In fact, the Duolingo course for Russian is going to be available in two days! 
Great! I am totally gonna do it!
…for a few hours
Amazing post! Rather envious also, I’ve been learning for roughly four years and am still nowhere near your word count or level. However, I have not been able to put the same amount of time you have. I have this problem of words just never sticking no matter what I do plus I’m not a huge fan of reading. They eventually go in, but just at such a slow rate.
I don’t know the Russdian version of Duoligo, but I tried to use this method for different languages: French, Spain, Italian - and I didn’t like it.
It is so bored!.. It is developping so slowly that I just lost my attention to continue this Duolingo course.
I think that our Lingq method of active listening and reading is more favourable.
I use BOTH Duolingo and LingQ and it works for me. For me, it’s great because by simply translating sentences I get to know the grammar + I use the vocabulary in an active way.
There are millions of people who use Duolingo, but that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone
My opinion of Duolingo is tha it is good and can help people a lot if they enjoy doing it, but it is also very limited. It can be a big part of helping somebody get to A2 or B1, but if you want to get to C1 or C2, it will only play a minor role. LingQ on the other hand is almost unlimited in terms of how much one can learn from it. There will alwys be new texts to read and new words to learn. Of coures there are also things people don’t learn well using LingQ.
This is such a helpful post. I have a lovely Russian Skype partner who I found on Lingq, and I enjoy talking to her, but I’ve been feeling quite despondent about how hard it is to converse in Russian. It’s very good to know that that’s normal. I’ll persevere!
Janf, i remember when i had around 3.000 words and i was trying to have conversations with native speakers. At that time it was almost impossible. I could say little things but i didnt understand most of what it was said back to me.
You can keep having conversations if you like, but i suggest you to focus on keep doing lingq and meeting your daily goals.
I started having conversations with russians when i had around 10.000 words, and i was using first text chat better. (So you have time to translate things). I was trying also by skype but of course was harder.
However it was not until i had 20.000 words when my conversations where more or less decent.
Right now im with almost 30.000 words, and my conversations are still not perfect. I make lots of mistakes but i can understand most what i said to me without much effort (im talking about a simple regular conversation). I think a good level of Russian is reached with around 50.000 words and a lot of talking practise. Im still pushing and i hope to be there in 1 year.
So my advise would be keep pushing hard to the 10.000 words (should take you 1 year to get), And then start to push hard with conversations while you keep growing your words. It takes a lot of effort, and around 1 hour a day of your daily time.
Hope it helps.
I don’t agree with you, Josu, at that point - 50.000 words are too many!..
We usually use in the everyday conversations not more than 3000 words.
Our famous writer A. Pushkin used in all his works only 27.000 words.
The most important point - how do you k now your words - 3000 active acqured words are better than 25.000 passive words which you can guess in the context, but never can use in the conversation.
And the second point - everything depends on the person: if you would like to talk, you can start with it knowibng only 300-500 acrive words - it’s enough to talk about the family, about your hobbies etc. If you don’t like to talk about such simple topics, you can wait for more acqured words, but this waiting can last too long and you can loose your motivation during this long waiting…
That’s why, my advice is- start earlier, but don’t upset if you don’t understand everything don’t be shy to ask the tutor all words and constructions which you can’t understand… And don’t ignore simple topics - even in your native language you speak mostly about them.
Evgueny, I think what Josu is talking about here is the known words statistic as we know it at LingQ - which doesn’t make difference between a unique stem and flexed word forms. Hence the known word counter for Russian is “cheaper” than the word counter for English and the word counter for English is cheaper then the word counter for Chinese - all depending on how inflexional or analytic the language is.
Thanks Josu88. That explains a lot. I don’t really know how many words I’ve got - probably around 2000. Actually I can understand reasonably well - so I think my passive word level might be higher - but it’s really hard to get my active word level up. I listen a lot - when I’m walking the dog - do the daily words most days - and read books - at the moment I’m reading a dual language Russian/English book of short stories - so this might explain my better passive level. When I search for a word when I’m speaking it often won’t come. I seem to be better at writing actually, when I’ve got time to think. I’ve decided to go back to my basic vocab when I’m speaking and stop trying to find words that I don’t know. It’s certainly a life-long pursuit - and no one ever said it would be easy!
Hi Evgeny, i agree with you, about the number of words that you are saying in your post.
The thing is that at Lingq the counting of the words is different. You might think that 1 word can count like 6 at lingq because there are 6 cases. But in my experience i noticed is even more, because often with this word you can also make an adjective, lets say masculine: so it 6 cases more, and then the with the same word you can make and adjective but femenine, which have another endings, is 6 cases more. So 1 word can count like 18 known at lingq!!
That explains why sometimes im learning 150 words after 1 hour lingquing. (at the begining my count was like 15-20 words per day, now is around 70-100).
In my point of view, i think 25.000 words at lingq its not so many words because another people like Steve Kauffman they already have got almost 100.000! I see it like an indication not of how much words you know, but about how much exposure you had to the language.
Again this is my experience at lingq with words (i say my experience because for other people might be different). I remember having 3.000 words and trying to have conversations, they were not nice because after i present myself or talk about family i couldnt say nothing else meaningful.(i like to talk about anything, like in my own native language). But after what you said, i guess one should keep trying to talk even with 3.000 words, so when he will have 10.000 talking wiill be even eassier.
PS: Евгений, мне жаль что мы не говорим часто по скайпу, поскольку я живу в России я никогда не использую услуги тьютора. Но я хотел вам сказать что я слушаю ваши подкасты очень часто и вы мне очень помогли c русским языком. Я думаю что на самом деле было бы трудно достичь такого уровня без помощи ваших подкастов. Я очень благодарен. Спасибо.
I’ve started using the system to save phrases and collocations I’m finding. So I have nouns saved in multiple phrases for different cases as well. Like you said, I appreciate that the system motivates us by showing us how much exposure we’re getting. I don’t worry about the word count. Вы живете в России? Моя цель, чтобы поехать в Российской следующего года.
A good aim indeed. I would correct a bit your last phrase: Моя цель - поехать в Россию в следующем году.
I would correct your last phrase a bit. Well, I’ve just did, though just a tiny little bit 
ok. Now the Russian Duolingo course is in fact available.
Cпасибо большое, Josu! This is really inspirational. I have a question for you. Now that I have the basic grammar down, the biggest problem lies in the verb aspects. Do you have any recommendation or trick to memorizing the perfective and imperfective of the various verbs? Also, how often do you make mistakes with these?
Thanks!
I studied verb aspects by having a lot of imput, and reviewing the grammar always from time to time. (Also I´m being corrected many times by Russians when i make mistakes with aspects. ).
Ideally is good everytime you learn a verb, to learn their counterpart. The podkasts of Russian are very good because the girl is always teaching the new verbs with their pairs:
Howerver Im still making lots of mistakes with verb aspects, and not only with verb aspects, also with the verbs of motion, cases, etc.
But i know im gradually making less mistakes, and im always being understood.
I dont think Russian is a language which can be spoken 100% perfect if you are not a native speaker, i think the only attainable goal is to understand 100% what you are listening. (and thats also a challenging goal, but achiveable after all from my point of view)
By the way, I also make lots of mistakes when i speak English, and it doesnt bother me, before i was a bit concerned that i might look uneducated or or even stupid by my mistakes, now i dont care anymore.
That’s such a good attitude. I think it’s important for tutors and skype friends to realise that it doesn’t help to keep correcting people’s grammar. Gaining fluency is difficult - and needs a lot of confidence. When you stop people every few words to correct them you make them less confident. We don’t do that to little children learning to speak - we shouldn’t do it to adults.
Literally, people have written a PhD thesis on Russian verbal aspect! 
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.195.6536&rep=rep1&type=pdf
(Completely fascinating for those of us who are are unashamed ‘grammarphiles’ - but probably not much practical use…)