn 30–50 words a day, spending a total of 1–1.5 hours on it in 2–3 approaches. I only used BX Language acquisition(a program for learning the spelling and pronunciation of foreign words).

Remember common expressions

Try to memorize entire phrases, not just individual words.

Memorizing individual words will help you little if in life they are pronounced 90% of the time as part of some stable phrase. You definitely need to learn phrases in addition to words.

No, words, of course, are also needed, but the whole point is to memorize cascades of phrases. Because in Everyday life There are a lot of stable phrases used. Few people pay attention to this either.

Another such moment. The words in many phrases are cobbled together in such a way that, without knowing the expression in advance, it is impossible to make out anything. For example, someone turns to you: “Hey, wsgnbd!” What did he say? This is a friendly greeting “What is going on, buddy?”, something like “How are you doing, buddy?” They glue this whole set of words into one. It sounds smooth, of course, but it’s just impossible to write. From each individual word, only one sound remains, which flows into another and one new word is obtained. This happens with many phrases. For example, “in there” (there) is pronounced “inea”, “I get it” - “gacha”, etc. But some words also have their own peculiarities in pronunciation. So, for example, 30 (thirty) is pronounced “tori”.

Everything is elementary here.

• Take your favorite movie where they talk a lot
• Print English subtitles
• Translate them
• Learn unfamiliar words
• Watch a movie with subtitles and enjoy understanding

After several iterations, you can watch the movie WITHOUT subtitles and understand everything.

The main thing is to learn to separate words in fluent speech and not translate them in your head. That is, a reflex must be developed when you understand the meaning of a phrase without translation inside your head.

Speak phrases

The next stage is pronunciation. You need to repeat phrases after the actors or, in an advanced version, speak the memorized material in unison at the same pace. I tried to do that in the first scene." Pulp Fiction" in the cafe. You can try it for fun, the text there is learned in about 10 minutes.

Pronunciation is necessary for the formation of neural connections in the brain and muscle patterns in the speech apparatus. Because speech is an unconscious act.

You can, of course, consciously construct a sentence in your brain before speaking, but this will be very slow. When the necessary neural connections have been developed, the necessary phrases will automatically appear when speaking. And the muscles of the tongue will already know what needs to be done so that these sounds are reproduced as they should. It just takes practice and time. Practice as much as possible. Or a lot of talking, or communicating on Skype.

Start talking!

Don't be afraid to make mistakes! No grammar needed. Enough to learn, use to(analogous to “to”), do before the question, is/are, was/were And have/has- this minimum is quite enough for conversational speech. There is no need to discover or teach any tenses at all.

This is necessary to quickly start speaking. When this happens, there will be a need to study other rules. Then this is what needs to be done. Until a person speaks, he has no such incentive. That's why it's so difficult for everyone to learn English. People, instead of immediately speaking and expressing their thoughts, begin to cram the rules.

What is a language barrier? When they say that, I immediately read the subtext: I don’t know anything, I don’t want to teach, I want to talk! And I remember a good old film, the Russian fairy tale Sadko. Just as they hit the Phoenix bird on the head, and it began to sing sweet trills, so here, with some kind of help, hit such a student on the head so that he starts talking. There is such a magical English club, they claim that people come to them and immediately start talking, and only then do they begin to understand why they say that. I have no idea how they do it, I only know that they take at least A2 level. All the teachers there are expats, they communicate only with them in the language... And so on, let's try to figure out the reasons for the language barrier.

Reasons for the language barrier

Usually the reason is a lack of speaking practice, but there are others:

• fear of saying the wrong thing
• lack of active and necessary vocabulary,
• incorrect approach to speaking (for example, the desire to literally translate a phrase into English),
• difficulties with
• absolute ignorance or absence of convenient structures (, manage to, want to, I’d rather, you’d better, I + Past S/Past Perf, etc.).

In short, the language barrier is not a myth.

How to overcome the language barrier?

To fight it, you need to “treat” the cause 🙂 There is not enough vocabulary and constructions - we study with examples and work on them, problems with pronunciation - we become a little bit of speech therapists, fear of making mistakes - we listen carefully to strange phrases, praise, correct only those things that make balls roller-coaster they come in, explain and work out the correct option...

Psychology of this phenomenon

The article would not be complete if we did not consider the opposite point of view. Many people don't believe this is a linguistic problem. Psychological, rather, and it can be solved more successfully by a psychologist than by a philologist. By the time people first find themselves in an English-speaking country, they cannot even open their mouths for the first three days. They are terribly afraid to do it, although they have no objective reasons for fear.

Conducting psychological work above yourself and by practicing in front of a mirror, you can gradually relieve discomfort when communicating with carriers. Hence the conclusion is that the problem is not an ephemeral language barrier, but a banal fear of making a mistake, and it is much deeper than many people think. What does language have to do with it? Only complexes and fears. And a person can only cope with them on his own. Not without the help, perhaps, of a psychologist, a teacher, a friend... But the teacher only opens the door, the student himself must enter ©.

P.S.. Watch the clip The group Lonely Island "Shy Ronnie 2: Ronnie & Clyde (feat. Rihanna)". Can shyness be called a language barrier? Is there a language barrier in your native language? I look forward to your comments!