Acquiring Russian The Natural Way

Nothing much to say about November. I travelled to a country where there is supposedly a big population of Russian speakers but I hardly heard any Russian while I was there which was disappointing. I'm feeling very motivated at the moment but haven't found the time to dedicate as much time as I normally do. November 2023 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 7:03 hours Active watching or listening: 0:00 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:00 minutes Reading with Audio: 4:31 hours Reading with no Audio: 0:27 hours Active Study: 4:30 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 06:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:00 minutes Total: 22:32 hours Daily Average: 0:45 hours October 2023 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 17:56 hours Active watching or listening: 0:25 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:23 minutes Reading with Audio: 5:53 hours Reading with no Audio: 1:15 hours Active Study: 6:21 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 10:00 hours Free Conversati...

  Nothing much to say about October, I've been busy with some work projects and haven't spent much time studying as I wanted. I did get a chance to have some real world conversations which was good. October 2023 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 17:56 hours Active watching or listening: 0:25 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:23 minutes Reading with Audio: 5:53 hours Reading with no Audio: 1:15 hours Active Study: 6:21 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 10:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:50 minutes Total: 42:14 hours Daily Average: 1:24 hours September 2023 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 17:56 hours Active watching or listening: 0:25 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:23 minutes Reading with Audio: 5:53 hours Reading with no Audio: 1:15 hours Active Study: 6:21 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 10:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:50 minutes Total: 42:14 hours Daily Average: 1:24 hours August 2023 Statistics Passive watchi...

Nothing much to say about September, just more of the same. I would like to read more this month. September 2023 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 17:56 hours Active watching or listening: 0:25 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:23 minutes Reading with Audio: 5:53 hours Reading with no Audio: 1:15 hours Active Study: 6:21 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 10:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:50 minutes Total: 42:14 hours Daily Average: 1:24 hours August 2023 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 21:31 hours Active watching or listening: 0:38 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:26 minutes Reading with Audio: 6:47 hours Reading with no Audio: 1:22 hours Active Study: 10:02 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 8:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:50 minutes Total: 49:37 hours Daily Average: 1:36 hours July 2023 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 15:34 hours Active watching or listening: 0:23 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:13 minutes ...

Over the weekend I went to a Russian language social event. I was a little bit nervous about going because I didn't want to impose my basic speaking abilities on others. But the people I met were accommodating and took me seriously.  Funnily enough I didn't speak to any Russians but I did meet people from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria. Although my conversations were simple people were happy to engage and it didn't seem like they were just humouring me. When it came to more advanced topics I had to use English but that was expected.  Overall I consider the outing a success.

  August 2023 Statistics Passive watching and listening: 21:31 hours Active watching or listening: 0:38 minutes Vocabulary and Sentences: 0:26 minutes Reading with Audio: 6:47 hours Reading with no Audio: 1:22 hours Active Study: 10:02 hours Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice): 8:00 hours Free Conversation Practice: 0:50 minutes Total: 49:37 hours Daily Average: 1:36 hours Note: I'm renaming Conversation Practice to Free Conversation Practice . It's meant to indicate time spent on apps in Tandem or in real life situations. I'm also renaming Personal Lessons to Tutor Lessons (Conversation Practice)  also for clarity. It currently consists of conversation practice with my tutor and includes the time spent on corrections, grammar and vocabulary explanations. Another big jump in time spent on Russian this month, in the first half of the month I was actually averaging 2 hours a day but I've been busy over the last week causing my average to drop off. I was extremely motiv...

For anyone interested here's an overview of my Russian acquisition journey over the past 3 years (I started in August 2020). Click on any of the charts to get a closer look. I think this data is 98% accurate. However as time goes on I'm starting to encounter more and more Russian in day to day life which I don't count. For example, reading memes, seeing what friends post on social media, writing messages, meeting Russian speakers in real life. In all my activities I try to focus on material that is of practical use. So I don't read fantasy books like Harry Potter or watch media like Anime. I very rarely watch series or shows but when I do it's usually contemporary drama. In the 5% of time that I'm not reading or listening to material from Speakly I will watch street interviews or dialogues aimed at beginners (Easy Russian, Russian With Max). Activity Overview Passive Immersion : Listening to audio in the background while I do other things (work, cleaning, walkin...

I just reached 1000 words in Speakly which is Intermediate level 1. It seems that I've only used the app for a total of 88 Active Days and 272 Sessions . I'm not sure what each of these mean, but that comes to 11.4 words per active day and 3.7 words per session. It should be noted that I've taken breaks lasting months in order to focus on the the listening exercises which I've been importing into LingQ. In the beginning I was also avoiding the writing exercises but a couple of months ago I decided do them in stead of the multiple choice exercises. I'm more confident with my spelling so it't not as frustrating to do them as when I first started (although it's still not fun to consistently get 1 letter wrong in long phrases). I still think the main value of this app is being able to unlock the dialogues and listening exercises but I'm no longer worried about getting too far ahead. I don't have to listen to stories if I don't feel ready for them ye...