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Russian language strategy | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| jamesleecoleman Newbie United States Joined 4289 days ago 38 posts - 52 votes  Studies: Russian, Persian | Message 1 of 10 12 August 2012 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello!!
I've been studying Russian for a little more than a year. All I did was study words from vocabulary lists (know about 500 words) and I didn't do a lot of speaking. That didn't help a lot when I got to Russia. I also had a hard time learning grammar before I went. When I was studying Russian in Russia, everything seems to just fall together. Now I'm back in the states, I feel that I won't learn Russian as fast. So I want to be fluent in two years. I want to take the B1 test when I go back to Russia after 10 months. My plan is to try to: learn ~100 words a month learn grammar (focus on the case system) speak/listen more I ordered the book "Grammar through Exercises" and I'm using a text book called "Speak correctly". I used the grammar through exercises book in Russia and I found it pretty good to study grammar. The speak correctly book is just reinforcing most of the stuff that I've learned so far. The grammar is mixed into different chapters so I can be confusing. I listen to the dialogs and I try to read the dialogs outloud as much as possible, even when I'm doing the exercises. For vocabulary, I end up writing the words over and over. I brought a Russian flashcard box that has 1000 words so maybe I won't have to make flashcards. I also use flashcard machine online to help me out but I haven't used it in a while. I'm trying to find Russian that live in the US so I can practice Russian but it's a little difficult, especially in my city. Does anyone know a website where I can find native/fluent Russian speakers? In the Russian course that I was taking, I had to write a text. Later I would have to memorize it and add more to it. I was told that I should do the same thing from my friend who is an English teacher in Russia. I just don't understand why would I memorize the text. A major problem is that my degree isn't in languages but it's in Network Security. So I'm also working on certifications for security. I will be graduating in about five months and then I will apply to graduate school. I plan on doing an academic year for the Russian preparatory course so I can increase and reinforce what I've learned. I also plan on working on my graduate classes while in Russia. I was told that it might not be good because I've already been studying Russian for a while. But I was told by a teacher that the students that go to this course can communicate in Russian with some mistakes after four months!!! I was also told that the class was for 6 or 7 hours a day. The students also start from the very beginning. I don't mind going back to the very beginning but it would be a little boring. After about 5 months, I'll order an A2 testbook and see what I have to work on. I think that I'm moving into the start of the A2 level. I know everything seems crazy but do you think that I am on the right course to learn Russian?? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4580 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 2 of 10 13 August 2012 at 2:29am | IP Logged | ||
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It was never an ambition of mine to study Russian, but an Armenian friend of mine suggested that I study Russian and I was immediately hooked. I was more intrigued by "exotic" languages like Armenian and Farsi, but have found Russian also qualifies as an "exotic" language because of its remoteness geographically and gramatically.
Living Language Ultimate Russian does an awesome job of explaining the Russian cases, one by one, chapter by chapter. I look at the Russian cases as a kind of "color-coding" of sentences, as not only nouns, but also adjectives and special modifiers inflect, so in my mind I just assigned a particular color to a particular case. which made learning the cases go very smoothly as I began to construct sentences. Actually, a plausible sentence could be made using all 6 cases... I remember on the train from Moscow I gave a book to someone with glasses. 1) Nominative--I REMEMBER 2) Prepositional--ON the train 3) Genitive--FROM Moscow 4) Accusative--I GAVE a BOOK 5) Dative--TO someone 6) Instrumental--WITH glasses. YA POMNYU NA poezdE IZ MoskvIH Ya podarila knigU KOMU-TO S ochkAMI. Thankfully I haven't had any major problems with case or gender, but Russian verb conjugations can be really frustrating. My understanding is that most US Russian meetup groups are filled with Americans trying to learn Russian and Russians trying to learn English, so they kind of cancel each other out. However, most US cities have Russian speakers seeking work as tutors. I have spoken Russian with Armenians, Georgians, Ukrainians, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Latvians, Lithuanians and even Crimean Tatars from Uzbekistan, and that has really broadened my horizons on what an important international language Russian really is. There may be someone in your community waiting to talk to you in Russian for free. I might add, however, that I found these people AFTER I had already become fluent. 2-3 years of fairly intense study sounds realistic to me. It took me 2 1/2 years before I was able to understand Russian TV programs, and that is without subtitles. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6399 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 10 13 August 2012 at 3:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Being able to speak with some mistakes after 6-7h a day for 4 months is nothing special, and it can be done on your own or in your home country. Starting from scratch WILL be boring... in fact I don't think those students learn so much of what you don't know or can't learn with Grammar through Exercises.
Don't worry about the level the book claims to take you to. If it teaches what you need to know, do it. A book that officially teaches A2 isn't necessarily better than a similar one that claims nothing. Maybe the combination of your grammar book and flashcard can take you to B1-, maybe not. Don't collect too many resources in advance: your needs may change before it's time to use the books. Learning text by heart is a common technique in Russia:( Supposed to get you to use the grammar automatically, pfft. IMO you should only learn what truly matters to you, what you admire. It's really disgusting to have those dead sentences rotting in your brain. and anyone who tells you to memorize a text before it's been corrected should gtfo. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jamesleecoleman Newbie United States Joined 4289 days ago 38 posts - 52 votes Studies: Russian, Persian | Message 4 of 10 13 August 2012 at 6:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Tanya b:
I really like how you put that sentence together to show the different grammar cases. I was thinking about doing that but I haven't really put any effort towards it. But I think I should start trying to in order to improve my grammar. I was also studying Farsi and Hebrew while studying Russian. I was told to only focus on one language. I didn't like that but I figure I could focus more on Russian. I did meet someone who was from Russia. I tried to talk with him in Russian but it didn't go so well. My native city has a Russian group there. It's about an hour away though. The current city that I live in now is just so difficult to find Russians. Serpent: I thought if a book was used for a certain level then it was sort of "customized" for that level. So one of the books that I brought reached the "B1" level test. I thought it just stopped with the information for that level. I already have a Russian book collection and I figure every book has its uses. Some has way more use than others. I figure that it's another way to find a solution to any problems that I'm having. I'm not one of those people that will just take the test to put it on my resume and then forget about what I've learned. I honestly do want to learn Russian. I figure getting to the B1 level will give me a good solid foundation so I can "grow" quicker in Russian. I figure that the academic year in Russia will help me a lot with becoming fluent in Russian. So maybe I will have to make things interesting for me during that time while I'm studying the basics. The big positive about this is that I will be in Russia (again) and I will have to use Russian as my primary language. Over all, I just can't wait to be able to communicate with native speakers where they can understand me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4509 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 5 of 10 13 August 2012 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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All the study you do in Russia, you can do at home, bar getting in speaking practice (and
there's Skype and co. for that, should you wish to remedy it). Edited by tarvos on 13 August 2012 at 1:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jamesleecoleman Newbie United States Joined 4289 days ago 38 posts - 52 votes Studies: Russian, Persian | Message 6 of 10 13 August 2012 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for your input Tarvos.
Hopefully, I explain what I'm trying to say. Going to Russia to learn Russian, in my opinion is way better than studying it here. My city doesn't have a large Russian population. Actually its very very very small. I saw that it was under .60% of whatever number that the website was using. Well I sorta believe that. Experiencing the Russian culture and having to use Russian as a primary language will reinforce what I've learned so far. Yea I could study at home, which is what I'm doing. I could use skype but I would have to stay up until 2am. Or wake up at 8am just to talk to people that live in Russia because the time difference is either 8 or 9 hours for Moscow/Tver depending on the time change. Plus studying abroad looks good on the resume but it's not even about that. It's trying to understand parts of the world and share/understand culture. People who haven't been to Russia told me things about Russia that wasn't really true. I went there, came back, and told them that what they said wasn't true. I'll put it out here... one person told me that Russians were racist and there aren't a lot of "blacks" there. I came back and told them that I had no problems and that there were "blacks" there. I'm African American by the way. Matter fact, there were many people from different countries there. I told this person that racism is everywhere. I did get a few stairs though when I was in Russia. People left me alone, they didn't care that I was there. People will say all sorts of things about people from other countries but really matters is what they found out is the truth or not. My best friends are Asian. I had someone tell me that they eat dogs.... yea I know for a fact that they don't eat dog. I've been friends with them for about a decade and a half. I feel that if someone has a bad view on my country, maybe I can change their view. I read that Russian were rude.... Well from my experience in Russia, there are rude people but also very nice people out there. Same in the US but maybe a different levels. I can change stereotypes and I can tell citizens in the US about Russia. Especially since a lot of Americans don't go to Russia. They hit Mexico, Spain, Germany, France, and Canada the most. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4858 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 7 of 10 13 August 2012 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Learning a language in its country is very useful and motivating. And teachers there are often better at teaching the language. Edited by Марк on 13 August 2012 at 7:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4580 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 8 of 10 15 August 2012 at 2:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Someone informed me that in Russian it is more gramatically correct to say "in glasses" V ochkAX (predlozhnih padezh or prepositional case) instead of "with glasses" S ochkAMI (tvoritel'nih padezh or instrumental case), therefore making my 6-case sentence example invalid.
How about this example? I remember on the train from Moscow I gave a book to someone with a parrot (popugai). YA POMNYU NA poezdE IZ MoskvIH Ya podarila knigU KOMU-TO S popugaiEM. Edited by tanya b on 15 August 2012 at 2:14am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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