I second Chaika's comment. I studied Russian 20 years ago for the first time. I learned on my own from a textbook "Russian for beginners" It taught me the basic grammar and that structure was very helpful to me when I went to live in the Soviet Union in 1991. While I was living there, mostly I just learned by talking... but without that basic structure, I would have been completely lost! Now I am attempting to learn Russian all over again and the random approach doesn't help. For now I am just focused mainly on verbs. If I ever figure out Russian verbs I think I can finally die happy!! Learn one aspect of the language, then move on to the next. When you are talking, all the rules will help you a lot!