smallwhite wrote:So you do find your current stage more difficult than others do and I did notice.
Actually no, I mean it in the exact opposite way! Experienced learners get through that initial drudgery and strain during the honeymoon period with their new language. When they start to feel less enthusiastic they have already gone through the hard part and breeze along just fine, at least with Cat I languages. The difference for me is that I don't have a "honeymoon phase" for any language. I get through that initial period on discipline alone. I have my honeymoon as soon as I understand and can read and watch all sorts of interesting stuff. In a sense I'm a pragmatic learner, I learn languages not because it's particularly fun for me to figure out their structure or to experience that feeling when things start to make sense. That might be mildly entertaining, but certainly not enough to keep me going. I learn them because I want to do stuff with them, speak to certain people, read certain books, watch certain movies, travel the country, do a photography project, that sort of thing. Languages only become fun for me when I can understand them already. I'd never be the kind of person who gets wanderlust for 20 languages and then abandons every one of them after the initial enthusiasm wears off. I can see why some people like that, but it definitely isn't for me. That's doing only the bit that I don't particularly enjoy! Best sign that you yourself ride the wave of your enthusiasm is that you've only done 138h of Russian and moved on to some other language. As I said, people dabble, but it needs real grit and good reasons to get anywhere with it. I doubt "It has more speakers than Greek" is a good enough reason.
Now, is Russian more difficult for me because I don't have a honeymoon phase? Nope, I don't think so. I don't think anybody can find things new and fresh for 6 months or more. With Russian that initial drudgery takes a lot longer than most people find acceptable and longer than most people can stay motivated on enthusiasm alone. So, for Russian the honeymoon phase can't possibly get you over that initial part where things are hard, even if you're incredibly enthusiastic and motivated. Russian always needs discipline and a lot of it. If anything Russian is easier for me than for other people, because I don't have the end of the honeymoon period throwing it all into question. It starts hard and becomes easier with time. The longer I keep going the more fun I have with it, not the other way round. And I'm quite likely more disciplined than most people too, which is in part my personality, in part my illness. Resisting cake on a daily basis is much harder than sticking with Russian. So, no, you're not picking up on anything there. I'm complaining about Russian right now, because I've already spent more than half a year with it on my second attempt and haven't yet broken through the comprehension barrier. 9 months and I still understand way more Italian without ever having learned it beyond A2. It's annoying, it's frustrating, I want it to end and finally watch some good movies instead of spending my time with endless dictionary lookups for several hours a day. I can't though because I don't understand those yet
I'd be having fun if those dictionary lookups were to include only 10-15 words per page like I was with French after like 300 pages. However, after 500 pages I'm still at 30-50 words, with the occasional page of 60+
Other people would be frustrated with yet more grammar and yet more anki. There is no way around the drudgery with Russian.
What's so special about complaining after months of drudgery? Fortheo complained a few days ago about hardly any progress after 8 months and Xmmm just complained about being disappointed with only reaching B1+ comprehension after 2 years and having been stuck there for an entire year. Neofight replied that he passed B1 after 2.5 years, so Xmmm is actually right on track. And Neofight says he's been complaining for 4.5 years already, which suggests that it doesn't get much easier with time
So, really, I don't know why you see my complaining as being any different from anyone else's complaining. We all use different methods - I mainly read, Xmmm watches a lot of stuff and reads transcripts, Fortheo does mainly grammar right now. And we're all complaining. Must be because Russian is hard.
And well, part of it is probably also a bit of the Russian mentality that's rubbing off: Endless complaining is very Russian indeed. My mum is a first class complainer and I frequently throw in sentences like "And now we talk about something nice instead"! I think learning Japanese doesn't really invite as much complaining although it's more difficult. When you get frustrated with learning Kanji you can just watch some anime with some wild story line and inappropriate humour after some sub2srs or watch some extremely funny Japanese motivational videos that don't really have to make much sense. You can also reread one of your favourite mangas in parallel text with the translation. It's all part of the game. Try the same with Russian and in most cases you won't find any subtitles for the movies, neither Russian nor any other language and for some reason even the comedies are so dark that they are actually depressing. I watched one recently and they were mainly shouting at each other for 2 hours. Also, none of the really interesting content apart from extremely hairy classical literature is even translated into other non-slavic languages, so forget about parallel content. So, what do you do? You just complain a little more and do some more grammar / anki / intensive reading / other kind of torture so that maybe one day you might have some actual fun with the language.
But then, I will stop complaining for now, and better get on with some stuff or the drudgery will never end.