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Getting Grammar and Vocabulary Down | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Fieryterminator Newbie United States how-to-learn-any-lan Joined 3754 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 12 22 January 2014 at 6:47am | IP Logged |
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Hello. I'm new to this forum, so please excuse me if this is an odd topic for this section. I've been studying Russian for about a month and a half now, and I've run into a problem. The book I have is the New Penguin Russian Course, and all I've been doing so far is doing the exercises in the book, which are good, but not ultimately enough for study.
My question is this: If I have plenty of Vocabulary, Grammar aspects, Verbs, and Adjectives, how would I go about getting them into my memory so that I understand them better? I have resources for it - I just don't know how to study it. I've never learned a language on my own before, and I'm pretty lost on what I need to do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6392 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 2 of 12 22 January 2014 at 8:12am | IP Logged |
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Do more exercises from other sources? Write on www.lang-8.com? Listen to music?
Describe your issues in more detail. Do you understand well what the textbook presents you and just need to internalize it/make it more automatic? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4804 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 3 of 12 22 January 2014 at 6:46pm | IP Logged |
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In general, there are a few things that help:
1.More exercises. That never hurts. I don't know about Russian in particular, but the large languages tend to have a lot of specific resources on grammar or vocabulary to help you with practice. 2.Exposure. Tons of input.See and hear the grammar and vocabulary in vivo. Get a graded reader with audio, a bilingual book, a usul book of an easier genre, get some podcasts or a tv series or whatever depending on your tastes and level. It will help. Don't expect miracles from the first few pages but should you persevere, your skills, including knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, will go up marvelously. 3.More practice. After the usual exercises, it is good to come with your own sentences. Write bits of the language or speak at least to yourself. Just make your brain use what you have learnt anyhow. 4.Anki or another srs It works well for words that just don't stick or for declinations/conjugations patterns and similar things. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6704 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 12 22 January 2014 at 6:46pm | IP Logged |
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I can only second Serpent's suggestions. If the grammar rules are very straightforward and the explanations as well, a few examples and a handful of exercises might be the only thing you need, but in most cases you'll need a lot of practice. When my resources aren't (good) enough, I turn to other sources. Even the relevant wikipedia article can be very helpful, and a simple search for say russian grammar exercises (or more specific keywords) will give you some decent sites with other examples.
Good luck! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6392 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 12 22 January 2014 at 7:50pm | IP Logged |
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Also, don't demand too much of yourself after a month and a half. You don't need to master each grammar topic to perfection before moving on. When using a textbook, the best test is whether the next lesson makes sense to you. They build up on what they previously introduced, so if you are lost and clueless, you need to go back to the previous lesson, or maybe the one before that or further. If it makes sense, just go ahead.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4704 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 12 22 January 2014 at 11:24pm | IP Logged |
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Is there an FSI course for Russian? The pattern drills are very useful for learning grammar forms. A typical pattern might be something like:
We are in Paris. Teacher: Rome. Student: We are in Rome. Teacher: You. Student: You are in Rome. Teacher: He. Student: He is in Rome. Teacher: a cat. Student: He is a cat. Teacher: I. Student: I am a cat. Some people find this boring. I actually quite like doing it when I go for a walk or bike ride. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4817 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 12 22 January 2014 at 11:59pm | IP Logged |
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The nearest thing is called "Modern Russian 1 and 2 by Clayton Dawson.
Along with the usual caveat of engaging native materials from the beginning and following the advice outlined in Iguanomons's excellent thread "the multi-track approach" I have always imagined that I would use the Michel Thomas course to get a very quick overview of the grammar, then do an Assimil lesson a day while slowly working through the Penguin course. Assimil would probably give you enough interesting chunks of language to let your brain puzzle out most of the Grammar you are learning while still being quite fun. However, learning the grammar, and really getting it down are 2 different things. The FSI style courses are the only ones I really know of that are capable of really helping you to internalize and ingrain that grammar into your brain. I think they do a better job of it than just conversations alone, at least the Spanish one does. All speculation though as I haven't attempted to learn Russian, but you can expect to be at the job for a good few years i expect. Edited by dbag on 23 January 2014 at 12:00am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Fieryterminator Newbie United States how-to-learn-any-lan Joined 3754 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* | Message 8 of 12 23 January 2014 at 12:37am | IP Logged |
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Thank you, everyone! To elaborate more on my standing with the grammar, I understand it, but it's something that I have to refer back to often. A good example of this would be with something I've been learning over the past week or two, which is plural words, how to say "to have", and general word endings in the genitive case, which change and have complex rules in Russian. These are things that I understand, but I often find myself going back and reading over the rules and other case endings so that I can be sure of which one it's in. This isn't a massive problem, but it does feel like I'm not making any progress after I can't get through a paragraph without referring back to the text over ten times.
There is something new I'm trying, however. The way the book I have is structured, it teaches the lesson, gives one or two exercises after small subjects, and then a group of several exercises followed by a vocabulary for the section and a page or two of dialogue. I usually just read the lesson, do one or two exercises, and then do the dialogue, going back to the vocabulary for anything I don't know. Instead of doing that, I've decided to make a deck of flashcards for all the vocabulary and study it constantly until I nail it perfectly, and then try the dialogue. I haven't tried it yet, but I have made the flashcards for it. The FSI Courses that Jeffers and dbag mentioned sound pretty interesting to me. They're pretty repetitive, apparently, but I would be fine with that. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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