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Advice for really mastering Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| KBertolucci Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4549 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 9 10 May 2015 at 1:41pm | IP Logged |
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I've been learning Russian on and off for the past few years, however, my studying has been largely sporadic and I
feel it's mostly due to the fact that I'm no longer terribly interested in the language. Regardless, Russian is potentially quite useful for my professional sphere and I feel that I must master it before I can move on to a more enjoyable language (for me personally). Therefore, I have decided to create a schedule that I will stick to for a period of one year, and if by the end of this year I have not made significant progress (and by that I mean I can converse freely without much inhibition, if not always correctly) I will abandon it altogether as it is making it impossible for me to learn any other language while this burden is constantly looming in the back of my mind. SO, I am turning to you, fellow forum members, to assist me in creating a plan of attack. As I mentioned before, I am giving myself a one year time frame in which to either significantly improve, or abandon the language altogether. I realise it might sound defeatist, but there are many other languages which interest me (and which I find significantly easier) and I would hate to spend another three years half-heartedly learning Russian to end up in pretty much the same spot as I am now. My preliminary plan: Start date: May 10th, 2015 End date: May 10th, 2016 May, 2015: It has come to my attention that in the past year or so I've forgotten a lot of grammar in Russian, so I will spend the remainder of May reviewing the following topics: 11/05: Genitive of Nouns 12/05: Genitive of Adjectives 13/05: Dative of Nouns 14/05: Dative of Adjectives 15/05: Imperfective and Perfective Verbs 16/05: The Imperative; Reflexive Verbs 17/05: The Future Tense 18/05: Review of the Accusative 19/05: Verbs of Motion 20/05: Instrumental of Nouns 21/05: Instrumental of Adjectives 22/05: Review of the Prepositional 23/05-31/05: Because at one point or another I learned all of the above, I will spend the remainder of the month drilling the cases and grammar in general. Unfortunately as I'm abroad (in Russia, actually), I do not have any of my books with me but hopefully I can find something online (if anyone has some suggestions, please let me know). Or if you know of a particularly good grammar workbook (maybe Wade?) please let me know and I can order it. June: During this month I will continue drilling grammar. I will also try to read some short stories (a few pages daily). By this point I think I should be comfortable enough with grammar to also start mining sentences to learn vocabulary (perhaps from Tatoeba). I will also set a goal to learn two verb pairs per day, as well as fifteen new vocabulary words. I think learning vocabulary by mining sentences is the best method for me, as far as Russian is concerned, but if anyone has any suggestions, do let me know. July through October: Continue with June's schedule. By the first of November I hope to have an active vocabulary of 3,000 words (assuming I already know around 750). November: 07/11- 14/11: One-to-One lessons (6 hours/day) at Linden & Denz in Moscow (living with a host family). No exposure to any language but Russian during this week. I'm not sure it will be very rewarding at this point, but perhaps in October I will assess my level and see whether or not it will be time (and money) well spent. The major purpose of this is to keep me excited and engaged with the language. The remainder of November until December I will continue reading as much as possible in Russian (at least an hour every day). I will continue to pick up new vocabulary along the way. On the weekends I will watch one or two films in Russian (with subtitles). December: 19/12-10/01: One-to-One lessons (4 hours/day) at Linden & Denz in St. Petersburg (again, living with a host family). No exposure to English. Three weeks of intensive Russian immersion. Hopefully by the end of this point I will be fairly conversational. The remainder of January until the end of March I will continue studying on my own (as above). At least an hour per day reading/listening/etc. April: 25/03-25/04: Another four weeks I will spend in Russia (or perhaps another Russian-speaking country). Hopefully I can manage 4 hours of individual lessons per day while I'm there, in addition to living with a host family (again, total immersion). May 10th, 2016: By this point, if I am not at a level where I can comfortably communicate (solid B2), or have at least made significant, significant progress in getting there, I will revisit whether or not continuing with Russian (rather than picking up another romance language, for example) is truly worth it. If I'm pretty conversationally fluent, I will spend the summer in a Russian-speaking country and take the TORFL in September. Okay, I know it's a lot of information, but any thoughts or suggestions? If you've learned Russian, how did you do it? Thanks for the input! I'm at the point (maybe it's obvious) where I'm either going to really tackle this monster or forget about it! Edited by KBertolucci on 10 May 2015 at 1:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3338 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes  Studies: Serbian | Message 2 of 9 10 May 2015 at 3:09pm | IP Logged |
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I think it might be useful to know where you're at already since you mentioned you've covered some of the
ground before when it comes to grammar. I'm guessing since you mention you'd like to be able to talk that you haven't gone higher than a low A2? I'm sure the others here will be able to give more detailed advice about what methods are good and what resources to use but seeing as you said you've struggled with the language for a couple years and that's sorta the experience I've had I can give some input at least in terms of helping with consistency: A saying I heard before which I think is quite true is fun gets done. For some people they might love spending everyday for two weeks only reviewing grammar - but are you one of those people? I am a person who likes knowing how a language fits together so I enjoy my BCS textbook (being a Slavic language there are a lot of parallels to Russian I imagine) but I know I needed to take a break after covering a lot of grammatical material so my suggestion would be feel free to do other things. If at any point you're dreading doing something, switch to something else. Don't be afraid to do it because an imperfect method kept up is better than the perfect method abandoned. Also I think it's important at this point to probably discover what you enjoy about the language learning process and utilise that. So for example do you like coming at it from a grammatical aspect or do you prefer to listen to dialog and shadow it? Is something like Pimsleur, Assimil or Glossika in order? Would a phrasebook be a better start to dipping your toes in the language than a grammar heavy approach? Try all these things and find out. I would also probably recommend using a tutor if you have gotten into the A1 stage at least and have some basic manipulation of the language. Try to do this once a week or two if you can. If you're in Russia this is probably not as necessary though. Lastly I'd also try using Anki or memrise and see if they work out for you - try single words, sentences and cloze deletions and see what works for you. Once you have spent a bit of time finding out what works for you in the above, find a regular time to do it all and you will find that keeping consistent isn't as much of an issue. I listen to Glossika and do anki and memrise daily and due to the fact that I do them routinely at the same time I don't have too much of an issue keeping it up for the last couple months. My textbook stuff I still sorta struggle with a bit, but I at least read a bit of the textbook a day even if I don't do any of the exercises. Lastly, and probably my most important suggestion is determine if you should really expend any effort on this. There are many things we all probably feel we ought to do but if there is no motivation then we will never do them and will only guilt ourselves for nothing. Strongly consider putting Russian on the back burner and actually learn a language you feel drawn to. You can always come back when you feel your strings pulled. Best of luck, and I personally look forward to the advice given by much more experienced language learners than myself! 3 persons have 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 3 of 9 11 May 2015 at 4:35am | IP Logged |
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I don't think you have a problem with anything technical. You have a problem with
motivation. This plan is fun and all, but if you're not motivated it will take you about three days or a week before you abandon all of this, unless you commit right now and book all your immersions and travel plans. My advice is therefore to keep the plan, but build in a few buffers in case you run out of energy, fall ill, your pet dog dies, etc. and also to COMMIT TO YOUR PLAN by pre-spending the money so that you will be forced to go to Russia and have the deadline looming over your head like a sword of Damocles in case you feel like going haywire. As for the grammar drilling; I could never be that disciplined, but if it works for you... And as an aside: if you like other languages more, why aren't you studying them? Potential usefulness is beaten every time by motivation, and usefulness is something you can create by looking for the correct niche. If you are motivated enough, you can delve deeper into the new language. Life is too short to forego things you really want to do. These things count infinitely more than any Russian case will ever do. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3473 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Japanese*, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin | Message 4 of 9 11 May 2015 at 3:45pm | IP Logged |
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If I were you, I would work with small oriented goals; however, before, I would list
what I have done and what haven’t worked with me. What are the reasons you couldn’t achieve the goals you have established? What is your definition of mastering Russian? In what skills you would like to reach an advanced fluency (HTLAL’s definition) or C2 level (or whatever system you are considering here)? I started developing my own language approach while learning a non-Indo European language this year (which I've had to set aside for Mandarin, Korean and German) and have refined it while learning Russian. All of that experimentation has made it easy for me to reach a reasonable level in Russian in a short period of time. For grammar-heavy languages such as Russian, I simply try to avoid textbooks and grammar charts, and instead learn through pattern recognition. For instance, Russian Made Easy's podcast uses this method, and I credit it (but not only it, of course!) for giving me a satisfactory foundation in grammar for someone who intended to reach B1 level in passive skills (listening and reading comprehension). I've found it helpful to focus my energies on specific tasks each week which is the reason I advised you to work on small oriented goals. So, in my first week, for example, I learned how to introduce myself and then I posted a video of it on YouTube. In my second week, I learned how to introduce and describe others in terms of names, jobs, nationality, age and so on. In my third week I learned how to ask for food in a restaurant or café. I also learned the basic numbers I would need if I were in Russia, concerning Russian rubles which are different from the system from the country I am living in at the moment… That way, I'm not getting bogged down in unnecessary details. To summarize, I simply learned based on what I need first, instead of memorizing grammatical rules that I have never used (read, listened to or even written) and all that bunch of cases by doing boring drills exercises containing words I have never needed during my short attempt to learn Russian. If Russian is boring, perhaps, it is because your approach is boring for your learning style. Saying that something is useful or not is a matter of perspective. I can make any language useful in my life. If you enjoy it, isn’t it useful? Perhaps you and others will say “no”, but this is because your (or someone else’s) definition of “useful” is intrinsically related to “be able to use if with another human being” or any other thing. Since you said you know about 750 words, I think I would make a good use of Assimil Russian, making an effort to make my passive knowledge becomes active. If you are already in Russia, I think you have many chances to speak to native speakers. What about finding some tandem partners over there? There are always many people all over the world willing to improve their English. So, why not in Russia? You can establish kind of 50/50 for speaking practice purposes. You can clearly go into the details according to your needs at the moment. If you still need some complement to your studies, I would stick with Penguin series as it provides only about 30 chapters. I haven’t finished it yet, but I found it useful for those grammar-oriented learners. However, even in Assimil, in every 7 units, they summarize the Russian grammar used in the previous 6 units. I don’t think one needs more than that, but if you need so, then, Penguin would be really helpful. Aside from Penguin, instead of doing drills, I have chosen three grammar books that I take a look only when I have trouble with reading comprehension. If I were you, after Assimil or/and Penguin, I would stick with native resources. Other resources I've found helpful for learning Russian are the podcasts: RussianPod101 http://ochenporusski.com/ http://blog.properrussian.com/search/label/podcast http://www.tasteofrussian.com/ http://russianmadeeasy.com/ http://masterrussian.com/podcasts/Free-Russian-Podcasts.htm http://www.sbs.com.au/podcasts/yourlanguage/russian/ http://russianpodcast.eu/ http://shkolazhizni.ru/podcast/ http://podfm.ru/ http://rbth.com/weekly_russian_audio_podcasts http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,298,00.html I also read and watch native videos related to my interest. For example, I am interested in cuisine; therefore, I read about any recipe in Russian (not necessarily related to Russian cuisine) and, then, I try to find out a video of what I want to cook at home. I also read and watch about other fields such as sports (mainly football, but sometimes winter sports), physics, astronomy, mind and brain, Earth, health, space, technology, evolution, energy and so on. I am also interested in linguistics, history, philosophy, psychology, Russian culture, economic and political relations between Russia and European or Southeast Asian countries etc; however, at the moment I don't read about them as it takes more than my daily 30 minutes destined for Russian. I don't take resources I can't understand within my daily amount of time for a single language because it means that it is far beyond my current level. I am also fond of Russian music. So, I am always learning new words and expressions from the lyrics. I used to play them in the guitar which I am no longer playing. So, pick up something of your interest, but in Russian, to motivate yourself. Regardless of not being my priority in terms of languages I am dabbling at the moment, it turned out that Russian it is the one I progressed at most since March because of my motivation. I haven't established any specific long term goal, but I just keep learning whenever possible. In a bad day, I don't study any language, but in a good way, I just end up having lots of fun. By the way, learning Russian doesn’t mean that you can’t learn another “enjoyable” language simultaneously. There are many learners here who take two or even more languages at same time and they manage to learn them efficiently. Regarding the attempt to learn more than one language at same time, you can read more about it here (http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Should_I_learn_a_few _languages_at_the_same_tim e%3F) or you can take a look on some logs on HTLAL. Edited by Nieng Zhonghan on 11 May 2015 at 10:36pm 10 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 5 of 9 11 May 2015 at 4:11pm | IP Logged |
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Great post and thanks for reccing the wikia article :) I also highly recommend the log of kujichagulia, who lives in Japan and learns Japanese mostly out of necessity. He made significant progress after allowing himself to add Portuguese for fun :)
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5038 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 6 of 9 11 May 2015 at 6:09pm | IP Logged |
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I would have thought in one year you should be able to read about 30-50 books in Russian, but you didn't seem to have any on your list of things to do. Personally if I only ever did grammar drills I wouldn't learn any language! Grammar is just a map that shows how the language is laid out. But if you want to travel the language then you need to read, write, listen, and watch.
So in addition to all that boring stuff you've listed I think you should try to find 30 books in Russian to read. I've heard they've had a couple of good writers. :) Fyodor Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Oksana Robsky, Sergey Minayev, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, etc, ... Then you'll want to get hold of a few dozen Russian movies, and TV shows. Watch and listen, listen and watch. And if you're interested in news, I'm told they have TV and radio in Russian. Find them, listen to them. I second the advice of tarvos, to go ahead and spend the money. Most people have an aversion to "sunken cost", a sunk cost is a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. So if you've bought a load of DVD's, Books, and booked trips, you're going to encounter what psychologists call; Escalation of commitment. Also you need to commit to doing 20 minutes EVERY DAY. Twenty minutes isn't much of a commitment time-wise, but once you've started you can carry on if you want, or you can stop because you've done your 20 minutes. You also need to decide on how you will reward yourself when you reach sub-goals. You can use the Pomodoro technique to keep you on track. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4811 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 7 of 9 11 May 2015 at 7:13pm | IP Logged |
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Well, you are choosing a grammar heavy language and I wonder why are you so strict
with yourself and plan such a harsh pace for the grammar part of your plan, especially given the fact you have a year of studies before you. One grammar topic-one day, that is extremely strict and optimistic, no offence meant. I am now learning a language with lots of grammar, German, and I often find myself in need of revision, slower progress forward and tons of practice. It is well possible you are a much better and faster learner than I am but I still think the pace might be too much for quite anyone. Firstly, you might need more than one day for some of those grammar features and, in my honest opinion, it is sometimes better to digest the matter slower but surer than fast at all costs. From my experience, it pays off in the long run. Perhaps you might like to plan each grammar point into two or three days and, if everything goes great, progress faster than planned. Don't forget there are as well things out of your control that might come and destroy such a precise (and therefore fragile) plan, such as being ill for a few days or a family visit, a difficult week at work etc. Secondly, you could probably do as well with some practice right away, preferably fun. Brains tend to learn much better when they are entertained than when they are tortured. Russian is a language with lots of media and resources and grammar is not the only thing you need to learn. As you've already got some basics covered (at least the surface) and a vocabulary of 750 words, you might already be comfortable with songs, graded readers and such things and supplement your grammar studies with those, no need to wait. You might like to get an exchange partner, the internet is full of Russians longing for English practice. There are podcasts, such as those on the awesome list by Nieng Zhonghan (thanks for that, RUssian is high on my hit list). There are as well tools like Memrise, and perhaps soon Duolingo, that can be a valuable complement. Third: Such an extremely strict schedule, that looks like you are setting yourself up for burn out and abandoning the language. If you don't want to learn Russian, don't waste your time and choose something else instead. Japanese, Polish, guitar, golf, whatever you prefer. For examples of htlalers learning Russian, I recommend awesome and captivating logs writen by Teango and Cristina (SolfridCristin is her username, I think). p.s. to the list of great writers: the Russian sci-fi tradition belongs among the most important ones in the world. the Strugackij brothers or Lukyanenko are great examples. Really, Russian is a huuuuge language, there must be something interesting for quite everyone. 7 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 8 of 9 11 May 2015 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
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I also highly recommend GLOSS. I obviously already spoke Russian before I found it ;) but I checked out some lessons and they were very natural (maybe spoken slowly sometimes but this should be fine at your level). I've used the site for Spanish, Portuguese, Serbian/Croatian, German and even a language I dislike, French. It was fun and useful.
Also, as far as I can tell from the previous posts, your career has something to do with politics. In this field a passive understanding of Russian can already be highly beneficial, and cultural references are extremely important. Plenty of "experts" on Russia don't speak any Russian, so the few who do are admired even if they mess up the grammar completely. It's much more important to be familiar with the culture than to have grammatical accuracy in this case. And of course, remember the time when you used to like Russian and see what you can do to get more motivated. If your current negativity has to do with the political situation, remember that there are lots of different opinions in Russia and the language can be an essential key to understanding what people really think and feel. Edited by Serpent on 11 May 2015 at 10:31pm 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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