Scholarly record

FIRST STEPS IN LEARNING GERMAN: PHONETICS AND RULES OF READING

N. Belenkova, I. Kruse

Abstract

The modern society is characterized by multilingualism. The English language as a language of international communication cannot be considered as the only linguistic tool of interpersonal and professional relations. More and more people realize the importance of the knowledge of two or more foreign languages. That explains the students’ interest to learning a second foreign language. The paper presents the experience of the Department of Foreign Languages, Institute of Law, RUDN University in teaching German as a second foreign language. This paper concentrates on the problems the Russian students face when they start learning how to pronounce German words and read in this language. As in most cases the first foreign language of the students is English, we deal with the inter linguistic interference of the Russian (as a native language), English and German languages. This interference can be positive and negative; it can support or prevent the students’ learning. In this connection we consider that the main goal of the paper is, on the one hand, to study the obstacles on the road of learning German phonetics and rules of reading and the ways how to remove these obstacles; and on the other hand, to make the first steps in learning German as a second foreign language more efficient when the positive interference is used. The results of the authors’ teaching practice on the issue are studied. The findings of the paper can make teaching German as a second foreign language more efficient.

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