Russian Study Group

[leosmith]

Transcripts for Нюхач.

[Expugnator]

Wow thanks Big Dog! It can be my next Russian series. I totally overlooked it all those years.

[Fortheo]

Almost 8 months in and the only positive thing I have to say is that, with the exception of a few sick days, I've mostly stayed true to my goal of studying Russian 30 minutes a day. I'm not really making much progress though-- too much jumping around from materials, too much time spent frustrated over minor issues instead of focusing on the bigger picture, and likely too much time reviewing things I already know. The lack of transparency with the other languages that I'm familiar with is also making this experience with Russian very vexing to say the least. All that being said, I'm not giving up, I just need to cut out the fat in my routine and refocus myself

I'm guessing that a lot of you went through this frustrating phase with Russian as well?

[Xmmm]

Almost 8 months in and the only positive thing I have to say is that, with the exception of a few sick days, I've mostly stayed true to my goal of studying Russian 30 minutes a day. I'm not really making much progress though-- too much jumping around from materials, too much time spent frustrated over minor issues instead of focusing on the bigger picture, and likely too much time reviewing things I already know. The lack of transparency with the other languages that I'm familiar with is also making this experience with Russian very vexing to say the least. All that being said, I'm not giving up, I just need to cut out the fat in my routine and refocus myself

I'm guessing that a lot of you went through this frustrating phase with Russian as well?

I would recommend lingq to you. There is a ton of graded material with audio ... that's how you get the sense of progress. Last week you had 2000 known words, this week it is 2100, etc.

In Russian you need to know a crazy number of words. Russians seem to love synonyms or almost synonyms with fine shades of meaning.

You should also rejigger your schedule and find an hour a day.

[Fortheo]

I would recommend lingq to you. There is a ton of graded material with audio ... that's how you get the sense of progress. Last week you had 2000 known words, this week it is 2100, etc.

In Russian you need to know a crazy number of words. Russians seem to love synonyms or almost synonyms with fine shades of meaning.

You should also rejigger your schedule and find an hour a day.

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried ling q years ago for other languages and I wasn't a big fan, but maybe it's changed since then, so I'll definitely check it out. And yeah, more time would definitely be better, but this is just a side project for me at the moment, so I'm just going to keep the 30 minutes a day minimum for now. Once I get to a point where I'm reading books then I'll probably bump it up to an hour or more.

Thanks again for the advice!

[neofight78]

LingQ or Anki can provide you with stats. If you waiting for when you can read books, on half an hour a day you may not get there. I was a strong B2 before I could start reading books, and that's still with electronic help. Some people on this board have proved it is possible to start reading extensively from the start, but I have to say that seems to involve a Herculean amount of patience and dictionary lookups!

Perhaps you can explain a bit more of what you've been doing and where you've got to. How are you reviewing? Are you reviewing stuff that's been forgotten, or just reinforcing what you know? Do you listen much on top of your 30 minutes? Do read intensively, do study grammar, get speaking practice, how are you learning vocabulary? What materials are you using?

We all suffer from frustration at times, sometimes it's just because it's a long hard slog, at other times it means one's approach needs to change. I suspect the latter is the case here. You probably do need to find more time, even if that time is not desk time. Also there is no problem with experimenting to find the right techniques and materials for you, but you will need to settle down into some kind of stable routine even that routine does change over a longer period of time.

[Fortheo]

LingQ or Anki can provide you with stats. If you waiting for when you can read books, on half an hour a day you may not get there. I was a strong B2 before I could start reading books, and that's still with electronic help. Some people on this board have proved it is possible to start reading extensively from the start, but I have to say that seems to involve a Herculean amount of patience and dictionary lookups!

Perhaps you can explain a bit more of what you've been doing and where you've got to. How are you reviewing? Are you reviewing stuff that's been forgotten, or just reinforcing what you know? Do you listen much on top of your 30 minutes? Do read intensively, do study grammar, get speaking practice, how are you learning vocabulary? What materials are you using?

We all suffer from frustration at times, sometimes it's just because it's a long hard slog, at other times it means one's approach needs to change. I suspect the latter is the case here. You probably do need to find more time, even if that time is not desk time. Also there is no problem with experimenting to find the right techniques and materials for you, but you will need to settle down into some kind of stable routine even that routine does change over a longer period of time.

Thanks! You're right: my approach definitely needs to change, probably in more ways than I realized. First of all (as I've said before) I bounced between courses too much, essentially repeating easy stuff in each course. I did the first 25 percent or so on Duolingo, but became frustrated with the skimpy grammar explanations. I did ten disks of Michel Thomas, but then I stopped because the teacher and students were annoying. Looking back, I should have definitely finished Michel Thomas because at least things in that course were consistently making sense to me, and Arnaud said the vocabulary course of Michel Thomas actually goes over the cases, which I definitely need to go over several more times before they sink in.

After that, I did 30 lessons of the 1973 version of Assimil. I started Assimil by doing 2-3 lessons a week because Russian is just my side language now and I wanted this to be a relaxed journey lol....by lesson 20 it was taking me three days just to remember the vocabulary in one new lesson. I seriously have no idea how people can do Assimil at a pace of one lesson a day, at least not with russian. On top of the vocabulary demands increasing in Assimil, the grammar demands were increasing so I paused assimil-- I say pause, but really I review 2-3 lessons a day-- while I moved on to Hugo's Russian in three months.

I'm on chapter 6 in Hugo's and I'm hitting this classic problem: "I struggle to learn grammar without various contexts, but I don't have enough vocabulary to provide me with a variety of contexts; and of course, I struggle to learn enough vocabulary without enough grammar."


Long story short. This language has been frustrating me a lot lately. Everything that I've done above, I've done probably 7 times or more. I'm just gonna stop bouncing around and knock those courses off one by one. I'll start by finishing the last few disks of advanced Michel Thomas. Although, I will keep reviewing Assimil on the side as that is my main source of vocabulary at the moment. With French I could just fly through Assimil and a quick grammar book, then start reading and acquiring all my vocab that way. I'm starting to think things will be different with Russian. One thing i should note is that I don't use SRS for vocab as it simply isn't my cup of tea-- I do, however, use SRS for grammar practice with closed deletion. I have the drills from the first five chapters of Hugo's all in an Anki deck.

[Arnaud]

Looking back, I should have definitely finished Michel Thomas because at least things in that course were consistently making sense to me, and Arnaud said the vocabulary part of Michel Thomas actually goes over the cases, which I definitely need to go over several more times before they sink in.

After that, I did 30 lessons of the 1973 version of Assimil. I started Assimil by doing 2-3 lessons a week because Russian is just my side language now and I wanted this to be a relaxed journey lol....by lesson 20 it was taking me three days just to remember the vocabulary in one new lesson. I seriously have no idea how people can do Assimil at a pace of one lesson a day, at least not with russian. On top of the vocabulary demands increasing in Assimil, the grammar demands were increasing so I paused assimil-- I say pause, but really I review 2-3 lessons a day-- while I moved on to Hugo's Russian in three months.

- In Michel Thomas, the cases are reviewed from disc 2, and it's rather an overview to understand the logic of the system than a detailed explanation.
- I've never studied one lesson a day with Assimil (except for spanish and italian because there are so close to french), studying 2-3 lessons a week is good, imho.
- I think you're doing rather well, on the whole: I had the same feelings of over-repeating the same material again and again and it didn't prevent me from progressing. I listened to podcasts when I was on the move, so that the process was more entertaining and less frustrating than the pure "desk work", perhaps you could think of it: podcast like russianpod101 or easy songs, stuff like that.

[MamaPata]

Almost 8 months in and the only positive thing I have to say is that, with the exception of a few sick days, I've mostly stayed true to my goal of studying Russian 30 minutes a day. I'm not really making much progress though-- too much jumping around from materials, too much time spent frustrated over minor issues instead of focusing on the bigger picture, and likely too much time reviewing things I already know. The lack of transparency with the other languages that I'm familiar with is also making this experience with Russian very vexing to say the least. All that being said, I'm not giving up, I just need to cut out the fat in my routine and refocus myself

I'm guessing that a lot of you went through this frustrating phase with Russian as well?

Oh yes, I go through that fairly regularly! I think you have to focus on what you have done - you have studied incredibly regularly and you are absolutely putting in the time that you can. You are improving, definitely, even though it may not be visible just yet. There is a lot that you have to learn very early on with Russian, and so you do have to repeat and review things - I have been studying Russian for... several years, and I still review the cases. I don't think that's just me being slow - it takes time to automate it all.

I'm very glad you're not giving up! But also, give yourself a break and focus on the things that you are doing and that you have learnt. You're doing well, just keep plugging at it.

[Ani]

I've been studying for 6 months and have learned basically nothing so you're looking pretty good from over here Russian is still my guilty pleasure so no frustration at the lack of progress (most of the time, I've had my moments). Looking forward to the day I can start reading аниморфы.