Thread: Quickest possible way to star speaking russian?

Just wondering what you guys would say is the quickest possible way to learn russian almost fluently? (Without going to a different country)

I have pretty much all day for the next couple of months to learn russian. What should I do to ensure I can speak it at a high level during this time?

I will still be spending 5 hours per day learning it after these 2 months.

Thanks

To tell the truth you cannot learn russian at a high level in a couple of months. You can only learn some basic grammar rules in this time scale. To learn it at a high level you need 10 or more years I guess. So keep your hopes at a low level to avoid disappointment.

Originally Posted by impulse

To tell the truth you cannot learn russian at a high level in a couple of months. You can only learn some basic grammar rules in this time scale. To learn it at a high level you need 10 or more years I guess. So keep your hopes at a low level to avoid disappointment.

10 years seems ridiculous! Nothing is that complicated. I'm pretty sure anyone can speak russian in 1 year if they immerse themselves in it daily?

impulse may have exaggerated but he is also close to truth. A "couple of months" is enough to learn the basic grammar rules and all the important words. But no way can you reach near-fluency in "months". 1 year of immersion will certainly get you faster to your goal but even with such crazy immersion we're still talking years (plural) before you can claim near-fluency.

But my final point will make you happy. Russian is incredibly FUN. There are very few exceptions and the spelling rules are pretty straightforward. Words sound how they are spelled mostly. It's an extremely rich and beautiful language. Go at it step by step, enjoy the journey, not the end-goal, and you'll see how you become near-fluent without worrying about a time-frame.

I say all that provided you don't know any Slavic language...otherwise you can get near-fluent in a year.

Originally Posted by Valda

impulse may have exaggerated but he is also close to truth. A "couple of months" is enough to learn the basic grammar rules and all the important words. But no way can you reach near-fluency in "months". 1 year of immersion will certainly get you faster to your goal but even with such crazy immersion we're still talking years (plural) before you can claim near-fluency.

But my final point will make you happy. Russian is incredibly FUN. There are very few exceptions and the spelling rules are pretty straightforward. Words sound how they are spelled mostly. It's an extremely rich and beautiful language. Go at it step by step, enjoy the journey, not the end-goal, and you'll see how you become near-fluent without worrying about a time-frame.

I say all that provided you don't know any Slavic language...otherwise you can get near-fluent in a year.

Thanks for the very encouraging advice!

How would you recommend I learn as much as I can within these next 2 months? Should I ignore grammar for now?

Originally Posted by Venom

Should I ignore grammar for now?

I am very interested to hear how Ohr would answer that question

i don't think you could learn any language almost fluently, especially not talking to anyone in that language. you think russians leanred russian in 5 months? we spoke russian for many years, many years practice, and you want to learn in 5 months. in 5 months you will speak russian on a level of a two year old.
i've learned english very slowly. and i'm still probably not very good at spoken english, especially a bunch of people speaking english, that's even harder to follow everyone
did you learn english in 5 moths too? you can't learn russian in 5 monthis just as i can't learn english in 5 months. i hope you understand what i said.

We'll all I'm asking is whats the quickest possible way to learn russian, without going to Russia?

I haven't asked why I can't learn russian

Originally Posted by Venom

We'll all I'm asking is whats the quickest possible way to learn russian, without going to Russia?

I haven't asked why I can't learn russian

That's virtually the same as asking which color is the best. There are a lot of learning techniques out there but unfortunately not a single one of them is absolute, what really matters is finding the one that is the most efficient for you specifically. Of course you have to try them out first

So start off with something already. Find a book or online resource, try them out and if you like them, then go ahead with them

Originally Posted by Venom

Thanks for the very encouraging advice!

How would you recommend I learn as much as I can within these next 2 months? Should I ignore grammar for now?

Don't ignore grammar, but don't get too worked up over it as well. Remember:

-When you learn a verb always learn the perfect and imperfect form of it. (imperfect is present and perfect is future in a nutshell, not to overcomplicate things for a beginner). Most dictionaries will reference both forms when you look for one.
- Understand the essentials of the Russian cases (there are "essentially" 6 of those). Incredibly important. Without them Russian simply becomes a neverending torture.


After that just build up your vocabulary and have fun watching Russian movies/cartoon/games, trying to write or interact in general with other Russian-speakers...I'm sure you'll find your way around the "fun part" of learning a language

Originally Posted by Venom

We'll all I'm asking is whats the quickest possible way to learn russian, without going to Russia?

I haven't asked why I can't learn russian

i think the quickest way is to go to university to study russian. because there are usually native russian speakers teachers. and from practice they know the best russian i’ve seen living in dublin, ireland. everyone else not so good.

Originally Posted by Valda

Don't ignore grammar, but don't get too worked up over it as well. Remember:

-When you learn a verb always learn the perfect and imperfect form of it. (imperfect is present and perfect is future in a nutshell, not to overcomplicate things for a beginner). Most dictionaries will reference both forms when you look for one.
- Understand the essentials of the Russian cases (there are "essentially" 6 of those). Incredibly important. Without them Russian simply becomes a neverending torture.


After that just build up your vocabulary and have fun watching Russian movies/cartoon/games, trying to write or interact in general with other Russian-speakers...I'm sure you'll find your way around the "fun part" of learning a language

Great advice! Thank you

I know what all 6 cases are and their general meaning! It's just confusing to know when to use each case

Originally Posted by Venom

10 years seems ridiculous! Nothing is that complicated. I'm pretty sure anyone can speak russian in 1 year if they immerse themselves in it daily?

Anyone can learn how to say the Russian equivalents of "My name is X -- what's your name?" and "Can you tell me where the bathroom is?" and "How much for a kilogram of tomatoes?" in FAR LESS than one year.

This is not the same thing as "speaking" a language, however!

(If you look on YouTube for so-called "polyglots" who claim that they can speak nine languages, in most cases they merely know a dozen or so phrases in each of the nine languages. Some of them are truly bilingual or even trilingual -- with native fluency in two or three languages -- but for the rest of the "nine languages" they claim to speak, they've only memorized basic phrases and sentences similar to the examples I gave above.)

P.S. I got straight A's in four years of college-level Russian. Then I went to Moscow to teach English, and five minutes after getting off the plane at Sheremetevo airport, I realized the horrifying truth: I could barely understand what anyone was saying!!!

And ten minutes after that, I had a revelation: the single most important slogan for me to use, at least for my first couple of months living in Russia, would be: По-медленнее, по-проще, по-короче, пожалуйста -- я не русский! (A bit more slowly, simply, and briefly, please! I'm not a Russian!)

P.S. My story is not meant to suggest that the Russian program at the University of Virginia had low standards, or that I was a lazy student. (My ability to speak and understand spoken Russian improved significantly after living a few months in Moscow, in part because I had a very solid base of grammar and vocabulary from my college courses.) The point is that real people in real life do not speak like the "practice dialogues" in textbooks -- and real life does not have subtitles, either.

P.P.S. Even if you're not taking Russian through a formal course at a school, I would recommend that you acquire a college-level first-year Russian grammar textbook (I'm sure you can get a used one very cheaply online), and that you take the time to work your way through ALL of the practice translations and sentence drills ("Иван видит красивую девушку. Она сидит за столом."), no matter how boring they seem. A good college textbook will provide you with A LOGICAL STRUCTURE to help you better organize and make sense of all the "fun" Russian that can learn from songs and movies online.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

...P.P.S. Even if you're not taking Russian through a formal course at a school, I would recommend that you acquire a college-level first-year Russian grammar textbook (I'm sure you can get a used one very cheaply online), and that you take the time to work your way through ALL of the practice translations and sentence drills ("Иван видит красивую девушку. Она сидит за столом."), no matter how boring they seem. A good college textbook will provide you with A LOGICAL STRUCTURE to help you better organize and make sense of all the "fun" Russian that can learn from songs and movies online.

This one is well recommended: A Comprehensive Russian Grammar by Terence Wade

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Anyone can learn how to say the Russian equivalents of "My name is X -- what's your name?" and "Can you tell me where the bathroom is?" and "How much for a kilogram of tomatoes?" in FAR LESS than one year.

This is not the same thing as "speaking" a language, however!

(If you look on YouTube for so-called "polyglots" who claim that they can speak nine languages, in most cases they merely know a dozen or so phrases in each of the nine languages. Some of them are truly bilingual or even trilingual -- with native fluency in two or three languages -- but for the rest of the "nine languages" they claim to speak, they've only memorized basic phrases and sentences similar to the examples I gave above.)

P.S. I got straight A's in four years of college-level Russian. Then I went to Moscow to teach English, and five minutes after getting off the plane at Sheremetevo airport, I realized the horrifying truth: I could barely understand what anyone was saying!!!

And ten minutes after that, I had a revelation: the single most important slogan for me to use, at least for my first couple of months living in Russia, would be: По-медленнее, по-проще, по-короче, пожалуйста -- я не русский! (A bit more slowly, simply, and briefly, please! I'm not a Russian!)

P.S. My story is not meant to suggest that the Russian program at the University of Virginia had low standards, or that I was a lazy student. (My ability to speak and understand spoken Russian improved significantly after living a few months in Moscow, in part because I had a very solid base of grammar and vocabulary from my college courses.) The point is that real people in real life do not speak like the "practice dialogues" in textbooks -- and real life does not have subtitles, either.

P.P.S. Even if you're not taking Russian through a formal course at a school, I would recommend that you acquire a college-level first-year Russian grammar textbook (I'm sure you can get a used one very cheaply online), and that you take the time to work your way through ALL of the practice translations and sentence drills ("Иван видит красивую девушку. Она сидит за столом."), no matter how boring they seem. A good college textbook will provide you with A LOGICAL STRUCTURE to help you better organize and make sense of all the "fun" Russian that can learn from songs and movies online.

I really like this post, Mr McGee and I'd like to add a few things if you don't mind:

Everyone is different, so this may or may not work for you, but if you have five hours a day to study, then definitely get some clips of some movie or video in Russian that is at least semi interesting to you. Get the text for it too. Pull out some words every day, write them down, by hand, and memorize them. Take 5-10 words a day. Then listen to the video and pick out the words. Keep doing this until you've learned a bunch of new words and can semi understand the conversation. You should read it aloud too. To do this you will have to learn some grammar (see advice above about this).

Then get yourself into a situation where you can use Russian. Go to Russian store weekly and prepare what you want to say, ie Can you show me where the herring is? Or perhaps there is a Russian speaking person around you who is interesting, make conversation with them, you can prepare a little in advance too.

One older guy many years ago explained to me that to learn a language, you need to engage all 5 senses (the writing part is for visual) so you can use this approach to supplement whatever else you're planning to do.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Anyone can learn how to say the Russian equivalents of "My name is X -- what's your name?" and "Can you tell me where the bathroom is?" and "How much for a kilogram of tomatoes?" in FAR LESS than one year.

This is not the same thing as "speaking" a language, however!

(If you look on YouTube for so-called "polyglots" who claim that they can speak nine languages, in most cases they merely know a dozen or so phrases in each of the nine languages. Some of them are truly bilingual or even trilingual -- with native fluency in two or three languages -- but for the rest of the "nine languages" they claim to speak, they've only memorized basic phrases and sentences similar to the examples I gave above.)

P.S. I got straight A's in four years of college-level Russian. Then I went to Moscow to teach English, and five minutes after getting off the plane at Sheremetevo airport, I realized the horrifying truth: I could barely understand what anyone was saying!!!

And ten minutes after that, I had a revelation: the single most important slogan for me to use, at least for my first couple of months living in Russia, would be: По-медленнее, по-проще, по-короче, пожалуйста -- я не русский! (A bit more slowly, simply, and briefly, please! I'm not a Russian!)

P.S. My story is not meant to suggest that the Russian program at the University of Virginia had low standards, or that I was a lazy student. (My ability to speak and understand spoken Russian improved significantly after living a few months in Moscow, in part because I had a very solid base of grammar and vocabulary from my college courses.) The point is that real people in real life do not speak like the "practice dialogues" in textbooks -- and real life does not have subtitles, either.

P.P.S. Even if you're not taking Russian through a formal course at a school, I would recommend that you acquire a college-level first-year Russian grammar textbook (I'm sure you can get a used one very cheaply online), and that you take the time to work your way through ALL of the practice translations and sentence drills ("Иван видит красивую девушку. Она сидит за столом."), no matter how boring they seem. A good college textbook will provide you with A LOGICAL STRUCTURE to help you better organize and make sense of all the "fun" Russian that can learn from songs and movies online.

Wow that's really interesting. Do you think it'd help to speak to a russian native on Skype regularly? (I definitely need to teach myself a lot more before I can do this)

The problem with me is that I'm a perfectionist. If I start learning grammar I'll get obsessed with it and waste time trying to learn every little detail! Haha. I just want to be in a position where I can have regular conversations with russian speakers at my university.

I purchased the Blackwell grammar book, hopefully that'll help! I'm also reading "A complete russian course for beginners by Nicholas Brown".

I'm talking to a russian friend over Facebook daily who is teaching me common russian phrases all the time

I know it comes across as immature to want to learn Russian as fast as possible, but I just want to be very efficient with my learning seeing as I have 5+ hours per day. I also want to visit Russia sometime this year!


PS- would you recommend any other specific college textbook?

ye you need to speak russian, otherwise you will speak like robot if you learn from the book. i’ve met some people who learned russian from books, it’s horrifying to see how they write letters the way it is written in type in books rather than cursive and speak the same. so, books are good, but that’s half the story, you’ve got to speak the language with locals. besides books are written from life, not the other way around. you need both in equal amounts real speech and books for grammar. the other thing it might be hard to find a russian in your country. and organising language exchange is danting, so ye skype might help. i don’t know, i’ve never done it. since i live in dublin, ireland, everyone speaks english here, so no need to look for an english speaker, everyone here is an english speaker. that’s why it’s far easier to learn russian in russia. but my russian is probably is not getting very good. many people say i don’t speak russian well. since no one speaks russian here.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Anyone can learn how to say the Russian equivalents of .... "Can you tell me where the bathroom is?" ... in FAR LESS than one year.

Knowing how to say it in the native language of the country one visits may prove useful. A policeman near a concert stage in the middle of Champs de Mars for an open-air jazz band gig may even offer one to use the facilities under the stage, if a hapless tourist is bold enough to address the question in a quickly and awkwardly made up French phrase.

Originally Posted by bytemare

then definitely get some clips of some movie or video in Russian that is at least semi interesting to you. Get the text for it too.

This part isn't always so easy! YouTube has lots and lots of Russian movies with subtitles in English, but far fewer with Russian captions for the deaf. However, if it's a relatively short clip, there are people on here who are willing to type up a transcript. Or, in some cases, the Russian script/screenplay for an entire movie may be online (if it's a very popular movie), and people here may be able to help you locate it with Google.

Fortunately, it's not so difficult to find videos of Russian songs with "karaoke lyrics" that you can read as you listen.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

This part isn't always so easy! YouTube has lots and lots of Russian movies with subtitles in English, but far fewer with Russian captions for the deaf. However, if it's a relatively short clip, there are people on here who are willing to type up a transcript. Or, in some cases, the Russian script/screenplay for an entire movie may be online (if it's a very popular movie), and people here may be able to help you locate it with Google.

Fortunately, it's not so difficult to find videos of Russian songs with "karaoke lyrics" that you can read as you listen.

Yeah I really did mean that, that you have to find clips with text or ask someone to help with transcription. But this is good, it gets you interacting with people I also think that finding music you like and learning the words can really help!!!!!