Acquiring Russian The Natural Way

I found a list of 750 Russian / English cognates to quickly boost your vocabulary. I probably know a lot of these already but it will be useful to have a quick look over these for any I wasn't aware of. In order to get the words list you need to sign up to newsletter but you don't have to buy anything. 750 Russian / English Cognates This list was created by Ari who has a YouTube channel dedicated to learning Russian:  Learn The Russian Language

While researching how to learn / acquire the Russian language I saw recommendations for a book called  Roots of the Russian Language . It lists a couple of hundred word root components that make up many Russian words, along with examples: For example: Parents: родители (raditeli) Motherlands: Родина (radina) Folk / people: народный (narodni) I've owned the book for a while but have only occasionally had a look at it because the typography is old fashioned and not easily legible. But I recently saw someone on a forum explaining how important it was for them in expanding their vocabulary. So I had a look around and found an Anki deck that seems to be based on the book:  Anki Deck: Roots of the Russian Language . While I really don't enjoy using Anki (or any simple Spaced Repetition System) I'll have a go at working through this deck. I'll start with adding 10 new words a day but will lower it if my revision time goes over 20 - 30 minutes. There are 333 cards in th...

Over the past couple of months I've been working through a deck of the 1000 most frequently used Russian words and today I 'finished'. By that I mean, I was shown my last set of new words. Of course I will continue to work to get more of those words into my long term memory. In a couple of weeks I might start adding back a couple of suspended cards per day but I'm conscious that there's a reason I struggled with those words in the first place and that they are probably better acquired within context. This Anki deck is very simple, the Russian word with audio on one side and the English translation on the other. No pictures, not context. The aim is recognition only (see the Russian word and know what it means) but not recall (see the English word and translate it to Russian). That is fine for this stage of acquiring vocabulary but in the long term I need to acquire words within the context of sentences, conversations and writing. Anki Stats New: 0 Young: 189 Mature: ...

I'm watching one of Inna's comprehensible Russian videos and had a couple of thoughts that I want to share. 1. Working my way through the 1000 most common words Anki deck is really useful. I sometimes hear words that I would never be able to pick up through context alone and it really aids my understanding of the content. I'd say on average I know the meaning of the 'new' word 50% of the time, the other 50% I recognise it and have to remind myself of its meaning with the Google translate app. Most of the time it helps me to find the meaning but occasionally I can't seem to pronounce it correctly or get translations that I don't recognise. I don't worry about it and just move on. 2. Occasionally I'm still trying to mentally translate words from Russian to English as I hear them. It's partly to confirm to myself that I know the meaning of each word and partly to more accurately understand the meaning of utterances and sentences. While this might fe...

This week I've finished studying the Fluent Forever Pronunciation Trainer and I've also finished watching all the of the  Zero Beginners Comprehensible Russian  videos at least once (many several times). Other than that my activities include passively listening to  Dungeons & Dragons streams , memorising vocabulary using  The Fluent Forever 625 important words  and Xefjord's Basic Word and Phrases Deck  as well as a little bit of reading of real dialogue subtitles on YouTube. BTW, if you want to see a detailed breakdown of exactly what I've been spending my time on then have a look here:  Google Doc: Russian Study Log This week I found Matt vs Japan's new website  Refold.la  which has a roadmap detailing his method. In case you don't know Matt has attained a near native level of Japanese by basically combining mass immersion of input with vocabulary and phrase training (for recognition purposes) using Anki.  While it's not my aim t...

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.

It might just be my imagination but I think my ability to concentrate while watching Russian Comprehensible Input is improving. My main source of Russian CI is the wonderful channel:  Comprehensible Russian  specifically the Zero Beginners playlist . When I first started watching these videos a couple of weeks ago I could only watch one per day, even though they are very short. Perhaps because I had to concentrate very hard to follow what was being shown and to try and grasp as much meaning as I could. But lately I've been finding it easier to watch a couple of new videos in a row, plus rewatch some I previously looked at. Perhaps it's because I have an increased vocabulary and because I've become more used to spoken Russian? That would seem the most logical explanation. Let's see how long this lasts. Will it continue if I'm watching a video for the 4th or 5th time? Will comprehending and understanding more make it easier to consume more input or will I need to swit...

I've started noticing random Russian words popping into my head. Sometimes I know its meaning, sometimes I don't. Today it was  игрушка / toy  which is part of the pronunciation course I'm following. If I can't remember the meaning of the word I just use Google Translate on my phone to quickly find out. I just have to be sure that I'm pronouncing the word correctly.

As I mentioned yesterday I've started to notice why some people advise to not start reading or speaking too early. While I can read a lot of Cyrillic I've noticed that I sometimes pronounce words the wrong way. I think I do a good job 60% of the time but I'm weary of building bad habits that will be hard to change for the other 40%. While a word like   слова is easy enough, I'm not sure I'm really getting the nuances of words like  который or маленький correct. Unfortunately I can't erase the Cyrillic script from my mind and  as someone that is actively learning Russian I can't but help notice Cyrillic on the internet. To fix this as best I can I'm going to do the following. 1. Train my ear to better recognise the Russian phonemes with this video series provided by Fluent Forever and the accompanying Anki deck. 2. Train my mouth to better pronounce the Russian phonemes. 3. Adjust how I'm learning the 625 words. I mentioned that I've been creatin...

I recently discovered that included with the 625 words pdf are audio recordings of each word. After listening to them I realised that I was pronouncing a couple of words in the wrong way. And it's noticeable how difficult it is to override a wrongly remembered pronunciation. This shows to me the importance of learning it correctly the first time. While someone like Steve Kaufmann has learned multiple languages through a lot of reading, from what I can tell he has a strong accent and that's something I want to avoid as much as possible.  An interview he does with Matt vs Japan shows that while he can speak it well he has a poor accent compared to Matt, who has only focused on Japanese with a Mass Immersion / All Japanese All The Time approach.  26:46 / 30:21 Steve Kaufmann & Matt vs. Japan Discuss Hardcore Language Learning  (I've linked to the part of the video where they speak Japanese with each other). From now on I'm going to review the included recordings e...

Writing about my experience with Memrise and Duolingo compared with Anki made me think about the different ways I use them. As I mentioned before my recall of words learned with the first two apps is mostly confined to when I'm actually using the app. Because of this I keep changing my mind as to whether they are at all useful. But the words I'm learning with Anki are easier for me to recall in real life away from my phone or computer. Now my Anki deck is very simple, I have not added any images or mnemonics. But it's important to know that I'm using Anki in combination with the book of 625 words.  And I'm only adding them page by page as I work through the book. Currently I'm on page 8 covering 48 words. Every day I look at the images that I'm working on and recall the relevant words. And every couple of days I add a new image. As well as that I bring to mind real memories, feelings and thoughts when I'm reviewing and recalling. For example I think of t...

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...

Initially I thought I would stop using Memrise and Duoling. But occasionally I find myself with a couple of minutes spare and opening those apps. It can't do any harm to go through them after I've done my revision for the 625 most common words using Anki, right? (I'm at 39 btw). I'm only a month into my Russian acquisition experiment but there seems to be a difference in the type of retention I have for the 625 words versus those I'm learning with Memrise and Duolingo. The 625 words I'm learning from the book and with Anki have clear mental images attached to them. I feel (though I admit I haven't verified this properly) I have a much higher chance of recognising them when listening to Russian dialogue or watching a TV show.  At the very least I'm definitely able to recall the images away from my computer and I can remember the relevant words quite well. Similarly I can recall and recognise various words that I've picked up from watching Comprehensi...

I thought I'd give a quick overview of the words I picked up from previous learning attempts. Either from the New Penguin Russian Course, DuoLingo or Memrise. From memory I know the Russian words for: I, You, Where, It is, How, Station, Theatre, White, Black, Yellow, Red, Thank You, Excuse Me, Hello, Bye, Big, Small, Know, Think, Girl, Boy, Man, Woman, Grandmother, Ticket, Magazine, Eat, Apple, Young, Work, Very, Good, Want. I can also count from 1 to 10 and can understand numbers up to 20. I'd be able to recognise more words when reading them or in the context of a vocabulary app but the words listed above are what I can recall immediately.  Since I started with this experiment I've added another 20 from The Most Awesome Word List You Have Ever Seen  that I mentioned in my last post. It's shame I'm not starting this experiment with absolutely zero Russian. But the few words I do know are very useful for being able to listen to Russian Dungeons & Dragons session...