Learning Russian. Week 5

Known words this week 779. Previous week. 634.

I'm mainly listening and reading but also spending twenty minutes a day actively studying with Colloquial Russian.

I'm not reading the dialogs, but I am doing the exercices (in particular the translations) with the aim of helping me to recognise the grammar and constructions used when I am reading.

Each chapter has a vocabulary list, and I'm also trying to learn the more useful and frequently ocurring words.

So I have learnt здание 'building' but I havent bothered with кран 'tap' which strangely occurs in chapter three. Of all the words which are necessary when you start to learn a language, tap comes pretty far down the list.

Unless you are a plumber ...

Strangely кран has now stuck in my mind. Probably because I spent some time wondering why it would be included in a vocabulary list in the third chapter of a beginners Russian book.

These books are useful, but I would say 'proceed with care' and pick and choose what you learn.

To talk or not to talk

I'm tempted to add 'that is the question' but that would be naff.

I happened to be discussing this last night (while doing a language exchange), and have more or less decided that I'm not going to bother with Russian language exchanges for a year.

My experience of language exchanges has been that they only function well, when both partners have a similar language level. That wouldn't work with my current level of Russian.

There is a lot of discussion on the internet about the so called 'silent period', and whether it is advantageous in language learning to talk from the beginning or not.

It is not that I believe a 'silent period' is advantageous or disadvantageous. It is more a matter of practicality and time. I'm not living in Russia, and it seems inefficient to start speaking a language before you can understand any of the replies.

That doesn't mean that I won't use iTalki to find a teacher. My current thinking is that I will wait until week 52 for this as well, for reasons I'll probably mention at some point.

Peace,

Moonface.