Acquiring Russian The Natural Way

I just discovered this new app which is simply focussed on teaching the top 5000 words. All it does is provide a short sentence with a word left out, then it gives you four Russian words to choose from. It let's you know whether you are right or wrong and then you continue on to the next sentence. In the background a spaced repetition system works to serve you sentences at the optimal time for creating strong memories. Another great feature is that you can create your own lists, you just enter words you want to learn and it will automatically look up a translation and then find example sentences using those words. This is an amazing feature I didn't even know I wanted. The creator of the app made it for themselves to help them learn Russian and because of this an effort was made not to inflate the word count with all the different cases: "The dictionary form of the word is used, so learning all the grammatical forms of a word counts as one word. For example, “eat”, “eats”,...

My first attempts at learning another language were partly inspired by learning about various apps like Memrise, Duolingo and Anki. I was exposed Spaced Repetition Systems and how that could help me memorise vocabulary more easily. Ultimately they didn't help me to acquire any new language and I found the process dull and repetitive. When I made a new commitment to acquiring Russian in August 2020 I thought that some of those apps would play a part in the learning process, even if just as a fun distraction from the main activities. However in the first couple of weeks I realised that except for Anki (recognition only) those apps were useless to me. You could say using them is better than nothing but when I though about the opportunity cost of the time spent on them, time that is better spent on other activities, then it wasn't justifiable. And as I said I never really enjoyed those apps. The gamification elements are not in the least bit entertaining or motivating to me. (BTW I...