Acquiring Russian The Natural Way

I'm still alive and I'm still acquiring Russian. Although I've only spent 21 minutes per day on the language a big life change is happening soon that will positively impact my Russian acquisition journey. More on that in a moment. The main activities I did over the past year were: using the Speakly App (Active Study), listening to the Speakly stories (Passive Immersion), listening and reading along with Glossika (Reading with Audio) and using the Taalhammer app (Vocabulary/Sentences).  I did not get as much conversations practice with people or AI (Free Conversation Practice) as I would have liked but that will all change because this year I'm moving to a country that is home to some native Russian speakers (no, not Russia). This will mean that I will more often encounter Russian speakers in my day to day life. For tracking purposes this means I will no longer track real life conversations under 'Free Conversation Practice' reserving that for time spent in forma...

  July 2025 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 6:27 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 hours Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 01:00 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:00 hours Active Study: 0:00 minutes Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice (LinguaTalk): 0:00 hours Games: 0:00 Total: 06:27 hours Daily Average: 0:23 minutes June 2025 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 09:41 hours Active watching or listening: 0:58 hours Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:40 minutes Reading with Audio: 01:01 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:56 hours Active Study: 3:48 minutes Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice (LinguaTalk): 0:00 hours Games: 0:00 Total: 17:04 hours Daily Average: 0:34 minutes May 2025 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 0:00 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 hours Vocabulary and Sentences: 2:24 minutes Reading with Audio: 01:00 hours Reading with...

  It was a quiet month although I'm doing much better in the past week. Something noteworthy to mention is that I had a short conversation with a Russian man and also separately with a Latvian woman. They were both very complementary of my ability. Although I believe I seem better than I actually am when I'm speaking about a narrow set of topics. Still, it's very motivating to get such feedback from native speakers. The activities I'm focussing on currently are: 1. Learning new words with the Speakly App (I'm almost at 1800). I regret not being consistent with this because I could have easily 'learned' another 750 words with only 5 to 10 minutes a day. I didn't realise how long it's been since I was consistently using the app. It's a real shame because that should have been the minimum activity every day. 2. Using  Taalhammer  to learn useful phrases. I'm constantly adding to my useful phrases deck whenever I discover or think of a phrase tha...

A lot less Russian than I would like. I'm still motivated to learn. Last night I had a short conversation with a Russian couple and they took me seriously as a learner. However it's now been more than a year of very limited studying, due to instability and a lack of routine in my life. I'm doing my best to get back on track. I've been focusing on useful phrases using Taalhammer . It's a shame because I was doing so well and I can have short fun interactions in the language. I'm very busy with a ton of things at the moment so that's all I have for today. May will be very similar but I'm going to do my best to turn things around this summer. April 2025 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 3:13 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 hours Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 hours Reading with Audio: 2:46 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:00 hours Active Study: 0:00 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice (LinguaTal...

  I'm very motivated at the moment, while my average time is not very high a good proportion of my activity was dedicated to impactful activities. As I mentioned in previous posts I'm dedicating more time to memorising useful phrases for everyday conversations (which is my primary goal at the moment). I'm also experimenting with a new AI tool: LanguaTalk  which I'm very impressed with so far. I will do a review of it soon. January 2025 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 8:04 hours Active watching or listening: 0:09 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 1:42 minutes Reading with Audio: 05:42 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:27 hours Active Study: 6:22 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice (LinguaTalk): 0:15 minutes Games: 0:00 Total: 22:40 hours Daily Average: 0:44 hours

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...

I've been attending a Russian language group in my city over the past few weeks. It attracts a mixture of learners and speakers and it's a great environment to practice my listening and speaking skills. Usually there are 15 to 20 people attending and people naturally split into small group of 3 to 5 people. There's no set agenda, people just talk about what interests them. The most recent meeting lasted about 3 and a half hours and I was immersed in Russian 90% of the time. I'm listening a lot more than I'm speaking and I sometimes need to ask for a translation to English to make sure I'm still following the conversation. But I feel comfortable with ambiguity, and usually have a good understanding of what each person is saying. Examples of topics discussed include where to find particular types of restaurants in the city, politics and culture in various countries, work and hobbies. It's very motivating to be able to take part in a conversation, even with my ...

  In my last report I wrote about how I had a big drop in my average study time due to various life circumstances. Half-way through August I started rededicating myself to this acquisition journey. There's nothing much to say other than that I've regained my motivation and I'm get back on track.  August 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 7:07 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 3:00 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:00 hours Active Study: 1:32 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 2:00 minutes Games: 0:00 Total: 13:40 hours Daily Average: 0:26 hours July 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 3:10 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 0:27 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:00 hours Active Study: 1:20 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 ho...

In my previous post I mentioned how this year I've not been studying Russian as much as previously was the case. For the first couple of years I was averaging about an hour of exposure to the language per day. But so far this year it's probably not even 15 minutes per day, even counting the memes I see on Instagram. The reason for this laps is due to a change in personal circumstances which interrupted my study habits.  But I have to be honest that I'm often skipping opportunities to use an app or listen to Russian monologues such as when I'm commuting or in the gym. Those are relatively low-effort activities that I could be doing in what is otherwise 'down-time'. In July I visited the Baltic again but didn't have as many opportunities to speak Russian as in the past which was disappointing. But it made me realise how motivated I still am to actually speak with people. After all, that's my primary motivation. So when I got back home I decided to attend a...

I visited the Baltic again in July and had a couple of short interaction in Russian, but not as much as in the past. We're more than half-way through the year and so far the amount of studying I've been doing is abysmally low, almost non-existent. I lay the blame partially a change in my personal circumstances which threw me out of my regular routines and I've struggled to build up new study habits. I don't think it's a lack of motivation as I've had some really good experiences speaking in Russian recently (which I'll cover in my next post). All I can do I start small and build from there. July 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 3:10 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 0:27 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:00 hours Active Study: 1:20 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:00 minutes Games: 0:00 Total: 0:00 hours Daily Average: 0:...

I visited another Baltic country at the start of May and had a couple of opportunities to practice speaking Russian. It was great to have short conversations with people and feel that I was being taken seriously as a learner. I have no visited Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and have had the opportunity to speak Russian in each country.  However since returning from my trip I have spent (practically) no time studying the language at all. My only exposure to the language has been when stumbling upon the occasional meme or lesson on Instagram. This has been my longest break from the language since I started. I'm not sure what the reason is. It's not really a lack of time since I've had plenty of opportunities to jump on the Speakly app. Until today I haven't even been listening to the Speakly monologues at the gym. I've also not had any conversation classes since January. I needed to take a break because I was moving house but that has turned into a permanent hiatus.  A...

  April 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 10:19 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 0:24 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:00 hours Active Study: 02:56 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:00 minutes Games: 0:00 Total: 13:39 hours Daily Average: 0:26 hours March 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 13:51 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 0:50 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:00 hours Active Study: 11:29 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:00 minutes Games: 0:30 Total: 26:12 hours Daily Average: 0:54 hours February 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 2:41 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 0:00 hours Read...

After two months of minimal study time (due to a move) I've managed to get back into some good habits, almost reaching an average of 1 hour per day. I haven't yet started lessons with my tutor again but would like to do that soon. In the mean time I've been on Tandem to practice with other people, I'm definitely a bit rusty.  I also had a real world interaction with a Russian speaker this month, with a girl from Tajikistan. I always get a boost of motivation after having a real world conversation. It's good to be taken seriously as a learner and not someone who has just memorised a few phrases. This month I also spent 30 minutes playing the game Civilization VI in Russian. I'm very familiar with the game series so it was interesting that I could pick up the meaning of several new words through context. While it was fun I'm going to struggle to justify spending time on a game when I could be doing other activities. Especially as we enter the Spring and Summer...

January and February were very busy for me due to having to move house. So I was only able to do the absolute minimum amount of studying, essentially only able to use the Speakly app for a couple of minutes day. It will be interesting to see how this 'break' will affect my speaking ability when I try that again. February 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 2:41 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 0:00 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:00 hours Active Study: 0:00 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 0:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:00 minutes Total: 2:41 hours Daily Average: 0:05 hours January 2024 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 9:00 hours Active watching or listening: 0:16 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:11 minutes Reading with Audio: 0:40 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:00 hours Active Study: 07:27 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 00:30 hours F...

According to Speakly I've learned another 200 words (or lemmas) since August 23rd. Over 149 days that comes to 1.34 new words per day. Of course I'm sure that I've picked up more vocabulary through my other activities. I know there are different levels to knowing a word and the aim is for fully activated vocabulary that can be used in conversation. But it's nice to tick off another milestone.  If I were to continue at the current rate it would take almost 6 years to learn all 4000 words in the Speakly app. 2800 / 1.34 = 2089 days 2089 / 365 = 5.72 years I think I will progress faster than that though. I've found that int the past couple of weeks I'm able to use the app for longer periods of time compared to when I first started. Sometimes I can be using Speakly for 25 minutes before I get bored or tired. And I more often I'm being introduced to words that I already know due to my other learning activities. I expect this to happen more frequently as I progres...

  It was a fairly good month, I spent a lot of time on what I call Active Study which for me consists of using the Speakly App, writing out its dialogues, studying Russian Accelerator and reading LingQ.  That last one could arguably be counted as simply Reading (with or without audio) but I usually count it as Active Studying because most of the time I'm doing it intensively (looking up words, trying to notice grammar). Other times I read LingQ without too many lookups. In those cases I count it as Reading. At the moment most of my Reading With Audio is from using Glossika and Reading With No Audio is mostly Olly Richard's 101 Conversations in Simple Russian. There was some Free Conversation Practice (Speaking or messaging with Russian speakers) which is hard to count so I put 30 minutes. I aim to spend more time on this real world usage of language and it's going to be hard to measure that activity accurately. I'm leaning towards not counting it as part of my statistic...