Leaning English

[manfred]

This one is from Russia, and quite funny.

There are no subtitles, but you only need three little words to follow it perfectly.

что? pronounced chto? means what?

Чего? pronounced chevo? also means what? More like "eh?", an expression for cluelessness. (literally "of what"?)

and
два pronounced dva means two. In the Russian grading system for schools "2" is the lowest grade you can get, 5 the highest. (There is a 1, but it means that no attempt was made at all, or a cooperation refused.)




And this next one has subtitles:



Apart from making you laugh, they also highlight something:

In Russia only some 15% of people speak another language well. They started teaching English mostly in schools but do not have many good teachers. This is a hangover from the Communist era. At the start of the communist rule many people with education fled the country. The Communists succeeded in getting literacy level to a very high standards, but they were suspicious of people having foreign contacts. So languages were no commonly studied.