Lesson's plans that have worked for you?

I am beginning the Russian language and would like some input from those who have the time.

My goal is to become as fluent as possible in speech. The materials I own at this time are (Rosetta Stone software, Pimsleur levels 1-3, Penguin's Russian Course book, TTS translation software, and luckily, a family of Russians who hasn't yet forgotten everything since they left Russia.)

My question is this. Can any of you recommend somewhat of a lesson plan or outline for studying the language? Something that might have worked for you.

ex. First Alphabet, then Vocab, then Verbs, Cases, and so on.... Should I have a vocab of at least 150 words before I begin, or should I learn the vocab as I go on, etc....

I seem to get stuck (obviously going to happen), in certain places, like cases, so there might be someone out there with an outline that has made it easier for them, something that i could follow that by the time i get to cases, it will be easier to understand.. Of course I know that dedication is the key, and now I'm asking for a little direction if possible....

If it matters, my primary language is English..

Any help is much appreciated.. thank you..

Jeff

if you search in the grammer section there is tons of outlines about cases and verbs and such. and you cant forget www.google.com ;)

I would suggest first. Learn alot of words. probly 200 + miscelanious ones. Make sure you learn a wide variaty of Nueter, Masculine, and Feminine, which will help you when practicing grammar.

After you have established a fairly "large" vocabulary, including some idioms, and phrases. It is best to learn how to conjugate verbs. (it would be helpfull if your vocabulary consisted of all or a good portion of the personal pronouns, so you can easily learn to conjugate verbs.

Second would be how cases work. once you know how to use verbs, then you will start to see how the nouns change in sentences too. You dont need to go too deep into all the little rules, because some of them you will use only rarely, but you will need to learn them eventually.

Third would be to learn How adjectives decline. If you have a good grasp on how nouns work, you can learn adjective endings in an hour or so.

After you have these 3 things down, you will have a fairly good command of russian. From here you can pretty much choose where you want to go, wether it be Verbs of motion, participles, imparative... that kind of stuff.

It is also suggested sometime in either steps 1 or 2 that you learn
a) how to form past tesne and future tense of verbs
b) how to use perfective and imperfective aspects of verbs.

These are the steps that i used, and these are the steps i use to teach people... i think it works pretty well.

Angel,

Thanks for the response! If I understand you correctly, I'm not so much as looking for outlines of how to understand Cases, verbs, and such, I've got tons of materials explaining them, including this site, but more of a study plan for learning Russian.. What should I start with (alphabet), then move on to (maybe pronouns), etc. etc. More of an outline, lets say, maybe something a teacher gave you while studying in college, that explains in order of what you should learn first, second, third, etc. to make your studies easier.

For instance: I would never be able to learn verb conjugation unless i know personal pronouns first, so, in the outline, personal pronouns would come before verbs...

Something LIKE that, if you get my meaning... Ha..

Jeff

Dogboy,

That's exactly the kind of input I'm looking for... Much appreciated!

Any other responses and ideas will also be welcomed...... but i will definately copy your post Dogboy. Thanks..

Jeff

Wow sounds like you already spent a wad of cash :o
Well, if you can afford it, that's no big deal.

The first obvious question is: what's wrong with following the plan in any of the courses you've bought? The structure of the course is part of what you're paying for, after all.

Otherwise, I would do this:
1. New Penguin Russian course, cover to cover, all exercises except maybe 'Fun With Numbers' and Participles section (can do it later).
1a. Concurrently, find something with some audio from beginners. I found one from Linguaphone but it wasn't too good.

2. Find something with a lot of exercises to practice the case endings. I used one called 'Lyestnitsa' which I bought in Moscow. You might find something else.
2a. If, unlike me, you find some excellent source to give you lots of structured practice with imperfective/perfective verbs and especially verbs of motion, then well done. It could be useful here.

3. After this there's a more natural divergence depending on your goals. If you've completed 1 and 2 you'll have a good grasp of the basic grammar. You won't necessarily be able to recall all of it in real time, that will only come with vast amounts of practice.
One suggestion here would be to buy one of those children's detective novels (written for 8-10 yr olds), lots of simple but realistic language. Good for developing your passive vocab. at least. But the main thing of course is to start talking, and don't stop even when they laugh at you :)

Well, the only real structure that i have comes in the penguin book.... However, for instance, it starts with Cases early, which i'm finding hard, like a lot of people. Someone, like Dogboy, might have ideas on an easier ways to go about things sometimes that might help to study before. The books explanations are worded very well for myself i must say, but I'm always open to other's ideas, and not stuck on the only lesson plan that i have right now, being the book.... Everyone teaches a different way, just like everyone learns different. I'm already finding Dogboy's outline refreshing as an idea, along with yours, thank you..

Ha, as far as spending a lot of money... My cousin has a master's in Russia and has taught the subject, so she has access to a lot of these programs to help me out... She goes out and collects a lot of different study materials to see what she likes.... Unfortunatly she's also supposed to help me out with the outlines she uses to teach, but hasn't gotten back to me in a while...

Ha.. yeah, I spoke to a couple of Russian ladies in my restaurant the other day, and yes, they were laughing :D