Current Mission: Russian and Spanish | My language mission and my log | Forum

Welcome to the forums!

So you studied at St Petersburg? Are you willing to share more about this with us? It would really be interesting to learn more about your stay!

And have you sat any proficiency test for Russian yet?

Please have a look at the list of resources for learning Russian compiled here at the forums.

I recommend reading/listening to "У них что-то с головой, у этих русских" by Анна-Лена Лаурен.

It's a personal account of a Finnish journalist living in Moscow and presents Russian culture & customs, way of life,  collectivism, gender roles, relationship with money, status and politics, corruption and double realities etc. as she sees it. Even though I wouldn't endorse 100% of her views, it really makes for an interesting read (and could provide you with some questions/input to talk about with your friends at the Russian Club!). Some advantages:

• Both ebook and audio book versions are available online. So I advise getting both versions and importing them to Learning with Texts (LWT).
• The chapters can be read and understood independently, so for instance you can read just the most interesting topics and skip everything you don't want to read.
• I found the audio book by far easier to understand than news broadcasts
• Since most topics pivot on everyday life, the vocabulary is both accessible to learners (and context helps understanding) and worth reviewing.

Here are some suggestions regarding your posts (keep in mind though that I'm not a native speaker…):

theoreticalcat said:

Говорила по-испански на Skype ночу, а все утро слушаю музыка по-русски.  Хорошое начало!  Сегодня будет кофейний час с русском клубом!

на Skype -> по Skype (like по телефо́ну)
ночу -> ночью
по-русски -> на русском [языке] (maybe the form you gave is ok, but this way seems more common to me)
музыка -> музыку
Хорошое -> Хорошее (please review the spelling rules, they're extremely helpful)

theoreticalcat said:

Там познакомилась девушка из россии–из Питер, где я учала несколко летом назад!

девушка -> с девушкой
из россии -> из России

из Питер -> из Питера

учала -> училась
несколко летом -> несколько лет

I hope this is helpful and not discouraging you:)

BTW, you're likely to get more detailed + trustworthy (i.e. native speaker reviewed) corrections if you submit your texts to http://www.lang-8.com

So have fun and success with your mission!

I can really relate to your story: I was at Moscow State university in 2008 and passed the TRKI-1 (the language requirement for foreign students), but in view of the lack of advanced courses I shifted my focus to other languagues after my return – to the detriment of my Russian skills. After 2 1/2 years without significant practice, I decided to prioritize Russian. So I've been concentrating Russian for four months now – and guess what?

While there are some intricacies of Russian Grammar I yet have to reacquaint myself with, I feel like my passive vocabulary, speaking and listening skills are even better now than when I left Moscow.

I reiterate my recommendation for LWT. Its reading interface makes looking up words (and marking them for later review) so easy that I do not only look up completely unknown vocab, but also look for alternative meanings of words I somehow recognize. It turned out that my main problem was not the lack of vocab, but the lack of precision, and LWT (plus lang8 corrections) helped a lot to iron out some errors due to blurred memory.

What Russian music are you listening to?

BTW, what about printing out the "40 групп русского рока" pic and use this as a prop for talking about Russian music with your Russian friends and acquaintances?