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/lit/ - Literature

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2005736 No.2005736 [Reply] [Original]

Hey, /lit/. I know this isn't /adv/, but I imagine this board is better for getting advice about learning a foreign language. I'm beginning my first semester of university on the 31st. I don't know how it is at other universities, but the standard number of credits per class at my university is three. For instance, all philosophy, English, and non-lab science classes are three credits. [Lab-sciences are four credits.] Intensive Elementary Russian I, which I'm taking my first semester, is six credits - I'm guess due to the workload. I took languages in high school. I took two years of German and two years of Latin. I kicked ass at Latin. I know university-level Russian will be much more demanding. I also know Russians don't use an alphabet with which I'm familiar. On another note, when I was in Latin, my teacher set up this online flashcard-machine which would help review vocabulary in any order. But I'm going to go ahead and assume my professor(s) won't do that. I'm worried I don't know a more efficient system of reviewing vocabulary, and keeping flash cards would certainly get cumbersome. So I have two questions:

(1.) Any advice on learning Russian?
(2.) Any advice on how to study vocabulary in particular?

>> No.2005758

When I took Japanese, the people who memorized the phonetic characters early did better than ones who didn't remember them as well. It sounds kind of obvious, but start studying just the alphabet now to give yourself a head start if you're not good at memorizing, because they go fast and going over the alphabet for a week until you get it is not going to happen.

>> No.2005764

1)Immerse yourself by going to Moscow. You pick up the slang/colloquial way of speaking rather than a formal way that makes you sound like a douchebag.
2) Flashcard drills are nice; I also find that writing out definitions helps; the interwebs are full of free language resources to drill you on vocabulary.

>> No.2005776

>high school offered Latin

I hate living in a poor community. My high school only offered Spanish and French.

>> No.2005791

1) Pirate Rosetta Stone
2) Do whatever the program says
3) Browse russians website
4) When you understand what the sites say, buy russian books
5) Keep doing Rosetta Stone and make flashcards for the hard stuff
Disclaimer: I don't talk russian

>> No.2005796

>>2005776
Well, the teacher only worked part-time. And when we took the mid-term, some people protested one of the questions about the definitions of hic and ille because many of them didn't even know what "former" and "latter" mean in English, so how could they know to pick that answer?

>> No.2005808

>>2005796
As an added bonus though, she used to be an art history professor.