An experiment in learning Russian the natural way

This blog will a diary of my attempt to learn to understand and speak Russian the "natural way". This will involve lots of listening, getting comprehensible input, acquiring vocabulary, eventually reading and some grammar.

Like many people I've aspired to learn another language for a while. I've had several aborted attempts over the years but never managed to stick with it.

Russian always appealed to me for various reasons. From the way it sounds to the history and culture of its speakers and of course my desire to be able to speak with Russians in their own language. 

I've tried different methods over the years like the lessons of Michel Thomas which advocate speaking as soon as possible and apps like DuoLingo and Memrise. While I learned some words and sentences it was hard to stay motivated or achieve the volume of learning I believed was necessary.

In the summer of 2020 I decided to do some research about different learning methods, specifically searching for things like 'learning a language like a baby'.  That's how I found the world of Natural Language Acquisition and Comprehensible Input. This is a method put forward by Stephen Krashen amongst others and you can get an overview of how it works from this video.

In brief, the idea is that people pick up languages by receiving messages that they can understand and over time come to understand the language before they actually start speaking it. The key to getting started is lots and lots of watching and listening. The same way a baby listens to adults for up to a year before they start speaking.

One of the reasons this method is so appealing to me is because I was raised bilingually. My parents spoke to me in both languages from the time I was born. I was never taught grammar. I just picked up an intuitive sense for how each language works. People are often impressed that I speak two languages but I'm honest and tell them it took no effort on my part.

At the start of this experiment (2nd of August 2020) my ability to speak Russian was practically non existent. At my previous peak I probably understood 30 to 50 words. like 'хорошо' and 'Привет' plus various colours and numbers. But I've forgotten many of them. I can also read the Cyrillic alphabet although I'm conscious that I'm not always pronouncing the words correctly.

After doing research, and speaking to people who have used these types of methods to teach themselves, I've decided on the following plan of action.

1. Lots of listening to Russian. I'm aiming for hundreds of hours over the coming months. I will do this in two ways. First in a passive manner, just having Russian language in the background while I do other things or by watching a TV show or movie and enjoying it as best I can. Only looking up words that I repeatedly hear and am curious about. 

2. I'll also be watching Comprehensible Input and TPRS lessons on YouTube. I'll consider this active listening and watching because I'll be concentrating to understand the message and learning words through context. I will rewatch these lessons multiple times and look up any words that seem important.

Watching with subtitles is not necessary, but if I do I should make sure they were written by native speakers and not YouTube's automatically generated subtitles. 

I imagine the emphasis will shift from Passive to Active listening over time as my understanding and vocabulary increases.

3. Initially I will limit reading and writing. The consensus seems to be that attempting to read too early (whether out loud or in your mind) is one of the reasons why new learners speak with an accent. As mentioned before I might read official subtitles for YouTube videos that were made by native speakers.

4. Although the comprehensible input method advocates learning vocabulary in context I've decided to learn 625 commonly used words which I found here: The Most Awesome Word List You Have Ever Seen. These words are grouped and presented along with a relevant image or scene that makes it easier to recognise and recall. I understand recall goes somewhat against the input-first approach but I think it will helps me stay motivated.

Note: 24/09/2020

A couple of weeks after writing this post I realised that the 625 words download includes audio recordings of each word. I realised that I was pronouncing a couple of words the wrong way and it's noticeable how difficult it is to correct previous mistakes. This shows the importance of learning it correctly the first time. While someone like Steve Kaufmann has learned multiple language through a lot of reading, from what I can tell he has a strong accent which I want to avoid as much as possible.

As I mentioned earlier I've had a little bit of prior Russian experience including learning the Cyrillic alphabet. I can't go back and undo that, and while I might say I want to avoid reading too early I can't but help try whenever I see Russian writing. Because of this I've decided to spend some time improving my pronunciation of the Russian phonemes using this course from the same site that provides the list of 625 words: Fluent Forever: Pronunciation Trainer

Note: 12/11/2020

I stopped using the Fluent Forever: Pronunciation Trainer after studying it for 9 hour in total. I felt that I had reached the point of diminishing returns and my time was better spent on vocabulary training and more comprehensible input.

Note: 21/11/2020

After reading Matt vs Japan's new site, refold.la, I was reminded that for now my vocabulary acquisition should be concentrated on recognition only. Which means that I'm prompted with a Russian word, recognise it and know its meaning. I was studying the 625 words and attempting to recall and produce Russian when prompted by the pictures. This slowed down my progress and is not useful at this stage since for now I'm only looking to get better comprehending input (understanding spoken Russian).

My vocabulary training now consists mostly of these two Anki decks: Most Common Russian Words and Xefjord's Basic Word and Phrases Deck. When working with the second deck I suspend any cards that require an English to Russian translation. The work on the 625 words has somewhat fallen to the wayside, although I will pick it back up again. No doubt many of the words will come up in the two Anki decks anyway.

I've been told that memorisation apps are fine as long as the accompanying pronunciation is done by native speakers. In previous attempts to learn Russian I tried using Memrise and Duolingo with little results. This time I thought they would provide an fun bonus activity but in the end I stopped using them altogether because I find them boring and they provide almost no value to me.

At the time of writing I've done 23 hours of passive listening, an hour of active listening/watching and 20 minutes of vocabulary learning.

My main source of listening material so far has been recordings of Dungeons & Dragons session like this one: Форт Рузда | Вечерние Кости | ЭНОА | Глава 1

These are useful because they last 2 to 3 hours. A session involves a Dungeon Master who describes the scenes and the characters (often acting them out with different voices). The players act out their parts either in character, when they put on a voice, or from their own perspective. 

I only understand a tiny fraction of what's happening at the moment. I know words like big and small and various colours so I'll pick up when something is being described. Due to the voice acting I'll understand when someone is speaking in character versus when they are speaking as themselves. Also because the game involves lots of dice rolling I can understand them counting the results and doing simple calculations. 

I listen to these videos while I work and my aim is to listen to these for at least 2 hours a day from Monday to Friday. The 'Active' listening/watching I do is of videos like these from the Real Russian Club and Comprehensible Russian: TPRS Speaking Course and Russian: Zero Beginners.

I admit I have some doubts about this method. It feels like I'm fooling myself and avoiding the real hard work it takes to learn a language.

Let's see how it goes!