Russian for a very beginner (American)
Nov. 25th, 2008 01:05 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
gailochka.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
learn_russianDear friends,
could use your advice!
I would like to give a friend, who is American, some hints for studying very basic Russian. He already knows some words and phrases - and for real progress he would need a simple tool to learn more.
I just searched books in a book store - but they offer sort of more "serious" stuff for more advanced students... And we would need something really basic and fun.
Maybe you know something online?
Thanks.
could use your advice!
I would like to give a friend, who is American, some hints for studying very basic Russian. He already knows some words and phrases - and for real progress he would need a simple tool to learn more.
I just searched books in a book store - but they offer sort of more "serious" stuff for more advanced students... And we would need something really basic and fun.
Maybe you know something online?
Thanks.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-11-25 04:24 pm (UTC)There's no fun in our case system, perfective and imperfective verbs, in various declensions and irregularities, in accentuation. Getting that right or almost right is a lot of hard work.
You can always just learn more ready-made phrases from a vocabulary. Any real progress (as you put it yourself) would require one to study the grammar, read a lot (books, news, etc), learn a ton of words (~1500 at least), write and converse in the language on the regular basis. All of this for a year or two.
Yes, this takes time, patience and dedication. It's very hard, if not outright impossible, to reach a goal without motivation and hard work. These are the two key tools your friend needs. In addition to that he could use an electronic dictionary and a flash card program. He should be able to use the internet to find more information about the language (btw, you shouldn't be doing this for him unless he's looking for explanations of something very complicated and obscure or the info is available only in Russian), to communicate in forums and over IMs and Skype.
You can create some fun and attraction by talking more about his (or your mutual) interests and hobbies, by doing something together and speaking or otherwise using Russian in the process.
Many have mentioned and/or suggested textbooks such as Голоса and Начало. You can always look up reviews for these and others on amazon.com. Get a good grammar reference as well. One thing you shouldn't be wasting money on is Rosetta stone, which is overpriced and doesn't go any deep.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 09:32 am (UTC)As for the other stuff - I agree with you that learning a language takes a lot of time, patience and work. Just can't see my friend doing all this - and we do not expect him to master the language, just to do it really for fun, to learn some phrases and words.
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 12:22 pm (UTC)But I can list a few lj users that are doing pretty well:
http://upthera44.livejournal.com/
http://olydiagron.livejournal.com/
http://seanseansean.livejournal.com/
You can ask them exactly what they do. I'm pretty sure they do a lot of work and although it's helpful to live in Russia (the first two have been here), it's only a part of the equation.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 09:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 12:39 pm (UTC)I've studied Spanish on my own on and off for several years and made a lot of progress recently when I started to read a lot and seriously learn words (I have made a few thousands of flash cards based on what I read). And that, of course, was preceded by learning the Spanish grammar. So, to put this back on topic... I could have quit learning Spanish anytime, but somehow I've grown to like languages, to like so much that I don't need anyone to motivate me learning. I just kept spending time and made the studies more efficient. If your friend can get into such a mood (or mode) and also spend enough time regularly, he will be able learn the language at a decent level quite fast.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 05:56 pm (UTC)But i myself am getting inspired by your example - concerning Spanish. I did study grammar, but there is absolutely no practical skills... Had read some books based on Frank's method - but need to do (much!) more. And maybe with no translation.
For some strange reason, I didn't receive your comments on e-mail and only found them when I came here to check again.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 11:10 pm (UTC)- read one textbook on Spanish, didn't like it much (all such books suppose this is my first foreign language and therefore have lots of useless stuff while they lack details and leave tons of unanswered questions). Got and read another one, it was worse.
- found a good grammar reference book (to answer those questions:). Actually, I got several of them, but one in particular was simply awesome. Read it from cover to cover several times. Added numerous marks and additions with a pencil.
- focused on tenses (summarized everything neatly in 2 tables) and practiced verb conjugations. Regular and then irregular. I actually went through all of those 60 or 80 or 100 models of conjugations (how many depends on what's considered a distinct conjugation).
- reread the first textbook and then created about 2000 flashcards based on its vocabulary. Turned out I memorized quite some words. Learned some more.
- got a thematic vocabulary, started creating cards off of it (still unfinished, there're a few thousand of words in it:)
- read a detective story book (not adapted). Spent like a month reading it with a vocabulary and marking all new words, interesting phrases and grammatical constructs. Then spent two more months transforming all of that into another set of flash cards (~2500). I basically reread the whole book. Did some more learning with the cards. This exercise was by far the most efficient in terms of expanding my vocabulary.
- in the mean time I tried to watch the TV in Spanish. It was pretty hard. It still isn't easy. They speak fast and I still don't know enough words (I know more than 1500 now).
- for some speaking experience I took a course of Spanish, some 20 hours total. I went to an intermediate level (although as it turned out I could just as well go to the one before advanced) and was the best student in class. I didn't learn any grammar in class. I learned a few useful words, but not many.
- remembering the success of reading a book, I got myself two more story books aimed at students (adapted texts, simple vocabulary, abridged stories). The first one was moderate (not easy, not hard). It was a parallel book (even pages in Spanish, odd pages in English). I never read its English texts for they were almost word-for-word translations. I just used the vocabulary at the end of the book. Then I read the other one. It was much easier and I had to open its vocabulary very few times to read it.
Both of these had their own problems: short stories with lots of rarely repeating words in the first and too easy vocabulary in the second...
- about a month ago I bought another book of stories. Much bigger, with bigger and "harder" stories. Read it quickly almost without using the vocabulary. I did that on purpose. Some stuff, of course, I missed. But for the most part I did enjoy the book and even learned some more words from it.
- right now I'm back to work with the flashcards (pulling words from the first story books' vocabularies). And I've got a bunch more books to read: a couple of regular books and a bunch in the electronic form (there're a lot of them on the Frank's site and all over the internet).
- I tried computer-based courses many years ago, but they all were (and I suppose they still are) pretty much brain dead. Very user unfriendly and God only knows based on what principles. I use the computer to work with flash cards, read and translate with Lingvo. Not fancy, but effective.
Hope this helps.
LJ has been a bit slow lately. I also receive comments in e-mail with a noticeable delays.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-27 09:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 05:58 pm (UTC)But maybe he WILL be motivated, who knows.
Thanks for your help!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-25 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 09:33 am (UTC)How could I forget about Indians?..
Thanks for the reference!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-12 01:54 pm (UTC)2. It would be helpful if your friend knows Polish, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian or Serbian, as well as Lithuanian or Latvian.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-15 09:41 am (UTC)1. Thanks for the link! I know the dictionary and use it myself, but it didn't appear to me to recommend it for learning Russian :)
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 09:24 am (UTC)