Talaithe Newbie United States Joined 4238 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian
| Message 1 of 6 12 October 2012 at 8:45pm | IP Logged |
It is time for me to learn new language!
Why Russian?
It is a big world language, and if it is the only language I ever learn I don't think I would regret it. If I am able to self-learn Russian, I believe I will be able to conquer any foreign language.
Situation
Like many beginners I have tried and failed with other languages in the past. I do not have any friends or family who are Russian or from the CIS. If I learn Russian I may try to learn other languages in the future (I'm looking at you Romanian).
Materials/Method
I will be using Pimsleur, Clay Dawson's Modern Russian I & II, and the Princeton Course. As for method, I don't know in what order or how I will use these materials. Pimsleur is very self-explanatory, Modern Russian I & II less so, and the Princeton Course is a nightmare of small PDFS and MP3s that I'll have to figure out.
Goals
A high level, C1, in Russian and all of the command of grammar and vocabulary required. I'm under no illusion that what materials I have at hand will take me there alone, that is why I am using this multi-pronged approach.
Ending Note
I'm very excited, if anyone has any guidance please don't hesitate to respond.
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iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5073 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)
| Message 2 of 6 12 October 2012 at 9:01pm | IP Logged |
Welcome to the forum, Talaithe. You'll find a lot of help and support here.
If you have a tablet it will be much easier to organize your Princeton Course. The advantage of a tablet is that it can be hand-held like a book and you can listen to the mp3's simultaneously. Also, you won't have to print out pdf's, unless you want to do so. If you don't have a tablet dealing with pdf's is indeed a nightmare. A tablet doesn't have to be an iPad. Any tablet will do as long as it will handle pdf's and play mp3's. A tablet is a good investment for language learners.
The best guidance I can give you is to be persistent. Never give up. Do something with the language every day, even when you don't feel like it. Persistence is half the battle, in my opinion. You're going to have days where you will feel like throwing in the towel. Quitting is the one thing that will positively guarantee you won't learn Russian.
Best of luck!
Edited by iguanamon on 14 October 2012 at 3:26am
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5343 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 3 of 6 12 October 2012 at 9:23pm | IP Logged |
Good luck!
Your biggest challenge will be making a permanent place in your life for Russian. If you can carve out a little bit of time every day, you'll get there eventually. Here's a wide variety of techniques which work for different people:
1. Just decide to study Russian regularly and do it. (For those will lots of willpower.)
2. Find a course with nice daily chunks and join the consistency thread.
3. Try a 30-day trial and build a habit.
4. Move to a household where everybody speaks Russian and nobody knows English.
5. Do the whole AJATT immersion thing and make your environment Russian.
6. Find unspeakably cool books, movies and websites in Russian.
7. Do the things you would do anyway (hobbies, TV, etc.) in Russian.
Different people are motivated by different things, and plenty of us lack the willpower for approach #1. So it's worth experimenting until you find what will bring you back to Russian and again. Figure out what it takes to stay engaged, and nothing will stop you.
It's a long road, but there are a lot of amazing moments: Your first basic conversation. Your first book. The first time you successfully explain why something's wrong, and what you want instead. The first time you follow the plot of a TV show without subtitles.
Edited by emk on 12 October 2012 at 9:24pm
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Talaithe Newbie United States Joined 4238 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian
| Message 4 of 6 13 October 2012 at 8:24pm | IP Logged |
Thanks emk and iguanamon for the quick responses and useful information!
10/12/12
Repeated Pimsleur I lesson 5.
Thirty minutes of Modern Russian I.
I went over the Princeton course for a few minutes and I think that course falls into the "passive" camp of language learning, maybe it changes later in the course. Modern Russian was strange, after doing the drills I feel like the grammar has been branded to my brain. The vocabulary and sentences however don't seem to stick as well, but maybe that is the point(?) to master the grammar and fill out the skeleton with meaty vocabulary. Maybe I should finish Pimsleur and add more reps before I continue on with Modern Russian.
I have Anki, just got to figure out how to incorporate it into my routine. It also feels like Pimsleur requires more reps than just going through the lesson once. I feel like I stand a bit to gain if I did it twice+ a day on the same lesson, or go through the first lesson on a disc and then do the second lesson on the disc in the same day since repetition is built in?
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Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4867 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian*
| Message 5 of 6 14 October 2012 at 2:19pm | IP Logged |
Modern Russian is generally a good textbook.
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Talaithe Newbie United States Joined 4238 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian
| Message 6 of 6 22 October 2012 at 11:16am | IP Logged |
Update 10/22/12
The drill and kill type methodology isn't cutting it for me. It isn't that it is ineffective, its that I have tons of free time and doing drills is not one of the things I want to do with it. Until I figure out a better method for myself I won't be updating this log. Something like AJATT looks enticing.
Edit: I accidentally a word.
Edited by Talaithe on 22 October 2012 at 11:18am
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