Russian Study Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
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MamaPata
Brown Belt
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Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby MamaPata » Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:08 pm

Welp, I think I should probably follow my own advice now!

Why on earth did you pick Russian?
- I am not entirely sure... It seemed like a good idea at the time. :lol: I decided to take a gap year and work teaching English (I have a CELTA qualification) when I left school. However, very few places wanted an 18 year old teacher! I was interested in Russian history and learning Russian because of how widely spoken it is. So applied for a few jobs in Russia, and ended up getting one.

How long have you been studying
- I first started Russian in 2012, while living there. In 2014, I started a Russian degree and so have been (or should have been :oops: ) studying regularly since then. I am now living in Russia until July.

What are your goals?
- To pass my degree. I also have other shorter and longer term goals, but that's the big one!
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Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2250
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Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Radioclare » Sat Jan 14, 2017 10:41 pm

Radioclare wrote:I did notice that a series of official-looking Memrise courses have appeared for Russian (see here) but I haven't tried them yet so not sure whether they have audio throughout.


In the interest of market research I just started trying out this Memrise course this evening and it's amazing! Not only has it had two examples of audio for each word so far (a male and a female voice), it even has videos of Russians pronouncing some of the words. Definitely recommend it :) The one I linked to is for beginners and starts with the alphabet and basic greetings, but there seems to be a series of seven courses in total, so some of the later ones may be of interest to others also.
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Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
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Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Mista » Sun Jan 15, 2017 7:03 am

There is no doubt that I am studying Russian - the question is why...

I came back to Duolingo after a year's break a bit over a year ago now, and for a period of about half a year, I started on every new course they rolled out - this was the period when new courses for English speakers kept coming - AND I stuck with them all, doing one lesson in each language every day. But then, in May, I registered for the Super Challenge and used that to force myself to make a choice, and I ended up choosing Russian and French. Not really sure why. But, of course, Russian is one of the major languages in the world, and Russia is our next door neighbor here in Norway, which means that it's always been on the list of languages to consider. Plus, it has annoyed me for some time that I couldn't read the Cyrillic alphabet (but now I can :D ). Really, it's just one of many languages for me, but it happens to be one of my priorities right now, and as usual, the more work you put in, the more rewarding it becomes.

I'm probably about A1 moving into the A2 zone at the moment, and I'll be taking a course on Russian literature (read in the Russian original) at the University this term. Since I've studied Ancient Greek and Latin, I find the syntax easy to learn, but I still have to learn the morphology like everyone else. And the vocabulary, which feels like the biggest hurdle at the moment. However, I'm using a course book at the moment which aims at hammering in essential vocabulary and grammar, and so far this has been very efficient when it comes to learning the morphology - as for the vocabulary, I think it will be good too, but so far it has mostly been familiar already :shock: . So I guess that means I've learnt something after all :roll:

Since I have no immediate plans to go to Russia, I want to focus on reading skills for now, though a little bit of regular pronunciation practice is also a good idea, I think. And of course, I will have to visit Russia at some point.
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jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
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Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:52 pm
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fi, yue, ro, tp, cy, kw, pt, sk
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sun Jan 15, 2017 1:30 pm

Summary of my HTLAL log

I've studied Russian on and off for nearly twenty (?!) years. I 1998 I took a university course (which I dropped). In the summer of 2006 I took it up again (with Pimsleur) and then a similar university course was offered, so why not. The first years, I spent a lot of time on listening at LingQ, shadowed the Assimil audio, and read easy readers and textbooks over and over. Some years later I read children's books. And most recently, say the last few years, I've mainly read (Dan Brown) with not-so-good-comprehension.

Now it's a new year, and I want to do something with my Russian, but since my reading isn't up to par (at any level, really), I've opened my copy of Russian in Exercises. Current daily regimen for these first two weeks: I've done grammar drills for 15 minutes and read everything aloud. Better than nothing. :D
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MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby MamaPata » Sat Jan 21, 2017 6:35 am

How is everyone going? I've been ill all week so haven't really done anything, let alone Russian study. Hopefully, it's been more successful for the rest of you!

Does anyone have any recommendations for Russian (language) music? I feel like I ought to be listening to more of it.
0 x
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Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Mista » Sat Jan 21, 2017 7:10 am

MamaPata wrote:How is everyone going? I've been ill all week so haven't really done anything, let alone Russian study. Hopefully, it's been more successful for the rest of you!

Does anyone have any recommendations for Russian (language) music? I feel like I ought to be listening to more of it.


I'm looking forward to reading the hopefully many answers to that question - and here is the one and only Russian group I know and can recommend:

https://www.youtube.com/user/billysbandcom

As for my studies this week, I've been doing Duolingo and Mondly daily, and started reading Pushkin for class. I've also tried to get a little bit done daily in my grammar workbook, but I haven't managed to see that through.
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Fortheo
Green Belt
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Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2015 12:03 pm
Languages: English (N), French (?) Russian (beginner)
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Fortheo » Sat Jan 21, 2017 8:59 am

MamaPata wrote:How is everyone going? I've been ill all week so haven't really done anything, let alone Russian study. Hopefully, it's been more successful for the rest of you!

Does anyone have any recommendations for Russian (language) music? I feel like I ought to be listening to more of it.


I'm staying true to my thirty minutes a day of Russian. I'm still in the middle of Michel Thomas and they introduced the gender of nouns and agreement with adjectives in disk four, and I have to say that it's very interesting thus far, but also challenging. I've always found Michel Thomas to be a friendly introduction to a language, but it still has it's frustrating parts—lately the students have started changing word order around without being instructed to, despite the fact that they did it the other way for the first half of the course, so now the instructor says, "yes, possible, but lets try another word order" about every 20 seconds, which is becoming frustrating.

Other than that I'm just enjoying my slow ride with Russian :)
2 x

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Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
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Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:59 pm
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Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Radioclare » Mon Jan 23, 2017 12:20 pm

Fortheo wrote:I'm still in the middle of Michel Thomas and they introduced the gender of nouns and agreement with adjectives in disk four, and I have to say that it's very interesting thus far, but also challenging. I've always found Michel Thomas to be a friendly introduction to a language, but it still has it's frustrating parts—lately the students have started changing word order around without being instructed to, despite the fact that they did it the other way for the first half of the course, so now the instructor says, "yes, possible, but lets try another word order" about every 20 seconds, which is becoming frustrating.


It sounds like we're at about the same stage as Michel Thomas - I also started the fourth disk last week :) Completely agree about being frustrated by the students in some parts. I'm getting particularly fed up of being told how to pronounce здесь every five minutes :lol:
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4AM
White Belt
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 3:27 pm
Location: Belarus
Languages: Dutch (Native), English (advanced), Russian (advanced), German (intermediate), Turkish (beginner)
Wanderlust: Italian, Polish, Arabic/Persian, Frisian, Belarusian
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3418
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby 4AM » Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:43 pm

MamaPata wrote:How is everyone going? I've been ill all week so haven't really done anything, let alone Russian study. Hopefully, it's been more successful for the rest of you!

Does anyone have any recommendations for Russian (language) music? I feel like I ought to be listening to more of it.


I'm kind of disappointed with my progress over the last week. Only got an hour or so of grammar drills in, and I didn't read as much as I had intended.

Земфира, ДДТ, Наутилус Помпилиус, Кино, Агата Кристи are good places to start with Russian music, especially as some of their songs have achieved cult status.
5 x

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MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby MamaPata » Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:25 pm

I've never used Michael Thomas, but I do have a RussianPod subscription and am getting equally irritated with it. There's lots about it I really like, but they also use non-natives for some of the dialogues. I find this quite annoying, because while a native-like accent is absolutely not my goal, I do want to get used to hearing native speech.
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