Hi! I’ve been learning russian for a week. I’ve read the first 7 mini stories (several times each one) and listen it. Also I use very begginer comprehensible input videos in YouTube and Anki for reinforce my vocabulary. I don’t put too much effort on learning grammar rules, just search something when I see something strange that I don’t understand.
I can speak spanish, galician (native both) and english (I don’t know my level, I struggle with production but I can understand almost everything). The point is that I learned english just by read and see movies/play videogames a lot, but I had a foundation from highschool. That’s for not mention that english it’s more similar to spanish than russian is.
So, I’m looking for advices and things that I could do that I’m not doing. Mostly I want read and understand russian (speak it’s secondary to me) because I want to be able to read determinate things about history that it’s not neither in english or spanish.
Thanks for read me.
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For Russian, you probably want to start with 10-100 individual words, like any language, and some short, useful phrases.
If you are using the Russian decks on Anki, don’t be afraid to try out a few different decks. When you find a deck that’s just right, you’ll know.
On Lingq, the “Pronunciation” section has some content that is easier than the Mini-Stories. Learning your early words from short grammar videos can be a good way to pick up useful phrases, and start getting a feel for how Russian words change endings as they fit together.
You may find that some of the beginner videos in the “Guided courses” section are easier for you than the Mini Stories.
Doing very simple content that covers the same conversational situations from different angles, can be very helpful when starting out in Russian.
Once basic vocabulary and sentences start feeling familiar, if you want to try the natural approach to letting grammar soak in, I’d suggest the “Russian Through Real Stories, Stories from My Childhood by Ilya Frank” in the Kids section.
I liked Maria Petrova’s 50 video “Russian Immersion course…” series available for free on youtube. She is talking about grammar, but she is doing it in simple Russian, and avoiding using much grammatical terminology.
And I like Olga Jarrell’s Amazing Russian channel–for example, I like the video examples she uses in the “Intermediate Russian: Verbs of Motion: Practice” video.