Acquiring Russian: August and September Report

I'll aim to do a monthly report about my Russian acquisition journey and since I didn't do one for August this will be a double feature!

My background: I made several attempts to learn Russian over the past couple of years. I had a maximum vocabulary of around 50 words which I learned through a combination of Anki, Memrise, Duo Lingo, Babbel and Michel Thomas. I learned the Cyrillic script although I was conscious I wasn't pronouncing all the words correctly. My knowledge of grammar was and is still non existent. 

Besides English I'm also fluent in another West European language (I won't say which, but it's one of Danish, Dutch and German). I was raised bilingually so I have first hand knowledge of acquiring a language through immersion only. Later I attended primary school and secondary school in both language environments but I was reading in both languages regardless of where I was going to school.

Fast forward to the summer of 2020 and I was once again inspired to tackle Russian. But this time I started searching with terms like 'learn a language like a baby' and 'learn language naturally'. That's how I discovered people like Stephen Krashen, Steve Kaufmann, the Comprehensible Input methods as well as the Mass Immersion Approach and All Japanese All The Time. 

I jumped right in and started watching Russian TV shows and listening to Dungeons & Dragons streams. Like many people I would have been able to hear when people were speaking Russian but as to what extent I was already able to hear the distinction between words I'm no longer sure. I don't think it was every as bad as what I hear when listening to Mandarin (which is complete noise to me) but it was not as easy as listening to French, Spanish or German. 

I'm not sure to what extent my ability to distinguish words and sentences has improved but I definitely find it less tiring to listen to or watch Russian speakers for extended periods of time.

For vocabulary I've changed my approach several times over the past few weeks. First I downloaded Memrise and DuoLingo again. Then I discovered Fluent Forever's list of 625 important words, which I started loading into Anki.

However since then I've stopped using Memrise and DuoLingo and I'm focussing on recognising the 625 words primarily through sound.

The are a couple of reasons for my change in tactics. I wasn't enjoying the apps and any learning that was happening was mostly confined to the times I was in the app. That means that words or sentences I could recognise or recall in the app were not available to me outside of it.

Also, as I learned more about the different 'natural learning' schools of thought and the various personalities involved, it seemed to me that while reading early and often is a great way to quickly grow your vocabulary it can cause issues with pronunciation. Steve Kaufmann for example can speak several languages but even I can hear his accent isn't great in many of them.

For me having a good accent isn't just a way to satisfy my ego. I think the better I can hear real native pronunciations, the better I'll be able to reproduce them. The better my accent the more easily I'll be understood. The easier I'm understood the better I'll be able to communicate and make the whole endeavour more fun and motivating. 

That's why although I'm very keen to start reading as soon as possible, for now I'm focussing my time on listening as much as I can both to Comprehensible Input as well content aimed at native Russian speakers.

However, since I did already learn the Cyrillic script I'm spending time learning to better hear and pronounce the phonemes. Using the Fluent Forever pronunciation trainer.

My statistics for August and September are:

August

Passive watching and listening: 31:28 hours

Active watching: 2:32 hours

Vocabulary: 1:38 hours

Total: 35:38 hours

September

Passive watching and listening: 11:27 hours

Active watching: 1:14 hours

Vocabulary: 3:56 hours

Total: 16: 37 hours

As you can see my total time dropped by half in September but that's mostly because the first two week of the last month were spent adjusting to a new routine with my work.

In August I acquired 48 new words and another 40 in September. This is from the book only and doesn't count additional words I've picked up through context. I might be able to recognise and additional 50, it's hard to tell. I would like to increase the rate at which I'm acquiring words from the book, which should be doable. I'll aim for 100 in the next week.

I would like to spend more time on Comprehensible Input, which I think will happen as I'm finding it easier to watch and listen for longer before getting tired. Possibly because I can understand more words.

My goals for the coming weeks are to continue to work through the Pronunciation Trainer. The aim is to get better at hearing the different phonemes, then get better at pronouncing them. If I really want to start reading I'll stick to audio that has 'official' subtitles written by native speakers. I found a selection of slowly read sentences on YouTube that look very suitable as well as a channel called Easy Russian Club that features interviews with people on the street. 

When watching TV shows I'll stick to watching them without subtitles because the language will inevitably be more complicated and switch between topics too quickly. Watching shows is time for me to notice words and pick up new vocabulary through context. 

I'm still not going to look at grammar other than what I naturally notice. For example I can sometimes hear when a familiar word has a different ending in different contexts.

Further down the line I would like to learn sentences. Gabriel Wyner from Fluent Forever mentioned that he was able to make rapid progress by learning sentences that used the 625 useful words. He created these sentences together with his tutor and this allowed him to acquire grammar. 

Perhaps I'll look into how expensive it would be to get someone to help me create sentences for me? Otherwise I'm also interested to use Glossika which I've heard good things about. Although many reviews mention it is best left until the learner has acquired some vocabulary.

As far as grammar is concerned I'm going to continue to ignore it but happy to notice it. And when it comes to tutoring I think it's also too soon for that. I'm happy to be input focused for the next couple of months and investigate tutoring in the spring. But of course I might change my mind.

That's it for now. Please leave your comments, ideas and questions in the comments. I'm really interested in connecting with Russian language learners whatever their level as well as native speakers.

пока!