My old log, not in use anymore

[Glossy]

There may or may not be a lot of original Russian shows, but there usually aren't English subtitles available

What about audiobooks? You can choose a book that has an English translation. I think a lot of the Russian classics are in Wikimedia, both in the original and in English. Or you can listen to a Russian translation of a modern English-language book, checking your comprehension against the English text.

I've done this with French. There are lots of legally-free French adiobooks online. I'm assuming there are some Russian ones too.

[Glossy]

My method was very simple. I listened to a few sentences in French. Most of the time there were some words there I didn't understand. Listened a few more times. Sometimes that allowed me to figure out the obscure words by myself. That felt great. It's a challenge, kind of like a game. If I still didn't understand something after 5 or 6 tries, I looked at the French text. If even that didn't clear things up, I looked at the English translation. Then on to the next passage.

[Cavesa]

I might have a trip to France coming up next year . If it gets confirmed, I'm going to make French my dabble language after the third semester of Russian is over. I would be aiming to reach a basic touristic level before the trip, so I could try it out on the locals to see if they are more willing to talk to me in the language than the people were in Spain when I was there last year. I literally had more German spoken to me by a Lufthansa flight crew than Spanish by the locals on Spanish soil . Yeah, I should have probably gone to a less touristic area, tried to dress like a local and travel alone, if I wanted to be spoken to in Spanish, but still the experience ended up greatly diminishing my motivation to get back into the language. I don't even mind getting switched on that much, but when everybody immediately initiates the conversation in English, it makes me fell like a clear outsider, just another run of the mill tourist.

I'm sending a hug as I know this too well!
Edit: I take the hug back, I've heard the fins are not much like this. So, I am waving compassionately from a comfortable distance instead

A part of the "looking like a native" is definitely useful. It is easier, as natives in various countries dress similarly, so just get rid of the obvious tourist attributes (guess how difficult I have it, since my dad always travels with a huge camera and a bag full of photo proprieties )But some things are not changeable. I would never look like a native in the northern countries but I look not strikingly anormal in majority of Europe. It helps. In Spain, I got it much easier even with highly imperfect Spanish than a beautiful tall blonde friend of mine with blue eyes. Had she looked either more neutrally like me, or asian, she would have gotten more practice. She wasn't much worse at Spanish then me, that was not the main problem. This is often not easy to swallow and we should not beat ourselves too much over this.

Less touristic areas are cool but it is not just about smaller towns or less known monuments. I can't recommend enough getting to a non-touristic situations. They offer two benefits: better chances of language practice and getting to know more about the contemporary life in the country. Whenever I am abroad and have the time, I make sure to visit a local café in a definitely non touristy neighbourhood, a bookstore and/or a library (it is interesting to observe how does the "bestseller shelf" change between countries), a supermarket or preferably smaller shops with food, I use the public transport. I plan to start making bigger space in my budget to go for non-touristy cultural events too. The museums are filled with tourists, but a local cinema or theatre, that is different.

Don't let anything discourage you too much. Be a Grumpy Cat, if it helps: "People are boring and horrible anyways."

[Kationi]

German: So far in June, I've done a lot of German. Steam says that I've played over 45 hours of games in the last 2 weeks, all in German. That's over 3 hours per day on average. On top of this, I've easily met my minimum goal of an hour of German on Netflix per day, my average being closer to 2 hours this month. German is again clearly my main focus language. By passive skills are getting really good, which makes trying to improve further so much fun. The plan is to get the language up to C1 and maintain it properly at that level for a year before making a different language my main. Sure, I'll keep dabbling in different languages before then, but I won't be expecting any great results.

If you know German and are interested in video games, you might want to check out a total conversion mod for Skyrim called Enderal. It's made by a German team and has an interesting story with tens of hours of professional voice acting.

I've been meaning to do the same! Reading foreign books tends to get exhausting, but games are a different story. I learned lots of English by playing Pokémon games when I was younger. I haven't tried the same in German because the names of the Pokémon are different. Only Pikachu stays the same. I should just get over it and give German versions a go.

I don't have Skyrim, but the mod seems amazing! Makes me want to buy the game just to try it out. I love open world games, and playing in German would make it "educational", too (couldn't think of a better word).

Do you have recommendations for German movies/series on Netflix? I need to work on my listening skills, and having subtitles would be a huge plus.

[Kationi]

I didn't know how to do that, so thanks for the tip! Watching my favorite shows with the German dub on would be fun for sure. I've actually watched a few episodes of Deutschland 83 before. My local library has it on DVD. I really liked it, but was too busy to watch the whole series back then. I'll see if I can find Babylon Berlin somewhere.

Alright, I might buy the standard edition, then!