Acquiring Russian The Natural Way

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

I've briefly mentioned Jeff Brown in one of my earlier posts but I'm not sure I linked to this video which I found very inspirational. It's an hour long but if you're not yet convinced as to whether acquiring a language with comprehensible input is possible then it's worth a watch. It shows all the steps Jeff took to acquire Arabic in a year. It also includes some comments from Stephen Krashen along the way. Arabic is said to be one of the most difficult languages to acquire for English speakers, more difficult than Russian. I might not be able to do exactly what Jeff did over the course of a year but I'm definitely taking inspiration from his approach. 

The YouTube channel that really made me excited about the comprehensible input method is  Comprehensible Russian , in particular the  Zero Beginners Playlist . I find these videos short enough that I can give them my full attention and concentration without getting tired. Every couple of days I go back and rewatch lessons and because they are short I can rewatch several at a time without getting tired. When watching the lessons I'm not concerned with understanding every single word. Rather I focus on following the message. The first time I watch a lesson my understanding is usually very basic. But every time I rewatch it my understanding becomes more nuanced and I start to understand one or two new words. I do my best to try to connect the language directly to thoughts, memories, concepts and feelings. It's tempting to do mental translations for everything but I believe that will slow me down in the long run. Of course I can't help but automatically translate some words or ...

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...

This blog will a diary of my attempt to learn to understand and speak Russian the "natural way". This will involve lots of listening, getting comprehensible input, acquiring vocabulary, eventually reading and some grammar. Like many people I've aspired to learn another language for a while. I've had several aborted attempts over the years but never managed to stick with it. Russian always appealed to me for various reasons. From the way it sounds to the history and culture of its speakers and of course my desire to be able to speak with Russians in their own language.  I've tried different methods over the years like the lessons of Michel Thomas which advocate speaking as soon as possible and apps like DuoLingo and Memrise. While I learned some words and sentences it was hard to stay motivated or achieve the volume of learning I believed was necessary. In the summer of 2020 I decided to do some research about different learning methods, specifically searching for ...