BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4648 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 1 of 14 09 April 2014 at 4:59pm | IP Logged |
He is 16 and a friend of my family. The question I have for the board is this;
If you were starting from Level ZERO and were wanting to learn Russian, how would you do it? I mean less than ZERO. He does not even know the alphabet.
He recently found out that he had a great aunt that was fluent in Russian when it was not a common event for an American woman to be fluent in any additional languages(Much less Russian). She passed away without him ever knowing this about her. He is consumed with wanting to learn it. Russian is not offered in his high school. He was told about my obsession with Spanish and learning it on my own. He approached me and asked for ideas about establishing a learning plan. This leads me to all of you. If you have learned Russian or have learned other languages and were to undertake this quest, how would you accomplish it?
Thanks in advance.
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Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5324 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 2 of 14 09 April 2014 at 5:13pm | IP Logged |
1. Pimsleur Russian 1,2 and 3
2. Russian in your car
3. Teach Yourself Russian script
4 Michel Thomas Russian (Basic, Advanced)
5 Teach Yourself Russian
6 Teach Yourself Russian Grammar
7 Assimil Russian
8. RussianPod
9. Reading easy readers
10. Start with native materials
While doing this, chase down every Russian immigrant he sees, and try to use whatever he has learned, and
listen to as much Russian music as possible.
Others know more about how to find speaking partners and someone to correct written material for him online
- once he gets to a decent level he may be able to find people here on the forum he can talk to.
Wish him luck, and tell him that perseverance will be his strongest ally. :-)
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Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4243 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian
| Message 3 of 14 09 April 2014 at 5:41pm | IP Logged |
Russian being not offered in his high school doesn't play the slightest role in the scheme of things.
What you need first, without which you can not get started, much less carry on?
Motivation.
and not like "it would be cool to know Russian" motivation, burning desire-type motivation. Without that it's really difficult to get anywhere with a language never having learned one before.
Second:
Material.
There's a lot of material for learning Russian. Assimil, Teach Yourself, Colloquial Russian 1 and 2, FSI...
Third:
Method.
Everyone must find their own methods, but avid language learners can spend hours on researching different methods and takes on how best to learn.
How I started studying Russian:
I spent a week memorizing conjugation tables, then I started reading first simple texts on lingq.com and then moved to deeper waters. I've also worked through some workbooks and grammars, but nothing too fancy.
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andy123 Newbie Russian Federation Joined 4308 days ago 14 posts - 19 votes Speaks: Russian* Studies: English, Spanish
| Message 4 of 14 09 April 2014 at 7:12pm | IP Logged |
I'd stick with Pimsleur + some listening of native speakers for start and see on his reacting then. Pimsleur
course will give him a basic view to Russian, if he likes it, then we can speak about further. any textbooks
are not allowed on this stage, they will kill all interest.
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fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4705 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese
| Message 5 of 14 09 April 2014 at 8:19pm | IP Logged |
Repeating myself fot the n-th time:
I think that the best way to do Russian is a mix between "The New Penguin Russian Course" and "Assimil".
Even better, you can start out with Michel Thomas (it's quite fast) and then go straight to Penguin + Assimil.
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BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4648 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 6 of 14 09 April 2014 at 8:42pm | IP Logged |
Thank you for all the ideas. I will share these ideas with him. It is very interesting that there is a common theme of starting with audio programs first.
Andy, I could see how it could kill the will. The Cyrillic alphabet alone has kept me from giving it much thought as a language just because Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, etc. could be learned without leaving my comfort zone. It does not sound very reasonable once I actually write it out like that. :(
Fabriciocarraro, I did conduct a search but it did not reveal as fruitful replies as the answers listed in this thread...including yours. Thank you for taking the time.
Henkkles, I would say that he is highly motivated. He loved his great aunt and she recently passed away and he had no idea that she had this ability. I think he is looking at this as a type of legacy. We will see.
Solfrid, thank you so much for your detailed outline. I do appreciate all your posts and have read 100s of them. I also know from reading your posts that Russian is a bit of a nemesis for you and I appreciate your opinion. Thanks again.
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Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5324 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 7 of 14 09 April 2014 at 9:22pm | IP Logged |
BOLIO wrote:
Solfrid, thank you so much for your detailed outline. I do appreciate all your posts and have read 100s of
them. I also know from reading your posts that Russian is a bit of a nemesis for you and I appreciate your
opinion. Thanks again.
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Thank you,I am happy that they are appreciated :-) I have been through the entire list ( with the exception f
Assimil that I am only half through) - and am working on native materials now.
And Russian is both my nemesis and my great passion. I just love that language, even if it drives me crazy on
a regular basis :-)
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Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4243 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian
| Message 8 of 14 09 April 2014 at 9:29pm | IP Logged |
The Cyrillic alphabet (I find) was the absolutely easiest part of beginning to learn Russian; I memorized the entire alphabet in about half an hour and since then I've only gotten faster with recognizing the letters.
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