Three months in, how’s it going learning Russian? What will I keep and what will I change with my Russian language learning goals for April 2021?

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Language Review for March

Keep up LingQ, Drops, Tandem, two old books, Language Life Prompts

Things are ticking over nicely! March was a busy month starting with Women In Language and then needing to wrap up two MA assignments in between live Women In Language sessions! But all things considered, I’m pretty happy with where I’m at with my Russian.

One thing I’ve noticed coming up again and again from reading Language Life applications is expectations. Wow, we need to adjust our language expectations! You know me, I’m all for goals and big picture stuff, but time and time again, I read applications from people who aren’t where they expected to be with their language skills.

It’s not an individual problem, it’s not “your fault”, it’s just that we miss the smaller goals along the way. So if you’re feeling that tug of “not as good as I thought I’d be by now”, firstly apply for Language Life so we can work on that together, and secondly, know that it gets you nowhere blaming yourself for that.

Investigate Other Resources

I made a loose goal to investigate other resources last month. I included:

– Decide if it’s worth adding in some Memrise.
– Look for LyricsTraining equivalent.
– Check out Live Lingua Project Russian resources.

To be honest, this hasn’t happened. I guess the fact I haven’t felt as drawn to bring new resoruces into the mix is a good sign. So I’m going to leave the goal where it is and not bring it forward!

Investigate The Fun Stuff!

Ok, so I also had some plans to investigate the fun stuff too. Here’s my plan…

– Set a deadline to publish my Russian playlist to encourage me to listen and discover more.
– Check options to watch Russian content on Netflix, All4, and Amazon Prime.
– Pick a few podcasts I can use when lockdown ends and I can walk multiple times a day again!!

We can go outside for “outdoor recreation/exercise” multiple times a day now (finally!) so I’ve already found a podcast that works. It’s called Russian Made Easy. The graphic is reeeeally cheesy. Didn’t mean for that to rhyme.

It’s suuuuper slow and basic, and that makes it a great addition because I’m able to reinforce lots of basics I’ve already done. This acts as a wonderful confidence booster – a reminder of how far I’ve come.

I didn’t set a deadline to share my playlist until just now, so I’m going to share that the day this blog article goes live!

And I haven’t looked too hard, but haven’t found anything to watch in Russian yet. Not too worried about this one at the moment.

Best Thing I Did for my Russian in March?

I started following Lush Russia on Instagram (Starbucks and McDonalds too but I’m less interested in them!).

Honestly, it’s so fun reading the captions, the little text on Stories and then checking the instant translation from Instagram.

Goals for April

Keep up LingQ, Drops, Tandem, two old books, Language Life Prompts

I’m finding real joy in my current Russian routine. It all fits in nicely at different times of day, and is a good distraction to my MA work.

I look forward to my time with Russian right now, so I’ll keep what’s working ticking over.

Drops is normally the first thing I do in the morning, then at intervals throughout the day when I get up from my desk.

LingQ I often do with my tea at breakfast and sometimes in the evenings.

Tandem I tend to check in the morning after my MA work and before coming down to get ready for work.

My books I get to sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening, and normally in our Language Life Co-Study sessions!

The Language Life prompts I tend to do in those Co-Study sessions too.

Do More Russian Practice

Three months in, I’m feeling like I’m building a confident foundation of basic phrases, vocabulary and (simple!) grammar. I want to push myself to practise more of that in April. How?

1. Using the vocabulary from Drops and LingQ, write short texts and dialogues.

2. Do some controlled practice. That means lots of switching out just one word at a time and seeing how the sentence changes.

3. Share with my Russian teacher and/or people on Tandem.

Want to get better at learning languages?

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I look forward to reading your application!