Thread: Have you taken a course in Russian and what was your experience?

I'm now in my third year of Russian at the university I attend, and it has been a great experience for me. Between the options that you have, I think you need to decide if you are more inclined to learn the language or about Russia and its culture as a whole. If you are more inclined to learning the language, I would go with the course that isn't free. Furthermore, my classes for the past three years have been meeting for an average of three hours per week, and I find that to become more familiar with the language a lot of independent studying will be required from yourself.

Originally Posted by krwright13

I'm now in my third year of Russian at the university I attend, and it has been a great experience for me. Between the options that you have, I think you need to decide if you are more inclined to learn the language or about Russia and its culture as a whole. If you are more inclined to learning the language, I would go with the course that isn't free. Furthermore, my classes for the past three years have been meeting for an average of three hours per week, and I find that to become more familiar with the language a lot of independent studying will be required from yourself.

Thanks for the advice!
I am not very interested in studying topics related to culture and history --- I enjoy learning about that on my own, at my own pace.
But I think it would be helpful to hear grammar and other challenges explained by a professional teacher.
1-1 tuition is too intensive for my taste, and would probably be extravagantly expensive. So I think a small group should be ideal.


On the language groups:
Many people here have "good days" and bad days with English. Sometimes they write beautiful native sounding English on very complex topics. The next day they make simple grammar mistakes with quite basic sentences.

Translationsnmru is Russian and I think he said he has never visited an English speaking country. Yet he writes better English than 95% of the population of the UK!

If Marcus' English is B2, then my Russian is definitely not B1 !!

I met with a forum user in Minsk and we communicated really well, no problem. But I could tell that he was not used to speaking English with a native speaker. (I count myself in that category even though it's technically not completely accurate). He was much better at English than he gave himself credit for anyway.