My sister was sure enough that she knew an English language. What she just wanted was to learn the spoken language – to improve it a little bit. As soon as she arrived in London, she got down to improving her English. It appeared that she could not understand English colloquial speech. The difference in words embraced all spheres of life. Instead of ‘an apartment’ they say ‘a flat’, instead of ‘bar’ – ‘pub or public house’, ‘coach’ goes instead of ‘bus’, ‘merry-go-round’ instead of ‘carousel’, ‘biscuit’ instead of ‘cookie and so on so forth. The more interesting thing is that on the roads my sister couldn’t understand the signs at all – ‘pedestrian crossing’ was instead of ‘crosswalk’, ‘cul-de-sac’ means ‘dead end’, ‘unpaved road’ instead of ‘dirt road’, ‘duel carriageway’ instead of ‘divided highway’, ‘junction’ instead of ‘exit’, ‘main road’ instead of ‘highway’ – who could understand the meaning of all of these words?

As for pronunciation, it absolutely differs than American one. At the beginning my sister tried to master spoken English by listening to speakers at all kinds of meetings. It was possible for her to come as close as she could to the speaker and carefully watch his mouth. She had to visit Hyde Park quite often then. Besides, she had to taught by a professional – he was Mr. Raymond, an elderly man with an appearance who resembled Charles Darwin and used to embrace my sister saying that everything was going perfect. My sister loved to attend his language classes and listen to his London dialect. This way she was learning English not from books but personally from native speakers.