VIRTUALLY NATIVE: How to Learn a Foreign Language

by Vladimir Skenderoff

Virtually everything about how to learn a foreign language. English, Japanese, Russian and Spanish are the four principal languages used to provide the necessary examples in terms of pronunciation, grammar, writing, dictionaries, and everything else, however, the principles discussed are universal across all languages.

209 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 26, 2016

Reviews

[Евгений · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought and read this book and I firmly believe that this work of Vladimir Skenderoff worths its money. More than that, it will help you to save a lot of money in the future. The money that you are spending now on frustrating Internet courses, boring textbook, and expensive language schools.
But the most important thing - it'll help you to save something more precious than money - you time.
Personally, I found this book as the most useful guide on how to learn English, which is targeting specifically on adult independent learners.
Why am I saying the most useful guide? Because I dug through a lot of courses, textbooks, Youtube coaches, magic methods, and techniques. Some of them contain a rational grain, some of them do not have common sense at all. But the book by Vladimir, in my humble opinion, contains the highest rate of sensible, reasonable, and scientific advisory on how to learn English efficiently.
I have a critical mind, or, maybe, I'm too picky, and I'm very rarely being stunned by learning methods. But even I found, that about 80 percent suggestions in the book are perfectly working for me as it is, or with a little adjustment.
So, how should you use this book. Firstly, read it. Secondly, think about what you read, try to understand the way how the advice work. Thirdly, use it, apply it, implement it. Fourthly, trace your progress, assess your improvement. Fifthly, read the book again, or to adjust the recommendations to yourself, if it is necessary.

The more you read - the better you'll understand the nuances, and than more you'll practice your reading skill.

So, I wish a good luck to all learners, who will read the book, and I wish Vladimir does not rest on his achievements but revise, improve and update his great work. Thank you very much for your book.

[Gregory English · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pros
Myths of learning English
Fluency concept
Good explanation with nice examples and metaphors
Writing and listening tips
Nice style, easy to understand
Understand-Remember concept
The idea of limitations in general
Dictionary choice. 200% agree
Method of memorizing new words (but it's quite long and deep)
Google technique. It's genius!
I'm going to use it all the time and give up using "wrong" dictionaries completely!
Is a native speaker the best teacher?

Cons
A little touch of arrogance in the book and videos.
The best way, the right (my), the only way, there is no other way that, you will never become fluent unless... and so on, and so forth.
How did the author know of that? How is that even proven? And by whom?
Everyone can claim himself the best. But, is it meaningful?
I'm convinced that there are always ways to make things better. Much much better.
Listen to how it sounds. Even for native speakers this approach doesn't work all the time.
The author suggests it for beginners.
Overestimation of difficulty in pronunciation. Don't be discouraged by what was said in this book. And don't use this information as an excuse for doing nothing with your pronunciation. To me most of the time people are so far from biological limitations. They just don't have enough knowledge and practice.
The author implicitly suggests not to use repetition and overview only because it's boring. But, it's extremely important. To learn and memorize something from the first sight and forever is not the way we learn.
Melody of language idea sounds reasonable. But, it's hard to understand when reading the book.
Grammar and question tips are too primitive for those who are able to read this book.
The core idea of the book is how to learn new vocabulary (and use a dictionary). Is that the only thing to do in English? Not at all. Many questions are not covered.

Anyway, I gave this book 5 stars. Why? Several reasons.
This book is written by the man who has mastered English as an adult (I tend to believe him). That's why he has a lot of credibility to me.
I've discovered a lot of unique ideas in this book that I've never encountered before. You will find, there, none of those silly and most-repeated tips that go from one book to another.
The book is amazing for me as a new English teacher. I've gotten a bunch of useful insights and ideas for teaching from it.
I had a lot of fun and finished this book in four sittings.

Thanks so much for such a remarkable book.

[Hasnaa El Massaoudi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have bought and read this book it's really amazing. I was always looking for a good method to learn english and finally i have found it. This book taught me how to read, how to memorize new vocabulary and how to write. Actually it taught me how i can get fluent in english with the efficient method.
Thank you so much Vladimir ❤❤

[Le Pham · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book has changed my mindset about learning English. It make me understand that the best way to increase fluency and vocabulary, grammar, etc is using monolingual dictionary through regular reading and it should be the number-one goal to consume as much personally interesting and informative information as possible. This book open your mindset gradually from the first to the end. It is not only change your method but also is very detail information help you how to self-study efficiently and effectively.

[Kristina Čakš · Rating 5 out of 5]

Virtually Native is the best book I've ever bought about learning foreign language. Not just english. Great thanks to Vladimir and I can say without exaggeration that the world and life is better because of such very special people. Thank you! Kristina

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding book. As a retired language teacher and adult English tutor, I have learned a lot from this book about how an adult learns English. Vladimir's perspective is unique as someone who has mastered English himself (starting as an adult) . His style is direct and always engaging. He does not beat about the bush. The information is concise and relevant to the learner at all times. There is no flannel and it is a riveting read.

I am a native English speaker who learned to speak (but not master) Spanish fluently. Much of what he says about language learning I have long believed myself, but have been unable to articulate clearly, until I saw it in this book. He destroys many orthodoxies and challenges many conventional assumptions about language learning. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the learning or teaching of English.

[Clara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has changed my mindset about language learning in general. Vladimir gives us a clear method to learn English (but I think it also works with any other language). This book is easy to read, the author goes straight to the point, and the advice is easy to put into practice. We do not need to spend a lot of money in order to follow his method, it can suit everyone. It is the best book I've read about language learning.

[Siti Nafira · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an amazing book to learn how to learn English effectively. Vladimir such a great coach for you to learn English independently. This is not a scam. Strict, to the point, concise and clear. Thank you Vlad.

[عبد الله]

thank you.

[Marian · Rating 2 out of 5]

i thought it very good for me to improve my english

[Karen Chung · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book actually contains some good language learning suggestions, especially as regards approaches to grammar, vocabulary and treating language as "music". The author's point that "L2 fluency very much depends on L1 fluency – in order to be fluent in a foreign language you have to be fluent in your native language first" is well taken, and not often mentioned in pedagogical and language-learning books.

Its one major weakness is pronunciation, which the author seems to think is not really worth spending much time on, since he believes the learner is not likely to end up with a good accent anyway. (It is in fact his own personal weakness as well, judging from his YouTube videos.) As a university professor who has focused on listening and pronunciation training for some decades, I myself believe pronunciation is both important and learnable – just as the author says regarding grammar and vocabulary learning, you just need the right method.

The book in addition contains a number of factual errors (e.g. German *does* have an /f/ sound) as well as some grammatical errors (e.g. "Some teachers recommend watching it forth time" should be "watching it *a* *fourth* time).

There are 8 variations of this sentence in the book: "The amount of time and money people waste on [bad teachers (native and non-native), grammar books, sounds they can't hear etc.] is [staggering, enormous, stupefying, mind-boggling, etc.]." In addition to being repetitive, they're also examples of a high-handed attitude that comes through in many parts of the book and tended to put me off.

Still, the book was worth reading for the useful nuggets I gleaned from it here and there. If you're an obsessive language learner, you might also enjoy this volume.

[Nguyễn Đức · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I have to find 3 words to describe this book, it would be "decisive", " clear", and "helpful".
Vladimir from Bulgaria had proved that a non-native speaker can learn English effectively and efficiently as an adult through his own clear evidence of a Bulgarian being an English teacher and a writer learned English by the age of 28.
The nice organization of knowledge makes the book so clear for an English learner, even a beginner.
I learned a lot from this book and I believe you will too. Though his method is not apt for everyone but most of us. Here are ones who will benefit from it:
1. New language learners
2. Language teachers
3. Who study by themselves
4. Poor ones

[slowmokim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love you, sir. Your book was so awesome.
I hope to see you soon on Youtube.

[Protim Junaid · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main idea of this book is how to learn vocabulary and do self-correction. For making passive vocabulary he suggested sentence personalization and for active he says reading is the best choice( The Only Choice according to him ), Self-correction made form Reading, Google Exact Search & Monolingual Dictionary. That it. For those pieces of information, we are paying 19$!!!!! One thing for sure,this is the most honest book about English and he knows what he teaching.

protimjunaid@gmail.com

[Amazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Kuldeep]

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