Earlier this month I said I was temporarily switching my focus to Russian, to aide me with my Ukrainian, due to issues I’ve had finding appropriate resources. I’m happy to report that in the few weeks I’ve been focused on Russian, I’ve picked up about as much vocabulary as I have Ukrainian in the last few months!
Granted, I started already able to read the script for the most part, and I’ve encountered quite a few words I already knew from Ukrainian (though not all have the same meaning—так in Ukrainian, for example, means “yes”; in Russian it means “so”). Plus I’ve been able to spend more time on it, as the resources I’m using are much more appropriate for the way my brain works, and therefore I can focus for longer.
New Resources
I’ve been using Pacemaker as a motivational tool to keep track of how much time I spend on my languages. (Yes, languages plural. I’ll get to that in a minute.) I’ve also discovered two new Youtube channels which I prefer to the one I mentioned in my previous post—In Russian From Afar, and Russian With Max. The teachers use stories–the best method for me–and there’s more vocabulary covered per video.
New Method
The latter channel has also introduced me to a completely new method for learning/acquiring vocabulary, TPR. When I saw the term in the video title, I assumed it was some variation of TPRS; however it’s completely different. It stands for Total Physical Response, and having tried it out, it seems quite effective! I already knew most of the words in the first video, and the second one took it a bit out of me physically because of my ME, so I’ll have to pace myself with the rest.
New Routine, New Goals, New Languages!
Pacemaker has proved really useful in keeping me accountable. I found it when looking for a word count tracker for my writing, and realised I could utilise it for all sorts of things. I created a plan to spend 3000 minutes actively immersed in Russian by February. Although I’m not quite on schedule, I’m getting more successful at making time during the day to watch Russian videos, so hope to catch up soon.
Some months back I peeked at Comprehensible Japanese, and realised it was more difficult for me to follow and focus on than my trusty French storyteller. After discovering In Russian From Afar, the thought occurred to me to search for Japanese TPRS rather than CI, and I found Japanese Immersion with Asami. I did the same for several other languages, adding new resources to my list for when I get to them.
I made the decision to make room for Japanese and Spanish now. I’ve made small goals for both languages. Asami’s videos are shorter than Natural Languages (Spanish), and Japanese is going to take a lot more time to acquire, so in practise, this is working out as watching one Japanese video a day, and one-two Spanish videos a week, on top of the Russian ones. I’ve also added a couple of children’s songs in each language to my playlists.
I haven’t made a goal for my French, though I do want to actively pick it up again. At the moment I’ve left it more of a “if I’ve already hit my quota for Japanese and Spanish and need a break from the Russian” thing. But I still have French songs on my regular playlists so even if I don’t get to that point, I haven’t abandoned it completely.