Acquiring Russian The Natural Way

While listening to a Dungeons & Dragons stream I experienced my best moment of understanding real spoken Russian.  The game master was describing a magician who was wearing a tall turban made out of some notable material. His magic was derived from astronomical knowledge involving the sun and stars.  It was just two or three sentences but my comprehension was high with almost no translating happening in my mind. I heard the words and I saw the image in my mind. I understood some words like   тюрбан , because they are similar to English. Others were words that I acquired from the 625 words list or from watching comprehensible input videos.

 A quick overview of the optimal input that will help you acquire a language.

While researching language learning methods that draw inspiration from Stephen Krashen I discovered All Japanese All The Time and the website  Mass Immersion Approach  which is run by the YouTuber:  Matt vs Japan This is the video that inspired me to have Russian Dungeons & Dragons games playing in the background while I do other things. In it Matt describes the difference between Active and Partially Active Listening (the latter he has since renamed as  Passive Listening ). Just to be clear, my definition of Passive Listening is having Russian dialogue in the background while I'm doing something else. My attention on the dialogue differs depending on the tasks I'm doing. If I'm reading or writing then it's in the background of my consciousness, if I'm playing a game it's more in the foreground. When I recognise phrases or words my attention becomes even more focused as I gain some understanding of the content. According to Matt's definitions I might...