Hi, I would like to know on average how long it would take to get to a intermediate level of russian studying it for 1 hour a day?
If you were a UK diplomat learning a so called āhard languageā (which includes Russian) you might be doing 3 or 4 hours per day Monday through Friday for (gulp!) 22 monthsā¦
But these guys are professionals - they are expected to be C1+ level.
For intermediate (B1 or B2) level, well, I guess an hour per day for a year would already get you somewhere around that levelā¦?
I really donāt know about the usefulness of the āintermediateā term in practice. It took me five years to reach a level in which I could comfortably read anything, albeit with wiktionary handy. I was lazy in the beginning though and could probably have done much better. That said, Russian is a very logical language. Example from a brochure for childrenās literature:
ŠŠ¾Š·Š½Š°Š²Š°ŃŠµŠ»ŃŠ½ŃŠµ ŠŗŠ½ŠøŠ¶ŠŗŠø ŠæŃŠµŠ“Š½Š°Š·Š½Š°ŃŠµŠ½Ń Š“Š»Ń ŃŠ°ŃŃŠøŃŠµŠ½ŠøŃ ŠŗŃŃŠ³Š¾Š·Š¾ŃŠ°, ŃŠ²ŠµŠ»ŠøŃŠµŠ½ŠøŃ ŃŠ»Š¾Š²Š°ŃŠ½Š¾Š³Š¾ Š·Š°ŠæŠ°ŃŠ°, ŃŠ°Š·Š²ŠøŃŠøŃ Š½Š°Š²ŃŠŗŠ¾Š² Š¾Š±ŃŠµŠ½ŠøŃ.
The educational books are meant for expanding the horizon and the vocabulary and the development of communication skills.
In this example there was one word that I didnāt recognize: the word āhorizonā. But if you break it up it looks like ācircle visionā or āaround visionā, which is easily interpreted as āhorizonā in the context since you already know the phrase āto expand oneās horizonā. I keep encountering words like this in Russian and Serbian and it really makes me reflect on how much more difficult English can be with regards to all its Latin, old French and Greek components, which are obviously a challenge for a speaker of a Germanic language like myself. As I said: it took me five years to reach this level but I could probably have done much better if I wasnāt so lazy in the beginning. And I didnāt study for more than an hour a day very often.
Oh and Iām back to being lazy again. Nowadays I read mostly Serbian.
6 months in my experience. You have to be dedicated and you must keep an open mind. I still learn stuff every day after almost 2 years of intensive studying. Have fun!
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Just to clarify, you learned Russian to B2 in 1 hour a day for 6 months?
Iām honestly unfamiliar with these levels, but after 6 months I felt comfortable traveling in Ukraine and speaking in Russian with people.
It is possible if you have a strong motivation.
It doesnāt really matter if you learn Russian (or any new language) an hour a day or two hours.
It is much more important that you really do it EVERY DAY, without any breaks.
And as a language teacher, I can recommend you NOT TO JUMP right away to the intermediate level.
Itās very important especially for a language with many endings as Russian - to go STEP BY STEP from the Beginner 1 to the Beginner 2 and only after that - to the Intermediate level!
You can use here a lot of my Russian courses for beginners, like:
Š Š£Š”Š”ŠŠŠ Š” ŠŠ£ŠŠÆ (96 ŃŃŠ¾ŠŗŠ¾Š²),
ŠŠŠŠŠŠ«Š ŠŠŠŠŠŠ(54)
ŠŠŠ ŠŠŠ ŠŠ«Š ŠŠŠŠŠŠŠ (30)
ŠŠŠ ŠŠŠ ŠŠ«Š Š¢ŠŠŠ”Š¢Š«(22)
ŠŠŠ ŠŠ«Š ŠØŠŠŠ(125) etc.
Good luck!
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Summing up your maths
to B2 1 hr x 365 = 365 hours
B2 to C1+ 3.5hrs x 30days x 22 mths = 2310 hours
2310 - 365 = 1945 hours to get from B2 to C1+ or 5.32 years at 1 hour a day
6.32 years in total which fits with Mr Hednings informative answer
was āguessā really the word you wanted to use ?
@Evgueny:
āā¦Itās very important especially for a language with many endings as Russian - to go STEP BY STEP from the Beginner 1 to the Beginner 2 and only after that - to the Intermediate level!..ā
I wholeheartedly agree one should do some old-school rote learning of case declensions for a language like Russian (or any language with complex inflections.) I am certain that time invested doing this at the outset will pay handsome dividends later on.
However there is a kind of paradox when it comes to the diplomatic language schoolās categories of languages (āhard languagesā, etc) They count Mandarin as being (I believe) one of the very hardest of all - yet it is a language with almost no inflectionsā¦
BTW
Did you remember to get down to the polling station today to vote for President Putin? 
To work every day is very important indeed - however I think it is best to take a break when you are tired with learning. It is useless to learn 23h a day because we need to sleep and maybe we have a life. It is also useless to learn 365 days a year. Breaks are very necessary. Remember what the first s means in SRS.
The most important is to come back.
Jay, I taught Russian for many English diplomats in my Liden and Denz Language School in St Petersburg.
They worked or maybe some of them are still working not only in Moscow but also in different countries of the former USSR.
They started in London for 4 months and then continued for 3 months at our school. The most of them were very hardworking and I worked with them with pleasure.
Thatās why Iām very sad that our relationships are now so bad.
I hope that it isnāt so forever.
You remembered me about voting!..
Iām going right now.
āā¦Thatās why Iām very sad that our relationships are now so badā¦ā
I am certain that most people here (letās say 99.9% of people) have no bad feelings towards the Russian PEOPLE.
However I think there are some concerns about the Russian GOVERNMENT.
There are very worrying rumours going around. Do you know what I heard? That the Russian government is sending military guys, maybe paratroopers, over here in DISGUISE as truck drivers!! :-0
If that is true, you have to wonder what orders have been given to these people?
Maybe they could be trained to carry out chemical attacks??
āā¦I hope that it isnāt so foreverā¦ā
No, it wonāt be forever. Nothing last forever. 
What is not a rumour is that more NATO troops patrol around Russia. I donāt like it, I am suspecting neither russian government nor russian people like it either.
Donāt be paranoid, Prinz. Our food, water and air are all poisoned already.
Well, I am feeling very paranoid right now. I am thinking that I have to redouble my efforts to learn Russian! There are truck drivers everywhere I look, and Iām not convinced I could tell the difference between, letās say, a Polish truck driver and a Paratrooper-truck driver.
We must remain vigilant!!
Look, Prinz, I really donāt want to argue or offend you. I just believe, for my own experience, foreigners sometimes can understand with a little more objectivity local social problems because they arenāt affected by all the emotions a local can feel.
After saying that, I would like to argue, with all my respect, that your way of thinking looks like excessively paranoid. Letās assume hypotheticaly that Russia is really behind this attempt of murder. Why would they send military guys disguised as truck drivers to your city? Does Russia has any interest in start a war against UK? Why would they do that?
I think itās reasonable to suppose Putin is behind the attacks in order to stimulate Russian nationalism against an artificial western persecution, but to imagine they are sending troops to UK is a total different picture.
Please, donāt take me wrong, but it really doesnāt make sense to me.
āā¦I just believe, for my own experience, foreigners sometimes can understand with a little more objectivity local social problems because they arenāt affected by all the emotions a local can feelā¦ā
Yes, I think this is very likely to be true. It is easier to see things from the outside, so to speak, like a judge in a court of law. This is a fair point.
āā¦After saying that, I would like to argue, with all my respect, that your way of thinking looks like excessively paranoidā¦ā
I am very paranoid! This I freely confess.
āā¦Why would they send military guys disguised as truck drivers to your city?..ā
Iāll tell you what I think: I think Mr Putin is fiendishly clever!
He knows that he couldnāt just put those paratroopers on to a bus and send them over here! The border guys (at Dover or wherever) would notice a load of in-shape guys with crewcuts and military bearing, and would get suspicious!
So, if we hypothetically accept that he is sending them, it stands to reason that he would disguise them as truck drivers (or similar.)
āā¦Does Russia has any interest in start a war against UK? Why would they do that?..ā
This is the great conundrum.
I donāt understand why Mr Putin is doing all of these attacks (the Salisbury attack was only the latest one.)
There are some theories. Maybe after Brexit, he thinks he can bring the UK over from the EU-Soros side onto the Russian side of international politics, if I can put it like that?
Or maybe he has some personal animus against English people? Maybe he blames English people for some personal problem in his life?
I donāt know - it is a mystery.
(But there must be some reason why all of these people are getting poisoned!?)
I have no idea but i want to learn English. Eye Level learning center offers you some of the best English tutoring Bolingbrook.
Personal revent experience. 6 months into my studies i can say that a lot of things are clearing up. GIven the time you say i see you being more or less intermidiate in 6 months to 1 year ( confortable enough solid B2 comprehension plus being able to express yourself) so it would be better not to think of it and start working on it. It is tough but once you own the top things are gettin easierā¦Good luck!!
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Ime, about 1000 hrs for B1, 2000 for B2. Iām amazed at those posters that say they reached B2 in 150hrs. Yāall are super human!
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