Taking My Russian to A2! (Russian Blitz Challenge)
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- *Turn on subtitles for the parts in Russian!*
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Last week was Reading Week for my university. That meant I had no classes. Instead of doing what all students do during Reading Week (ie. sleep a lot and watch Netflix with no pants on), I decided to do a Russian Blitz Challenge.
My goal: study as much Russian as I could in hopes of reaching the A2 level by the end of my 9-day challenge. Throughout the week, I recorded my progress through various courses and apps, and I documented it all. I also practiced speaking Russian and took a couple A1 Russian tests (with varying levels of success).
The materials I used:
- The Pushkin Institute's A1 online course.
- Be Fluent in Russian's UA-cam videos for beginners (@befluentinrussian).
- Russian LingQ (@lingqman).
- LearnRussian.rt.com's Beginner Russian course.
- Duolingo Russian.
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Always, always prioritize vocabulary over grammar. Even if you know only most basic beginner grammar it will be so much easier to convey what you think if you just know the right words. For example, "Я целовать девущка прекрасный круглый попка после великолепный ужин, который приготовил тот незабываемый вечер" will be perfectly understandable by every russian speaker. (The content, i mean. Not the reason of why you said that).
As you can see you can completely omit every grammar and conjugation and still convey what you wanna say. You can basically just speak with dictioary form verbs and nouns and be understood. Compare that to if you knew the grammar and conjugations but didn't have the vocab to conjugate. Yes, speaking like this you will sound like a caveman or a person from Tajikistan/Georgia who just came to Moscow for a cheap job or something, but the main point is - you will be understood. It's always easier to convey things via simpler grammar rather than trying to choose simpler versions of some complex abstract words which are too hard to describe to begin with. There are tons of foreign loaned words in russian so it will be a bit easier for an english speaker to dive into.
Thinking about all the conjugations and more correct grammar at this point will only screw with your head and waste your time. It's a part of fluency polish that will come with practice much later. For now all this grammar is only slowing your progress down. Just immerse yourself into vocab drilling. For now just forget about grammar completely. All these "чья, чей, часа, часов, папка, папке" and so on are just small details and will only litter the brain at this point because even after you study russian for couple years you will still make these mistakes, it's only natural. Notice how understanding the basic word "ужинать" was actually more important than all of those conjugations combined.
Studying so much grammar will also make you sound too robotic and unnatural. People never speak the way how grammar is presented in textbook lessons. For example, "Я не гуляю, потому что на улице холодно" sounds wierd and too formal, like a line from a very old movie. Everyone around today says something like "да кто пойдёт гулять, когда на улице такой дубак?!". You won't see things like this in textbooks. Just by knowing slang word "дубак" you can alreadt convey that whole sentence avoiding all the grammar altogether. That's the power of vocab for you. I think you can agree no english speaker says things like "the pen is on the table, the table is in the room" in real life.
Soon, along with vocabulary you need to start learning commonly used phrases to sound more natural.
A bit later you need to start listening practice combined with mimicing what you hear. Try technique called "shadowing", its very useful for getting a grasp of intonation and the flow of a language, even if you don't understand most of what's being said. Then try watching movies with subs (if you can find) and write down new words you hear. Alternatively, there are lots of russian vloggers on youtube who have subs. In the end review the list of new words. Use apps like anki, i'm sure it has russian vocab decks in it. It's advised to learn vocab in context. Best if you memorize the sentence to have an idea of how to use it properly. You will be surprised how rapid of a progress you will be making just by focusing on vocab because you will begin to understand more things and will be able to say what you need.
Immersion helps with vocab a lot in general. I'm learning japanese myself and each time i watch anime or movies, read manga, play videogames, listen to music - i research every new word, write it down in the google keep app, and review them all the time. (Short and long term memory plays a huge role). Being immersed in things from different spheres is perfect for broadening your vocab.
you're absofuckinglutely right about it!
Man, I just have to say Thank You! I had stopped studying Russian mainly because of the barrier that the grammar creates. Verbs conjugation are not a problem for me, but cases are just unbearable (even though I speak German as a 2nd language). I will try to come back to Russian after a half a year break.
Back in my school years i have studied german, which is also has a complicated grammar, like russian. My teachers were all about the grammar, all of those "der die das" things, all those years and exams, and yet my german is barelly enough to order myself a coffee, yet as you can see i can do a much deeper conversation in english, even with a bunch of grammatical errors. I heard about this method, and so i've decided to start learning russian again after 10 years and an unsuccesful, also mainly grammar-oriented course.
That's all right and everything, and you're right in a way. However, when you're studying A level Russian (or GCSE or whatever) then grammar makes or breaks your grade and its tough. If you're just learning Russian at home, then yeah you're absolutely right - learn vocab > grammar
Don't worry. Fluency won't come in a day/week. Just keep going.
i think this is obvious
Your pronounciation isn't really bad actually :v The main thing about it is that you need to like switch the feeling of it more to the front of your mouth,while speaking. Since you know a lot of different languages,you'll probably get what I mean. But just in case: while speaking French or German,you're resonating and positioning the sound really deeply,while when speaking English,the position and the resonance are more "opened". Then with Russian,the position and the resonance are totaly at the front. This will also probably preserve you from "rounding" some of the sounds and make them sharper as they should be
You should make a video demonstration.
I've been slacking off on my French lately, so the fact that you dedicated your FREE week to practice Russian is actually a success in my book. You can do this!
Please please PLEASE make more vids like this with Russian. It's very inspiring to watch you improve despite the difficulties and I like how open you are about your learning experience. Also, what song is playing at around 6:00?
smooth rest cafe
Bro, your gayness shocked me right out of the gate! I choked on my cocaine line as I heard your voice
Is that a bad thing? :/
Speaking Russian 1:14
That sounds like a good way to use a free week. It's funny how we would find studying languages an enjoyable and rejuvenating way to use our free time when most students would think the exact opposite.
It would be a lil bit better if you say я счастлив, ПОТОМУ что not just что) your pronunciation is quite good 😎
Только вперёд!
Can you post a link to the Pushkin site? I studied at the Pushkin Institute in Moscow for 6 months so I'm just curious if it's the same. Best of luck with Russian; it's hard!
Ты молодец!👍👍👍👍
Отлично получается. Главное понять механику языка. То что вы называете cases у нас заменяет to be и многое другое, поэтому словообразование важнее большинста граматических штук.
As a russian, your russian is pretty good for a beginner, you don’t have much of an accent, which is rare
I think you should try watching/reading/listening to some material that is not explicitly intended for learning. I have learned a lot of english in my school (in fact, i had english for 4-5 days a week for 10 years, which is more then average school in russia) but i still feel that watching random shit on youtube, streams on twitch, movies, playing games in english and just communicating with other people online have contributed at least as much as my school did, if not more.
i love the way you danced at end of the video
Why to torture yourself learning by talking about onself only if you do find it boring? I always learn by searching for topics which I do find interesting. Check out these resources: petitepolyglot.com/learn-russian/ As for "blitz learning"- one week is a bit too short and various life events might interfere with it. I do find 3-months to be the best amount of time for intensive learning sprints. Watch people talking in Russian and observe their mouth movements- you still clintch your teeth too much for speaking in Russian. In Slavic languages people do not clinch teeth, we speak with mouth wide open. This is why scandic languages which require clinched teeth like swedish are difficult for us to pronounce. Speak like Italian people do for example, with relaxed, wide open mouth and your russian will flow easily.
Hia Michael you ok mate? :) It’s me Michael from Sunderland! XD I swear to god Michael I’m not surprised that DuoLingo ain’t gonna bother with giving wor the chance to learn Finish because even though it has a Latin script, it’s just too batshit insanely hard! 😱😱😱😱 It has terrifyingly long words that are small in English, it also have super git long words that are 4 or 5 words just to make one sentence, it can be quite repetitive I mean saying “Vihidoin” 3 times translates to “I finally whipped myself with a birch branch” and yes! Even the very basics are very hard! 😱😱😱😱 Hell, that “pajon” words the Finns say how they wish someone a happy birthday, I swear to god it sounds pretty damn similar to a place in Sunderland called “Pallion”! XD
I love stumbling across this video! I’m learning Russian as well. Let me know if u want any additional resource recommendations! I hope you are still keeping up with things! 👍🏾
Great video! You really inspired me, even though I speak Russian.
не плохо для недели изучения русского :) молодец
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ не плохо
Я (не)счастлив it's about a strong feeling, usually we say Я рад, что or Я (не) доволен.
Молодец, так держать (go on)
Пора делать следующее видео It's time to do next video!
Shitting all over me mate, well done
You teach french?
I've learned English within freaking 4 months (I became fluent after that time). I know English is muuuuuch easier to learn but I still guess it's possible to become fluent in Russian within about maybe a year or 1.5. The key is motivation
words with the letter Г between o or e (ex. его, и много) are pronounced with a V sound instead of a G sound! befluentinrussian has an excellent video explaining other situations where letters change their sounds
gay