Foreigners and their way of thinking Hi, everybody! My name is Yulia, I’m from Russia. I learned English at school and at the university, but then I had a very long break. Recently I’ve decided to improve my English and took part at language marathon named Language Heroes. It is project of polyglots, placed in the most famous russian social network vk.com. We must study foreign language for 12 weeks and every week we have any tasks. This week I have to write texts and send them to native speakers for check out. I think it’s not difficult, but I’m not good at grammar and vocabulary at all, that’s why I’m sure there will be a lot of mistakes in my texts. Please, write me about it. What do you think about differences of foreigners’ mentality? Every country has it’s own features, rules of politeness and norms of behaving. Sometimes you do or say something normal to you, but people from other countries consider it strange or rude. Of course, you should learn about mentality of people you are going to chat, but it’s really difficult to take account everything and clearly understand the foreigners’ way of thinking. For example I’m interested in Japan and Japan culture, I’ve read articles about Japanese’s psychology, watched video blogs of foreigners’ living in Japan and so on, but Russian and Japanese people are so different, that I can’t behave properly with my acquaintances from Japan. They say people should be tolerant and try to understand each other, ask questions and not be afraid of talking. But I know that the most of Japanese people prefer not to say what they really think and they always smile. Foreigners suppose that Russian people have bad manners, because we smile only when we are really happy or something is funny. And we don’t use ‘thank you’ or ‘please’ as much as Englishmen, for example. Of course, we behave so, because we accustomed to this, it’s normal in our society. We don’t want to look rude and impolite. I think Russians are direct and outgoing. We often express our real thoughts and feelings. Some people consider it as bad manners and try not to meet Russians, but some people think it’s quite good to hear more truth than lie or just polite words without any feelings. What do you think about foreigners’ mentality and Russian people you've met?

Some thoughts about learning languages Hi, everybody! My name is Yulia, I’m from Russia. I learned English at school and at the university, but then I had a very long break. Recently I’ve decided to improve my English and took part in the language marathon, 'Language Heroes'. This is the project of polyglots, placed in the most famous Russian social network vk.com. We must study a foreign language for 12 weeks and every week we have many tasks. This week I have to write texts and send them to native speakers for error checking. I think it’s not difficult, but I’m not at all good at grammar and vocabulary and that’s why I’m sure there will be many mistakes in my texts. Please write me about them. So, what do you think about learning foreign languages? For last couple of years I’ve been studying Japanese, because I really like it, also I like nature, views, food and culture of Japan. Japanese is quite difficult, but very interesting and it makes my brain work, I think. I like manga (japan comics) and anime (japan cartoons), so I’ve joined a scanlate team as a translator. I’m translating manga from Japanese into Russian and it’s really terrific practice for me. But language in manga, written and spoken Japanese are different. It has several levels of politeness. Russian differs from Japanese in this. I’ve searched for native speakers who are interested in Russian culture and language and now I have a couple of friends from Japan. Sometimes we correspond and have a chat by Skype. I noticed that Russian language is very difficult too, for example pronunciation, although we don’t have so many levels of politeness. Оccasionally I compare English and Japanese. Grammar, difficulties and the best way I can memorize vocabulary. Some English grammar I can’t understand properly, especially verbs’ times, but it’s clear for me in Japanese. I think sometimes Japanese can help me to learn English and vice versa. Someday I want to start learning other foreign languages if I will be able to do it. I really admire and respect polyglots! But now I have not idea how people can study some languages at the same time and keep them at the proper level. If you have any experience in learning several foreign languages I’ll be happy to read or chat about it!

Please check my first text. Do you enjoy eating or food is just fuel for you? Hi, everybody! My name is Yulia, I’m from Russia. I learned English at school and at the university, but then I had a very long break. Recently I’ve decided to improve my English and took part at language marathon named Language Heroes. It is project of polyglots, placed in the most famous russian social network vk.com. We must study foreign language for 12 weeks and every week we have any tasks. This week I have to write texts and send them to native speakers for check out. I think it’s not difficult, but I’m not good at grammar and vocabulary at all, that’s why I’m sure there will be a lot of mistakes in my texts. Please, write me about it. During marathon I’ve been learning English using textbook “New English File”. I learned topics about food, money, appearance and character, sport, travelling and so on. Let’s start with food! I really like eating and it’s pleasure for me. I’m mad of sweets! I like cooking and I’m interested in different countries’ dishes. I prefer Russian, Czech, Italian and Japanese dishes, but there isn’t enough ingredients in my city’s shops. That's a pity. From my childhood it’s easy for me to gain weight, that’s why I must take a diet and do exercises. I haven’t been eating anything after 5 a.m. for 8 ages. Nothing at all! But I want to be slim and good looking, it’s really great motivation for me. I think that fast food and frozen meal is unhealthy, I try not to drink cola and eat high-calorie food. But I’m not strict in diets. I allow myself to eat what I want sometimes and I can’t live without chocolate and cakes. I think Russian people have problems with health and weight. At winter there is pretty cold and we need to eat nutritious food. So Russian dishes is heavy and nutritious. As for me, at winter time I always want to eat something fatty and high-calorie. But I think that at the other seasons we should think about our health and appearance, eat fruits and vegetables and more healthy dishes. The other problem is prices. In Russia healthy food is quite expensive and it takes time and money to prepare balanced dishes every day. Many people think that Russian food is strange and abnormal. I like watching videos when people from different countries taste Russian dishes. It’s so funny! But I really enjoy it and prefer most of it. And what about food culture in your country?