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Plan for learning level 1 college Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| shadowzoid Groupie United States Joined 5687 days ago 76 posts - 85 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 7 01 September 2011 at 7:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I have to learn Russian 1 for college by myself due to a schedule conflict, but my school
said it's not advisable since it's impossible for a student to learn it by themselves. Obviously people on this site have a different opinion. Do you think it's doable in a semester? And what plan would you follow? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5499 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 3 of 7 02 September 2011 at 3:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Do you mean that you'll earn credit for the course without actually attending the
lectures? Perhaps you'll write the final exam after having taught yourself the course material? If the above is correct, then here is my opinion/advice. Let's not debate this here, but we all know that language learning in a university setting has a reputation for being of poor quality. (In my experience, I've found it to be excellent. Clearly, it depends on the university programme and/or professor) Nonetheless, even in the worst of classes (i.e. full of people who don't care about the language, but only want to satisfy a credit requirement), there are two key elements found in the classroom. 1) Speaking practice: Practicing with other students is always helpful. This area can be hit or miss, since some people aren't interested enough to take it seriously. Nonetheless, some practice is better than none. Therefore you'll need to find yourself a conversation partner with whom you can practice speaking and listening. It's relatively easy to memorize grammar rules and vocabulary, but you'll need to be able to express yourself and answer unexpected questions formulated by others. 2) Deadlines for goals: If you're studying at home, and one particular aspect of grammar is difficult, you can just take longer to learn it. However; in the class, you need to know it all for the test by a specific date. So make sure you keep yourself accountable; make sure that you thoroughly understand all of the required material. One benefit is you won't have to wait for the slower learners when going over the easy topics. One disadvantage though is that you'll have to take it upon yourself to fully understand the more difficult topics, possibly without any help from the teacher. (Although I'm certain that many people on here are happy to assist you!) In short, I'd say go for it. Just make sure you understand what you're getting yourself into, and also be prepared to discipline yourself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Aras Groupie United States Joined 6762 days ago 76 posts - 83 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Ancient Greek | Message 4 of 7 04 November 2011 at 7:09am | IP Logged | ||
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One thing my school (Arizona State) has started doing is full-immersion while in class (no English), from the 200-level upwards. Not sure if they do it for all languages, so far I've seen it for Spanish, Russian, German, and Romanian. I'll ask the department and edit the post later with whether or not it's universal.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alexander86 Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom alanguagediary.blogs Joined 4985 days ago 224 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 5 of 7 04 November 2011 at 8:39am | IP Logged | ||
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You can learn a language on your own. Language classes have some advantages and some disadvantages, just like
learning at home. As long as you prepare yourself against those disadvantages of your learning method you will be absolutely fine. For example: I currently do Catalan classes at university, the teacher is new, unconfident and can't control the class. Most of the students are lazy, uninterested and disruptive. Thus we do nothing. We never reach the goal set for each class, students complain about having homework. And we generally get nowhere. Therefore it would be better to learn at home. However: I did Catalan classes a few years ago in a different university. The teacher spoke no English at all to us right from the beginning, and this was ab initio! I've never had a better experience, a better teacher, or that much fun. It was brilliant, all that languages courses should be. So you can do it, hurdles are there to be overcome. If you have the will, there is a way. Good luck, And remember, we're all here for you! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| niemia Tetraglot Newbie United States Joined 5685 days ago 19 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Polish, Georgian, Welsh, Arabic (Written), Japanese, Finnish | Message 6 of 7 04 November 2011 at 11:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi there, I actually did teach myself the 1st year of university Russian and then moved on the 2nd with no issues
whatsoever. It's not easy, but it's definitely doable. I would say that your biggest enemy will be moments of fatigue where you think, "Screw it, I'm just not doing Russian today." Here's what I did generally and I think it worked well: 1) Find a Russian - Many native speakers of Russian will be really excited to help you. Not many people learn Russian, so they will be extremely patient in most cases and happy to tell you about Russian culture. Also, a weekly meeting with a Russian conversation partner will help keep you on schedule, especially if you explain your project to them and make yourself accountable for new material every week. If you can't find an outside person, go to the 1st year university professor and see if they will help you/ can recommend a plan of action to find someone to help you. 2) Find a good grammar book - Or better yet, buy the textbook for your university's first year of Russian. It also wouldn't hurt to get ahold of a syllabus to see exactly how fast they are going. 3) Practice writing - If you found yourself a Russian conversation partner, write a paragraph for him/her every week and have them correct it. That way you aren't just doing repetitive exercises in a vacuum. There are also websites online where you can get a native speaker to correct stuff for you. 4) As soon as you can, read actual Russian materials - Pick really short texts, like poems, and slug through it with a dictionary. Not everyone would recommend this, but I felt a real sense of accomplishment after reading some Pushkin for the first time! 5) Review old material with relative frequency - One of the hardest things I found when studying Russian was that my memory for Slavic words was horrible at the beginning. I was used to French and Spanish, which being so close to English, gave me a false sense of how fast I could learn. Your profile says you've learned German - It will probably take your brain longer to absorb Russian than German, so be forewarned. 6) Set a concrete schedule - Put Russian on you schedule as if it were a class. Go to all the Russian club meetings (if your school has them). Make it an unavoidable part of your week. 7) Have fun with it. Seriously, if it gets to be nothing but drudgery you might stop learning it. Ok, I hope that was helpful! Good luck with your studies! Edit: Spelling Edited by niemia on 04 November 2011 at 11:35am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Dr. POW Groupie Canada Joined 4969 days ago 48 posts - 58 votes Studies: German, English* Studies: French | Message 7 of 7 05 November 2011 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | ||
For real? University students complaining about homework? Does this only happen at certain universities, or have I been worrying too much about my future? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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