It’s the same in your native language. You “know” in context many more words than you can use actively…and even the ones that you could potentially use actively you probably never use. Like you have your own “go to” words.
I’ve experienced the same thing with “continued knitting”. I think your brain just needs to have some time away from getting pounded with new information all the time.
Steve’s mentioned this about going away from a language for a little bit and then coming back surprisingly feeling like he knows it better.
Well done on the Russian! Maybe Mandarin won’t be so different after all.
They say that Japanese is the fastest spoken language in the world. The second apparently is Spanish. If you are fluent in Spanish then it will set you in good stead for slower languages.
Glad you are doing well! If you find something you like, you are more likely to stick to it (or come back to it).
I am at 568 Lingq’s so far. Taking it very easy so I would most definitely be classed as a casual here.
Slowly going through the mini stories now. Takes me multiple goes just to get the “plot” at the moment. If I understand roughly what the story is about, I consider that good news
One of the biggest takeaways is that when you haven’t actually succeeded yet at learning a language it seems almost crazy that you might be able to do it. You have no frame of reference. It’s therefore necessary to keep on doing it and check in with others who have already succeeded to keep your motivation up.
Once you have succeeded in your first one it will give you the confidence that it’s doable.
One tip:
I learned Spanish more than a decade ago. I tried to do Japanese, German and Mandarin on and off but I failed.
While surfing in mid 2020 I came across Benny Lewis, some of which resonated with me. I decided to try French because it is sort of similar to Spanish in some ways even though I wasn’t really particularly interested in it. I was doing it as a motivation experiment to see if I could do it. I allocated myself six months only so it would not seem to be unending. The idea was “how far can I get in six months”. I did 3-4 hours a night for the six months and had pretty satisfactory results.
From that I concluded I had the chops to learn languages.
But I still had no experience of distant languages so my new self-doubt was “well yeah French is nearly the same as Spanish and Spanish is really close to English, maybe I don’t have the chops to do a “hard” language”.
After gritting my teeth and putting the time in I can say that it is possible.
I’m by no means fluent in Russian. I’d say my listening comprehension is low intermediate at best but the point is it did work. I can definitely understand a chunk of youtubers.
I was not a newbie, Used other language sites one of which I think in retrospect was a waste of time. I learned to read very well using this site. To improve listening I constantly have on Russian radio and watch movies. I think immersion does work. For speaking, I do russian lessons twice a week and skype with a native Russian speaker in Ukraine. I help him with English and he helps me improve my speaking,
I guess you never realise it is a waste of time until you find something that really works where the others don’t. Sounds like you found a good place.
I am a Tatiana Nabieva fan (she was a gymnast). I know close to zero Russian but it would be good to learn it one day. It sounds like you put a lot of effort in.
It sounds like I am far more casual than most people on here. I am reading a mini story a day, or as many as it takes to hit my daily target of created Lingq’s.
So far, lots of lingqs created but that is about it. I have to trust the process and be patient (this is only day 9). The good news is that it is a 9 day streak.
Speaking to “lot of effort”. It does in fact take a few hundred hours of dedicated practice. It can be done in 30 minutes a day over a longer period of time or it can be compressed into 8 hours a day over a few months.
The key, however, is consistency. You NEED to do some every single day.
My observation of the reason the classical method of teaching languages fails is four things:
You don’t learn grammar first. Babies learn words first. It’s too boring for a teacher to just say “memorize these 2,000 words”. It gives them nothing to do.
If you do it once a week or twice a week you will forget in between times. It is crucial to do some every day to force your brain to memorize it. You don’t do that you won’t learn due to constant forgetting.
Your brain needs repetition to drill it in. And it is impossible to drill in with reading without lingQ unless you have the fortitude to look up every single word you don’t know over a period of several weeks EVERY SINGLE DAY. Almost nobody has that kind of grit. LingQ makes that part dead easy.
Language learning is so much repetition it’s dead boring. LingQ makes it easier because you can read something you might have interest in. Things like duolingo also help to prevent the boring.
^^^ these are my personal observations based on my own likes and my own personality. Others may disagree.
