How Do You Study Languages?

Kirby42

I'm kinda struggling lately trying to learn Russian... I feel as though I'm hitting a plateau and I'm not sure how to get out of it. I have a fairly basic understanding of the language and I have basic conversations with Russian speaking friends although I do make plenty of mistakes.

I started out with the Michel Thomas method and learning a few sentences from my friends which has taught me nearly all that I currently know. Now, I'm doing a bit here and there, learning random words, unsure about what to do next.

Basically, I have no real structure or programme in my learning. What would you recommend I do?

Aard

Vocab, vocab, vocab. Use a flashcard app to help you. Other than that, find something you like to watch, or read, and try to get through it bit by bit. I encounter a lot of people who can conjugate and decline no problem, but then fail to follow quick speech simply because they don't have a wide vocabulary to back it up. Assuming you're not doing any exams in the language, there's plenty of time for the grammar to fall into place.

Kirby42

I'm using memrise now and I like the way it works. I remember stuff much better from it than just reading a list. Some people say it's a bad idea to just only learn words in isolation though? Especially for Russian with cases and genders to take into account. Hard to know how to go about it.

Aard

I don't know Russian, but as long as nouns decline regularly then there's no need to worry about that. Similarly, gender isn't the biggest problem either, and (as I've learnt with Irish and French) tends to be something you pick up over time until you just innately know what gender a noun is. Put it this way - it's better to know 100 new words without their gender than 50 with. You'll be able to make yourself understood much better the more diverse your vocabulary. Natives will overlook grammar mistakes, but will find it irritating to have to "dumb down" a conversation for fear of using difficult words!