I'm studying Russian, but I'm too much of an anarchist to work with a teacher. Hope others will write about what has worked for them, or ask questions about self-study.
PERSONAL BACKGROUND: I'm probably unusual in this forum, because my original romance was with Russia: I wasn't looking for a girl. (In love with Russia? The old girl has seen better days, but then so have I. But you can still see how glorious she must have been, once :) )
I first got serious about wanting to study Russian at Sheremetyevo airport, where I had various anxiety-provoking problems (people who have been there will probably know what I mean); where in each case I was scared about missing my flight (thankfully never happened). But I decided that I wanted to learn enough Russian to ask simple questions, and understand the answers, because workers at Russia's busiest international airport speak Russian almost exclusively. So I had a modest goal, to start with.
STUDY WITH AUDIO COURSES: After almost 4 years (the first year half-assed, the next 3 years pretty steady), almost all of my time has gone into audio courses: Pimsleur levels I, II and III (each with 30 half-hour lessons, pretty darn expensive) and Penton Learn-in-Your Car Russian (72 lessons averaging around 10 minutes apiece, much much cheaper). I have repeated all these lessons many times (I spend to much time in the car, so I accomplish something with it by studying Russian).
I went through Pimsleur first, where you get lots of repeat practice, and in a way learn a little bit pretty deeply. I then went on to Learn-in-Your-Car, which is a good complement to the Pimsleur: almost no repeat practice (except to the extent that you do the lessons over and over), but lots and lots of vocabulary.
I still go back and run through the audio CDs (except for first few Pimsleurs, which are now too basic for me to repeat), but after about 3 years of doing this pretty steadily, I've absorbed about all I can from the audio.
In the meantime, I carefully learned the Cyrillic alphabet (after all, I keep travelling over there), and spent some time with grammar books, dictionaries, etc., but not a lot. I do look up words that I am confused about from the audio CDs.
PROGRESS SO FAR: So what do I have, after these hours (I guess 300 to 500) of audio study? A modest vocabulary, that is usable in various practical situations. Enough grammar that I often put the right endings on words, but am often anxious that I'm getting it wrong. And pronunciation that native Russian speakers are often impressed by. To read a newspaper, I nead to look up rather more than one word, per average sentence.
When I told a girl who had no romantic interest in me that I loved her, at least she was embarassed by what I said, not how badly I said it!
PRONUNCIATION: I missed a lot at first, partly because it was too much for me to absorb all at once, and partly because my car is too damn noisy. So as I would revisit the lessons, as I have many times, I would often notice something I had "learned wrong," and would have to re-learn. I try to listen really critically to my own speaking. I now hear Russian words much more precisely. I'm almost never surprised to see that the spelling of word has a soft sign, because I hear and repeat the soft consonant on the CDs (at first, I missed a lot of this stuff).
When I first started talking with people in Russia, they often didn't understand me, even though I was sure I was saying it right. I realized that I was shy about my Russian, and made a point afterwards when practicing with the CDs to speak loud and strong, and to use very clear diction (basically, saying the consonants as clearly as possible). Now natives almost always understand my speech.
The bottom line for learning almost anything, but especially a new language, is lots and lots of repetition. For people like me, with no special talent for learning language, there is no substitute for repetition.
GOING FORWARD, WITH BOOKS: I made my original goal (see first post). I can converse well enough to ask for help at the airport (and indeed, to help other English-speakers), negotiate taxi fares, buy stuff at the grocery, etc. Already in 2007, I was able to have my first real conversation with a stranger on the street in St. Petersburg: I understood about half of his words, which was just enough to keep communication going. I think it helped that he was from the Caucasus, so his Russian was simpler than that of a native speaker. In 2008, I was reading a paragraph-sized sign in a street (about a construction project, if I remember), when I realized to my pleasure that I understood every word. Progress!
Of course, by now I have a new goal: I want to be able to engage in domestic (family) conversation, with ordinary talk about food, health, feelings, etc. If a Russian-speaking child will be part of my future (this would please me a lot), I want to be able to talk with this kid in his or her own language. And of course, I want to be able to engage romance with a gal whose English is limited. I think I can get there from where I am.
Because I have come to the limit of my audio courses, it's time for me to shift gears. I have some excellent books -- I haven't yet worked with them methodically, but the time has come:
"The New Penguin Russian Course", Nicholas J. Brown, $17 -- If you get only one book, make it this one. It covers an amazing amount of ground, including 1500 words of vocabulary. Of course, it takes serious time and patience to work through it. The more I learned from the audio courses, the easier it is for me to study in the book: I already know some of the words, and I'm clear how they should sound.
"501 Russian Verbs", Thomas R. Beyer Jr., $17 -- Verbs are a big topic in any language, but especially in Russian. I've had many questions/confusions about the use of verb forms, and often go this book. In includes the great majority of commonly-used verbs, completely conjugated (with every possible ending). Be sure to get the 3rd edition: it has more explanation, and even practice exercises.
"English-Russian/Russian-English Dictionary", Kenneth Katzner, $40 -- Gotta have a dictionary, and this one is excellent. Many dictionaries don't have an entry for "stolen," one of the most important adjectives in Russia, but this one does! Many words have multiple meanings -- this covers all of them, and it gives lots of usage examples. One example: "get" fills almost 1 and 1/2 pages! We use this word to mean so many things (receive, obtain, bring, "get over", "get around") -- this dictionary shows the Russian for all of them.
"5000 Russian Words (With All Their Inflected Forms)", Richard L. Leed & Slava Paperno -- For a beginner, the ways that words change endings (and often, not just the ending) are bewildering, and regular dictionaries give only one form. Here, you can see the whole zoo.
"Learn Russian the Fast and Fun Way", Thomas R. Beyer Jr, $19, & "Russian in 10 minutes a day", Kristine K. Kershul, $20 -- These are both workbooks, like when we were kids: big, colorful, full of pictures and exercises. They have groups of related words (lunch words, clothing words, etc.), which for me is very helpful; and activities like puzzles. Beyer's book has a lot of cards you can cut out, that ask a question on one side, and have answers on the other; Kershul's has numerous stickers, so you can put the word for refrigerator on your fridge until you know it by heart.
"Roots of the Russian Language", George Z. Patrick, $24 -- Russian is really modular, like Lego. This book groups words by their root, random example: the heading sud (pronounced sood), "to judge", includes sudya (a judge), sudit' (to criticize), and rassudok (reason/mind). This is a great help to building vocabulary; the words aren't just patternless sounds, you know an underlying meaning. Also, this is the only book I've yet found with some coverage of the vital topic of suffixes and prefixes.
"Essential Russian Grammar", Brian Kemple, $7 -- Boils the many inflections and rules down to about 100 pages. When I wonder, "why did they use that ending in that sentence?" I can find the answer quickly in this book.
2 books on my wish list:
"Russian Learner's Dictionary, 10,000 Words in Frequency Order", Nicholas J. Brown -- The words I most want to learn, are the words people use most often! With this book, just work front to back. Can be found in paperback on amazon for less than $50.
"Russian Motion Verbs for Intermediate Students", William J. Mahota, $31 -- Verbs for motion ("to go", etc.) are a special topic in Russian. They don't correspond to English in any simple way. For example, you use a different verb for going by machine, than for going by foot (or in general). And you use a different verb for going to a particular destination, versus going in general or to various destinations. This is the book about these verbs, and includes workbook exercises.
For me, I now have a Russian tutor. Self study would not have been a good start for me but now after some study with a teacher, I think I could sort out
self study.
Two books I use are, "The New Oxford Picture Dictionary English/Russian", E.C. Parnwell. A lot of basic everyday vocabulary. "Тройка" or Troyka by Marita Nummikoski
which is mostly Russian grammar. I think for a beginner it would be difficult but very good for intermediate.
I don't have a dish so I use Russiantvonline.com for $9 a month it's pretty good.
For vocabulary practice, I make index cards with English on one side and Russian on the other along with a phonetic spelling and I flip through them while watching T.V. or whatever.
The best way to learn Russian is to go to Russia or Ukraine and learn it there! The language is very difficult, some words are easy to remember but hard to use correctly in the sentence. I was in shock when came to Ukraine, could understand completely nothing but after 1 week I even learned many words! The best way to learn the language is to go to the country where it is native spoken.
Angus is right! About 50% of girls in Ukraine speak English. It is not a problem! They even wish to speak english just to show they are well educated:))
Russian is very difficult to learn. Better ask your girlfriend to learn Englis:)
Quote: “Sheremetyevo airport, where I had various anxiety-provoking problems”
LOL, searching the memory archives I can certainly relate. It got worse. Couldn’t make myself understood enough in one provincial city to get a taxi or mini bus and ended up dragging my suit case on foot, 16 miles to the airport, all the while being spattered in mud repetitively as the taxis and mini buses screamed past. The only sensible thing I did was take a decent map.
Unlike the OP, I have been terribly lazy over the eyars regarding “Parooski” conversation and never trusting terps or translators, eventually bred my own terp. Our 5 y/o lad does pretty well as my wingman (When Mum is not around) when in Russia. Fortunately Mrs has been quite diligent in teaching him Russian and speaks to him almost exclusively in Russian. He does draw the line at translating when I decide to argue with someone, however, when it comes to “F*** Off” or similar, I have mastered enough to handle that solo. It’s a source of amusement to onlookers when a grown man has a 3-4 or 5 y/o on his hip doing the talking for both in some shop or ticket office. Ya gotta love some of the experiences which go with an international marriage!!!
Kudos for doing the hard yards to learn enough for reasonable conversation. It is awfully difficult. I also used Pimsleur basics way back when (How many decades has that program been around?) and it is certainly enough to get one started with a few phrases, if a little corny. That said, I must agree with other commentators, to learn a language, there is no substitute for total immersion on location.
Durak, funny screen name, дурак!
Dunromin....Not too late, learn Russian to connect with your 5 year old and the wife.
Not my business but....it sounds like the parent and husband of a deaf wife and child who does not want to communicate on their level.
When I lived in Switzerland, I did not study French, I only pointed and grunted yet my daughters learned French within 6 months and by my
stubbornness they passed me by and I did not learn. I missed out a lot on their conversations. My older daughters still know French and I am still in the dark.
Yes, it's easier to learn a language by living in that country but many people have learned through self-study or group classes or with a tutor.
I struggle every day because there are ladies who I have been in contact with for some time and my Russian is better than their English.
I want to know the language, the slang and the culture. It will take time but it is important for me to learn it...
Here's a post I made a few years ago. I now live in Sevastopol and am more or less fluent in Russian. These guys are right, that many girls speak English. Nevertheless, it's a beautiful language and very rewarding. Keep it up...I'll be glad to give advice when I can.
Hi All,
I'm new to this forum, but I've spent the past few days trying to catch up on the bulk of the posts here. The most relevant thing I have to offer at this point is this: It's possible to learn to speak Russian entirely on your own, at home, without living in Russia (and with only minimal contact with live, native speakers.) Here's how I did it...
Things to note:
-- I've never studied any language before, other than the obligatory two years of Spanish in H.S. ("Taco" and "burrito" are about all I remember).
-- I am a professional guitarist with a good ear, but never had much of a knack for doing imitations, etc.
In short: Four hours a day of study my first year, three hours per day since then.
The longer version:
I bought everything: All three levels of Pimsleur; Levels I and II of Rosetta Stone; Vol's I and II of the Nachalo college textbooks, and Vol's I and II of the Live From Moscow college textbooks3ýÃÊýÉÁJrlitz course; the Living language (into, and advanced), not to mention three dictionaries, 750 Russian Verbs and Their Uses; and a slew of grammar books, including my favorite, the indespensible ESSENTIAL RUSSIAN GRAMMAR by Brian Kemple. And more. Children's books, some audio-only things, etc.
With the Pimsleur, I transcribed the entire thing. First, into notebooks, and then onto cards, putting the English on one side, and the Russian on the other. Also, I tape recorded only the Russian parts, so as to test myself later on. (Speaking of tape recorders, I have burned through four of them.)
I then made study cards of virtually every sentence in all four of those college textbooks. Put bluntly, that was a crapload of writing.
With the Rosetta Stone, I didn't like the constraint of being bound to the computer, so I recorded my own study cassettes. I'd say the English version first, and then record the native speakers. But i also went further. For example, each time, say, a new verb was introduced, I'd look it up in one of my books and read examples of its useage into my custom-made study tapes.
And then guess what? After making one of these tapes, then I'd listen to it a week later and write out onto cards every sentence (Russian on one side, English, the other).
A week later, I'd test myself on "onMousrds, underlining all the missed ones.
And re-test a week after that, underlining all the ones I missed (in a different colored pen each time). At the end of the month, the ones I had the most trouble with went onto special cards which i carried with me and tested myself on everywhere. (And still do.)
In the meantime, I'd be reviewing old tapes in my car, at the gym, etc. I don't count that time spent in my three hours a day, really.
Recently, I've been transcribing simplified newscasts which are downloadable from a college website. And I am currently studying a textbook/video called (in Russian) "What Do You Think About It?", using the same methods described above.
Results?
I went to St. P and Kiev one year after first starting to study Russian, and I found that people understood everything I said, but I understood very little of what they said to me. Sentences were too long, too coloquial, and way too fast. Thus, my second year was spent with more emphasis on listening/transcribing. I have met native speakers with whom I can now converse on a weekly basis, and though i can comunicate a great deal of things, I am still dismayed at how long it takes me to calculate, if you will, the right phrasing. (Friggin' Byzantine grammar!) (Not to mention the often paralyzing aspectual verb-pair system.) Though<opt be classified as mid-to-high intermediate in my knowledge, I feel LIGHT YEARS from fluent. (Fluent being, in my definition, the ability to watch a move in Russian and get 85% of the dialogue. And I'm no-where near that.)
I'll end with: Why? I simply fell in the love with the language...its sound, its complexity, its *alien-ess*. All I wanted, at first, was to get a grip on the basics, so as to order food, get a taxi, ask a girl her phone number, etc, but, man, once I got into it, I was hooked.
Anyway, that's my story. It *is* possible to learn a language, if you are passionate, obsessive, and have three hours a day. For me, it's 1.5 hr's in the AM, 1.5 hr's in the PM, and virtually no TV.
TD: Our son’s primary language is English. At 5 he is fluent in Russian also and in due course, when I am convinced he is linguistically stable and secure with both beyond simple damage, we will become a tad more serious than we are right now with his Spanish. I see no point in my corrupting his Russian by speaking to him in a poorer quality version than can his mother who is a very well educated native speaker. As for the level of connection, when father and son are close enough for the son to do some translating it is quite a special relationship. BTW, Mrs and I communicate on a considerably more sophisticated platform than grunts and hand signals, although of course they have something of a place during more intimate moments.
I did not "corrupt" my daughters' French by butchering it myself. I have forgotten the French I knew and my daughters have not. I regret that. Even now, during times together someone will speak up with some French. My girls also served as my "winggirls" and it was fun and it was cute. In Neuchatel it is said some of the purest French is spoken. Some people did not think I was the father because my girls accent was too good. So my "gutter" French did not "damage" them.
"when I am convinced his is linguistically stable and secure with both (English and Russian) beyond simple damage, we will become a tad more serious than we are right now with his Spanish." ????
Oh the poor child, translating for his helpless, hapless old man when he could be out there untethered form the ol' ball and chain and soar to new academic heights! How well I remember translating for my father, such a special bond! Much deeper than playing catch or going to the park!
When your son is 17, he will be having a serious conversation with his mother and you will sit there with a glazed look in you eyes and respond, "Say What?"
I say, point to where I said I didn’t understand Russian. I say, if you don’t trust you wife and children enough to allow them a private conversation then you have some serious insecurity issues to deal with. I say, if you wouldn’t be comfortable with your children speaking a language you can’t then don’t bother with their education period because there is an extreme danger they might learn something else which is beyond your initial understanding also. BTW, my eyes do tend to glaze when I look at my wife, even still.......
I would advise someone to use pimsleur as their mainstay of their learning, and dabble with other things in parallel. Pimsleur is very thorough and well structured in a progressive way but I think its a little dry and won't hold someone's interest on its own. "instant russian" (teach-your-self series) is a really good one for a fast pace whistle stop tour of the language basics and is the most "fun" of any courses I've tried.
For learning to read Cyrillic I like "Russian in 10 minutes a day", the flash cards in this book are particularly useful for learning to read.
I've also used "learn russian in your car" but I made a fundamental mistake in using this as my main course in the early days when I should have been using a more structured progressive method like pimsleur.
Although I havn't tried it yet I've had rossetta stone highly recommended to me but I don't really want to be tied to a computer program, I prefer books and audio courses that I can dip into opportunistically: in the bath, in a traffic jam, walking the dog, out running etc etc.
Quote: "I have been terrible lazy over the years regarding my "Parooski" and never trusting terps and interpretors, eventually bred my own terp."
From this I surmised your "Parooski" was not very good. Did I misunderstand that?
I do not have insecurities about my daughters having a "private" conversation with their Mother in French. I respect their privacy and I think you know that.
I was talking about a discussion with you present. Would you rather say, "That's between them, I have no interest in it?"
"don't bother with their education period....." Dun, please...I'll take the cheap shot since I gave you one but give me a break.
My daughters have an international education, speaking French, speaking Spanish since we are in Texas and 1 daughter who is a deaf interpreter.
I regret not being more involved in the languages they were studying. I now think it would have made us closer and I encourage you to become fluent in Russian.
If your eyes still "glaze" over when you look at your wife then you are a lucky dude...
My daughter who is a deaf interpreter still will not show me the "bad words" in sign language!! Who raised this child?
Quote: “If your eyes still "glaze" over when you look at your wife then you are a lucky dude...”
Absolutely….!! BTW, Mrs will be happy to tell you how lucky she is, I am, we are in any of 5 languages, including Russian, which I understand well enough to survive. I’m happy to reflect on my “Lucky” ness in 3 languages to a reasonable level and if you insist, very poor Russian also.
My original point was (Which perhaps you did miss), I have been around this “Russian” thing for quite a while and IMO leaning Russian is one of the least important aspects for the new guys. I would never discourage someone from learning if they so choose, but frankly, if they want to communicate to any serious level, they are likely to tire of the pursuit long before they achieve that. For the most part, they are better to find someone who speaks fluently in their language, unless of course they intend to live in Russia (or other FSU country). Two people learning each other’s language concurrently is not a recipe for quality communication, fun though it can be.
Quote: “international education, speaking French, speaking Spanish since we are in Texas”
Being in “Mexas” IS an international education. I think I’ve met more people in Queretaro with fluent English than I have in Huston. Kind of like London actually, the challenge being finding someone who speaks English.
Although I do not care to watch TV I am not sure I could squeeze out as many hours to learn Russian as you did Korosho.
Bassak, I have used both the pimsluer and the rossetta stone and they are different and teach different things. You will not learn to say simple things like cat or dog with pimsluer. Pimsluer will arm you with basic conversational words, better quicker handle on pronounciation, intonation, and grammatical structure (by example not explanation). Pimsluer was much easier for me because I drive a lot. I put level 1 on one cd, 2 and 3 each on another in mp 3 format. I got a hundred dollar mp 3 capable cd player that fit my car at walmart and did the lessons as I drove. I tried not to do more than one lesson a day but repeated it several times (30 minutes each) so at this rate it took 3 months give or take a few missed days and a few days I tried to cram more than one lesson to do the 90 lessons.
rossetta on the other hand ties you to your computer and was difficult for me keep interest in as well as hard to understand the words based only on a photo. You could not drag and drop so I typed many of them into a talking Russian English dictionary to understand the lessons as well as getting the English version so I could compare how to say each phrase in Russian and what it meant in English. Level 1 and 2 contain over 8 thousand phrases
Personally I would recommend pimsluer first and Rossetta second. Or just do one until you cannot take it anymore and then do the other.
Privett
Durak it's been so long since I was on here I didn't even remember that I had been on here so I tried to register and it wouldn't let me. Maybe I gave you advice some time ago because you basically have done everything I did. However I continued on with Pimsleur 1,2,3, and 4 in Spanish and then French 1,2, and 3. I view as just a hobby and never get overly excited about it. Pimsleur teaches the basics for conversation. It does not teach all of the names especially last names which can throw you off in conversation nor does it get into the technical areas for example: politics, religion, etc. etc.
For anyone nowadays though it's all very easy because you can go on-line and use the language translators for free. You can even use them to translate complete websites.
One tip is to go to the translator site and type in something you want to say. For example "I need to go to the bathroom" then read it and as you walk to the bathroom repeat it over and over. or "Please be quiet."