Acquiring Russian: October Report
This is the first month where I was somewhat back into a normal routine with my work and social life. So the time that I was spending on acquiring Russian in the last 30 days might be indicative of what I can sustain in the long term, at least over the winter months.
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
October
Passive watching and listening: 35:53 hours
Active watching: 1:47 hours
Pronunciation, Vocabulary and Sentences: 8:03 hours
Reading with audio: 7:29 minutes
Total: 42:51 hours
September was a transition month for me but I've settled back into a new routine. I increased my passive listening time since I can do that while working. On average I listen to an hour of Russian a day but in reality I'm listening to more than that from Monday to Friday with little to no passive listening on the weekend.
My passive watching dropped to almost zero. In my spare time I almost never watch normal TV shows and while I enjoyed watching the Night Swallows it's not something I normally do. In my spare time I prefer to listen to podcasts or watch and listen to documentaries so my short term goal is to keep watching all of the Comprehensible Russian videos made by Inna and then graduate to watching her videos about Russian history and culture.
The time spent on Vocabulary and Sentences was split between Fluent Forever's 625 important words, the Fluent Forever pronunciation trainer and Xefjord's 200 words and phrases.
I've slowed down somewhat with the 625 words list since I've stopped using Anki to learn them. I found the time spent making flashcards tedious but that does mean I need to remind myself to keep working through the book.
I have mixed thoughts about the Pronunciation Trainer. I think if I started it as a complete beginner with no experience in reading or listening to Russian I would have enjoyed it a lot more. In fact if I ever decide to learn another language I would start with this course if it's available.
However since I can already read Cyrillic to an extent and have listened to a lot of Russian I find the easy parts too easy while the hard aspects of reading, spelling and listening (being able to distinguish between two phonemes) are still as challenging as before I started.
For example I'm still not able to hear if a word has the ъ in the spelling. Yes, I'm eventually learning to spell a particular word but I'm not getting a sense of when to use it in general.
Similarly while I can somewhat hear the difference between the pronunciation of ш and щ on there own, I struggle to pick up the difference or the pattern of how they affect other letter pronunciations in actual words.
Overall I wonder if the most challenging 20% of hearing the subtleties of Russian language, is better learned through huge amount of input than with remembering very specific instances with an app. At the moment I only spend 5 to 15 minutes a day on this, so I'll stick with it until I'm finished (When no new cards are introduced).
The 200 words and phrases is another Anki deck that I started recently. While the words and sentences are really useful the process reminds me of using Memrise or Duolingo in that I'm memorising and recalling things while using the app, but away from the computer I don't remember much. Again, I don't spend much time on this perhaps five to ten minutes per day, so I'll stick with it and see if things change.
Conclusion
So how do I evaluate my progress so far? Well if you had asked me a few days ago I would have said that there hasn't been any noticeable improvement in my comprehension ability. But the other day I was listening to a Dungeons & Dragons stream when I realised I had a high comprehension of a character description with little translation happening in my mind: Russian Listening Comprehension: A character description
That felt like an important milestone and it's provided me with renewed motivation. I attribute my ability to comprehend those sentences to Inna's YouTube channel, specifically the Comprehensible Russian: Zero Beginners playlist and Fluent Forever's The Most Awesome Word List You Have Ever Seen.
The other activities, while interesting and I'm sure are beneficial in some way, are barely contributing to my ability to comprehend and understand real spoken Russian. And since I'm following a Comprehensible Input / Mass Immersion approach I need to focus on what's having the biggest impact.
This doesn't mean I will stop all the other activities, I think there's value in having variety to keep my interest but those other activities will have a lower priority.
I've written before that I've had conflicting thoughts about reading and that so far I've avoided doing it too much. Many believe that reading in a new language too early can cause bad pronunciation habits to form. But I've found several resources that include audio with correct transcripts and I think it will be fun to read along with what's being said.
That's it for today, please leave comments as I'm interested to connect with other students of Russian, whether you are following a Comprehensible Input / Mass Immersion Approach or some other method.
Very cool! I've been studying for just over a year, using...well, all the approaches. Comprehensible input, self-study, physical flashcards, SHEAVES of notes, and am taking a one-hour-per-week class (the best I could find locally) using the Ruslan coursebooks. Since I work a brainless, repetitive job, I am able to listen to podcasts for 6+ hours a day most weekdays. Я понимаю русский язык лучше чем я говорю его. ))
ReplyDeleteThat's great to hear. Hopefully it won't be too many months before I can start listening to real podcasts. Do you have any podcast recommendations?
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