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Video vs Audio

These days it’s all about video. We live in a visually oriented culture, glued to the screens of our desktops, laptops, TV sets and mobile devices. Video also features prominently in most language courses, whether online-, CD-ROM- or TV-based. But not in the Internalization Method. The Internalization Method has no use for video at all. But you would guess it from its name, wouldn’t you? (Video is external in the sense that it always needs a screen; audio can be ‘internal’ when you use, e.g., a BT in-ear earpiece , which fits snugly and invisibly into your ear and becomes a voice in your head). Neither does it have grammar or any other textbooks, formal exercises or any of that boring stuff. What it does have is audio. Audio takes centre stage in this method, be it in the form of audiobooks, podcasts, songs or live conversation. So why no video? Because video is not effective in language learning. To be sure, it is very effective when you learn your first words, using pictures, or wi
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Internalization Method Presentation Format

With the preliminaries out of the way, we can start discussing the Internalization Method as such. The Internalization Method is a surefire and fun way to learn foreign languages. To make it even more fun for me – and for you, hopefully – I choose to present it in the format of a detective story, a whodunit , or a quest : I am going to discuss various aspects of the Internalization Method, providing clues (some of them red herrings , to be sure, to make it more of a challenge and to follow up on and explore for pleasure and/or profit ), and you will try and figure out what the method actually is. Alternatively, you can join my students and receive instruction straight from the horse’s mouth, without working your way through the labyrinth of mystery and suspense. Let the fun begin!   Read this post in Russian here .

History of the Internalization Method

The Internalization Method dates back to the late 1970s when I discovered the Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow ( wiki ,   site ). Before that, I only had access to graded readers with an English-Russian glossary at the end , so there was no real need for a dictionary. I was, and still am, an avid reader, so I naturally wanted to widen my choice of available books to read. That is why, when I was told about this source by a classmate at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, I jumped at the chance to get my hands on some ‘real’ books. (As it turned out, few of the books the library offered were ‘real’ – most were bound photocopies of the real McCoy.) It turned out to be a veritable treasure-trove of reading matter for the bookworm that I am – I was on cloud nine. However, the books were indeed ‘real’ in that they were exact copies of the original, not adapted for easy reading in any way and had – naturally enough – no glossary at the end. To attend

Project background

I took up English at 7, so this year marks the 50-anniversary of my involvement with this language . I use this occasion to unveil my method for learning languages to the international community. In 1983, I graduated from the MIFI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute), where I later got a PhD and taught as a docent. In 1991, I graduated from the MGLU (Moscow State Linguistic University) as a teacher of English, French, German and Latin. After that, I taught English and French at the MIFI part-time. Then I moved on to translation, which is what I still do (check out my Multitran page here ). I also continued my language studies and added Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish and Ancient Greek to my portfolio. However, despite my extensive linguistic knowledge, credentials (see my degree  and  transcript ,  reverse ) and experience, I was still bad at speaking English and other languages, not being able to get rid of my thick Russian accent and failing to articulate my thoughts flu

Blogging about my Internalization Method

This is a blog about my Internalization Method for learning foreign languages as introduced on YouTube  here . This is a transcript of my YouTube video: Hi, my name is Alexander Demidov. I’m a certified teacher and translator, and here I’m offering you a taste of my method for learning foreign languages, which I call the Internalization Method ( метод интернализации in Russian). The Internalization Method is based on three ideas. One. Time. Learning a language takes time. There’s no getting around it. Babies are born with an innate ability to learn a language, but it still takes them a couple of years to start speaking properly. And it certainly takes time to learn a second language. There are no shortcuts to success. [Oh no!] You’ve got to put in the hours. [Yup.] But most people live busy lives and find it difficult to make time for this. So we must devise a way to fit it in. That’s one, time. Two. No translation. Most people try to speak a second language by translating wha