Acquiring Russian The Natural Way

I've 'learned' another 200 words (or more accurately  lemmas ) with Speakly over the past couple of months. 'Learned' is a broad category ranging from 'I can use this in conversation' to 'I might recognise it in certain contexts'.  I've been more consistent with Speakly since the start of the new year and overall enjoying what it provides in my Russian acquisition journey.  I have mentioned before that I'm learning some of the words more easily than others because I have encountered them in other situations. That could be in other apps like Glossika, from importing the Speakly monologues into LingQ or perhaps when reading memes. This means that some days I 'learn' three new words easily, other times I can struggle for a week to get a word into my memory (an even then I will only recognise it in a particular context). I'm not sure what proportion of the words are somewhat familiar to me and how many are completely new. Before it fe...

Attempting conversations in Russian sheds lights on the areas where my knowledge and abilities are lacking. While speaking I'll realise that there are particular words and phrases that I don't yet know or topics where I could do with a larger vocabulary. I've come to the conclusion that I should be more proactive in filling in those gaps of my knowledge. To do that I need memorise words, phrases and sentences so that I can use them immediately. I've been collecting useful phrases and sentences for a while but I need to be more deliberate in my memorisation efforts. The most effective memorisation technique is 'active recall', basically testing yourself. See this short video explaining the process.  Now with SRS software like Anki you can automate the process of making sure you are prompted to remember information at the correct time (just as you are about to forget it). But I'm not entirely sure how that applies in this scenario. Someone in in the comments ...

Just a quick note on success story. I had a short conversation with a Russian person and they complimented my pronunciation and seemed impressed by my ability. Just celebrating the small wins.

I'm mostly back on track with my Russian acquisition journey. It's been a strange year with inconsistent study. On a positive note I've had some good interactions with native Russian speakers which is very motivating. I want to push hard this year in order to get to a comfortable conversational level. December 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 18:37 hours Active watching or listening: 0:11 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 04:29 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:00 hours Active Study: 4:45 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:00 minutes Games: 0:00 Total: 28:02 hours Daily Average: 0:56 hours November 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 18:27 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 12:52 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:15 hours Active Study: 0:00 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Fre...

The days are growing darker and I've been putting more time in to my Russian acquisition project, albeit the most low effort actions. Listening to Speakly monologues and listening and repeating along with Glossika. I need to get back to regular conversation practice but at least I'm putting in the time again after not doing anything in October. I should mention that I had a couple of short interactions with Russian speakers which was fun but I was definitely rusty.    November 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 18:27 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 12:52 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:15 hours Active Study: 0:00 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:00 minutes Games: 0:00 Total: 31:34 hours Daily Average: 1:03 hours October 2024 Statistics N/A September 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 5:20 hours Active watching or listeni...

  Well it's been another poor couple of months for my language studies. But I have a reason and I'm hopeful that I'm about to turn a corner. Since the start of the year I've been doing some work related studying which took up a lot of time that I would normally dedicate to Russian. In October I realised that I was close to finishing the hardest parts of the courses I was taking, so I decided to just focus on that in order to get it out of the way as soon as possible. While I still have some more work to do it's not as urgent.  Getting that out of the way now means I now have more time and mental energy available for Russian. It did mean that I didn't dedicate any time to studying the language. My only exposure being some small interactions and stumbling upon Russian language online. My ability to speak was definitely affected and to a lesser extend my comprehension ability. I'm determined to have a strong finish to 2024. October 2024 Statistics N/A September...