Thread: Beginning to relearn Russian.

Hi, I'm a 16 year old female from the US. When I was very young, I spoke quite a bit of Russian due to my grandmother's use of it around the home. I have not studied it past that, and have forgotten most of what I used to know. I also only knew it verbally, as she never wrote any Russian down or tried to teach me the language.

I have tried to learn a few times, but gave up. I seriously wish to become fluent in Russian, but am not sure where to begin. My grandmother is still alive, but even she is loosing her abilities, as she never uses the language except for when she feels the need to. (She has lived in the US since she was only a few years of age.)

u can go to university when ur 18 and learn Russian there + get a diploma ,

I wonder how ur grandmother ( most likely 70 y+ ) managed to maintain her Russian even when she lived like .. 50? years in the US
50 years or more in another country usually makes u forget about ur mother tongue

oh, thats the one problem. i actually put in another post that her russian is failing her as well, because she only uses it when she really needs or wants to. her pronunciation, i have noticed, is getting a bit off, but it still gave me a nice start.


and thats odd. i put i was 16. im 17. heh sorry, im sick currently, it must be getting to my head.

I don't think it is hard for native speakers to keep their native languages, especially people who arrived here 50 years ago (unless they came as children). Immigrants usually seek out friends who speak their native language, because they usually aren't the best english speakers (especially Russians, especially 50 years ago) and they want to meet like-minded people. Speaking your native language is like bicycling, you don't forget it. you might be a little rusty after not using it for a while, but it will come back easily.

i know what its like i was studying russian and i was doing pretty ok but then i had to stop for a while to get my grades up(its not because of me learning laguages if thats what your thinking)and i can barely remember simple sentence i used to could say easily

You can get a private tutor, or check out your local junior college.
If you want to learn it badly, you will figure out a way to do it.

Immigrants usually seek out friends who speak their native language, because they usually aren't the best english speakers (especially Russians, especially 50 years ago) and they want to meet like-minded people.

Curiously Russians are very good language learners, at least the ones I?ve meet, compared to other linguistic group members, especially English people. Don?t you Russians think you?re in general good at languages?