Welcome to My 2010 Language Goals

Last year I made a promise to myself that I broke, or rather took to literally: I wanted to begin studying Russian. And this I did. I got up to lesson 3 of Pimsleur's Russian I.

2009

I discovered two things last year:

• the Pimsleur method really is good for storing new vocabulary and grammar patterns in long-term memory
  
• I needed to state clearer goals

2010

As January 1, 2010 approached, I had ambitious goals for studying three languages, but as I looked through the language-learning materials, I got a funny feeling in my stomach. My gut was telling me to pick one language and focus on that language alone. Which language to choose was no contest: Russian.

So on January 1st I began Pimsleur Russian I Lesson 1 again.

To keep myself motivated and honest, I will be blogging about my methods, motivation and progress.

2010 Materials

In this first post, I will outline which materials I plan to use in the first 6 months and how far I have come.

Initially, I planned to complete

• the first 15 lessons of the Pimsleur Russian I course
  
• the Michel Thomas Beginner's Russian Course (8 CDs).

I am now up to lesson 6 of Pimsleur. I forgot that it is easier to start with Michel Thomas, so starting tomorrow, I plan to alternate Pimsleur with Michel Thomas each day.

Progress

Here is my review of my progress with Pimsleur so far:

• lessons 1-4 were a breeze because so much was a review from last year.
• once I got to the Russian for phrases like "Wouldn't you like something to eat?," I had to listen to the lessons more than once before moving on
  

Insights

And here is the most frightening part for me...the first time that I listened to lesson 6, I could not hear the difference between the masculine and feminine ways to say "I would like!" I expected that it might take a while for me to reproduce the sounds correctly, but I've never tried to study a language where I couldn't even hear the difference between forms.

I also began to freak out that in certain instances Russian verbs change form based on gender. I was just expecting the verbs to change according to person and number (like most IE languages). I expect gender-motivated changes to verbs from Semitic languages, but what was Russian thinking by throwing me this curve ball!

I know. One of the cardinal rules of language learning is not to expect the target language to behave like your native language. I didn't. I expected Russian to behave like French or Russian. Oh, well, live and learn.

The larger point to this story is that I realized that as an adult learner, I like a little more explanation about a pattern after it's been introduced. That is, while I enjoy programs that guide the learner to "intuit" a grammar pattern rather than just stating it, I need follow up explanations after the intuition part.

I am hoping Michel Thomas will help with that. I am also thinking of starting to read The Everything Learning Russian book that I have. It looks great!

More soon, including the answer to the question: Does Alana plan to learn the Russian alphabet this year?