[Big Nilla]

12 Rules for Learning Foreign Languages in Record Time — The Only Post You’ll Ever Need
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/201...-language/

[sportbilly]

Ready for my move to Russia later this month, I have been hammering the language books...and can now converse for a couple of hours (with a nice girl of course!) via Skype no problem, even if I need some fine tuning.

Cannot wait to get out there and put it to "good" use!

[Virtus]

С дуба падают листья ясеня —
Нихуя себе, нихуя себе…
А подумаешь — и действительно
Охуительно, охуительно.

If you can read this you can pass go

[CaptainCrazy]

(03-13-2014 04:10 PM)calihunter Wrote:  

С дуба падают листья ясеня —
Нихуя себе, нихуя себе…
А подумаешь — и действительно
Охуительно, охуительно.

If you can read this you can pass go

You are too harsh with them, comrade.

Да нет.

If you can understand if it means"yes" or it mean "no" in context of the conversation, you pass.

[FrenchCanadian]

Wish me luck, perfectly bilingual (french/english), about to tackle Russian now, fuck it.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread, very good info here.

Writing this, I realize my love for Russian women is >>>>>

[elabayarde]

Im still working on it... slowly but surely!

[choichoi]

I spoke some basic Russian with these Kyrgyz civ. guys on base the other day and then Bulgarian with some this Bosniak and a Macedonian chick (7.5) who were civilian contractors. Right now I'm at the point where my Bulgarian is stronger than my Russian. I want to continue Russian really bad but I think Bulgarian will help me break through in the Balkans. Interesting enough though, I can read Russian better now because of having to read so much Bulgarian out loud to my online teacher. Russki jezyk ochen' trudno, no ja znaju chto on ochen' vazhna

[elabayarde]

Any of you guys ever hit brighten beach? Im in NYC right now... and Im thinkingaboutthe trip, so I can toss out a few russian phrases to someone....

[dontuan]

IMO I don't think Russians in NY are the same as those in the homeland. I was in NY for 7 years and have dated and hung out with Russian girls.

(03-20-2014 12:48 PM)elabayarde Wrote:  

Any of you guys ever hit brighten beach? Im in NYC right now... and Im thinkingaboutthe trip, so I can toss out a few russian phrases to someone....

[elabayarde]

i would assume they are as different as they get... but I may go just because i wanted to try to force myself to speak... as much as possible. The only problem is I was reading that most of the people there are actually Ukrainian decent.

[Quintus Curtius]

Although I have no desire to learn Russian, I love reading language threads like this.

It psyches me up. Go get 'em guys. Go hard, dive in, and swing that saber.

Remember: every day, every day, every day. No exceptions. I don't care if you're fucking dying. Your noses better be in a fucking Russian book.

And soon enough, you will see progress....

[Virtus]

[elabayarde]

"Тот, кто не рискует, тот не пьет шампанского."
-Russian Proverb

[Greek kamaki]

If you visit Russia everyone speaks to you in Russian helping you too learn the language. After a while you become fluent. Russian has great assimilating power(dozens of nations speak it).

[Akula]

(03-20-2014 12:48 PM)elabayarde Wrote:  

Any of you guys ever hit brighten beach? Im in NYC right now... and Im thinkingaboutthe trip, so I can toss out a few russian phrases to someone....

Yeah I hit it you should head down there for an afternoon kinda cool in that there are signs in Cyrillic everywhere and it just feels a little different.

Right on the beach too so maybe try it out in summer? Some nice looking ladies on the beach when I was there.....it's a loooong ride out there on the subway though.

[Virtus]

- девушка, а можно мне с вами сфотографироваться, а то я так скучаю этим вечером, что мне даже переночевать негде

[Chaos]

Can anybody recommend what I should continue with after the Pimsleur program?
I've been off for a while but now I'm ready and hungry to dive in again.

[The_CEO]

(03-24-2014 04:08 AM)Chaos Wrote:  

Can anybody recommend what I should continue with after the Pimsleur program?
I've been off for a while but now I'm ready and hungry to dive in again.

Don't know if this is too basic:

http://www.russian.ucla.edu/beginnersrus...t/home.htm

[Roosh]

I'm doing the full Pimsleur course for the third time, and am getting annoyed at Unit 3. Now that my ability is a bit higher, I'm seeing that the layout of that unit is not logical and just downright confusing (switching between perfective and imperfective aspects in the same lesson, for example). Also if you don't know the case rules, many of the sentences won't make any sense and will seem randomly constructed to you. I think most people would be better off doing units 1 and 2 and moving on to Michel Thomas.

Pimsleur helps you memorize certain sentences/words while Michel Thomas gives you more of an overall understanding to construct your own sentences. Both have their place in an audio learning program.

[Teedub]

If you're planning to go back to Ukraine, maybe it would be wise to learn a bit of Ukrainian on the side, as speaking Russian in Kiev (at the current time) might get you attacked! I'm sure that will quieten down but I would certainly be scared of speaking Russian there at the moment, even as a foreigner.

[Chaos]

I'll check out Michel Thomas this time.
All in the name of irony I can tell that I recently had a Russian girl staying over at my place for quite a time and now when she's gone I wanted to pick the language up again.

She turned into a real vampire bitch every time I wanted her to help me with my Russian. She kept bitching about that I need to read grammatics and буквар before she can learn me anything more.
I tried to talk her into it a few times but she wouldn't change her mind.

Not to mention that her English was so awful so I had to simplify my speaking to maximum to make her understand me. So both my English and Russian skills were reduced as long as she was here.
What a blowback language wise,but she indeed had other qualities.

[SpecialEd]

I'm curious how the language situation plays out in Ukraine. Until the recent madness, Russian was the predominant language in Kiev as far as I know but that might change.

To the guys with advanced Russian skills:

Can you get the gist of a Ukrainian conversation or is it too different?

[Gopnik]

If everything goes well, I'll spend one month in Belarus doing an intensive Russian course this summer since it is much cheaper than Russia.

Have you guys tried busuu? I used it for Polish and it wasn't too bad except for the occasional unit with usless vocabulary. I've just started the Russian version and I have noticed there are no resources for learning the cyrillic alphabet, so I'm guessing I'll have to pick it up somewhere else. One cool feature is that it has a bit of a social network component to it. In the past months I've pretty much been spammed by Polish girls learning Spanish and I'm starting to think that there is some potential for getting bangs from it.

[_Cicero]

I just found out last month I'm moving to Moscow for work in July. So far, I'm 28 lessons in to Pimsleur I. A friend who taught himself half a dozen languages strongly recommended Assimil (books plus audio), and I'd also recommended it, although I should qualify that by noting that 'm just 10 lessons in at this point. The thing I like about Pimsleur is that I can do it while working out, cooking, eating, and driving without ever referring to a book. However, for my profession, I'll need to be able to speed read in Russian, and for that i feel like the quality of Assimil is top notch.

Also, when I learned Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish, the gold standard for me was not just listening to lots of audio, but 1-on-1 conversation practice. Thus my strategy is also to do several hours a week of Russian conversation. For these sessions no English is allowed whatsoever, but I do allow my tutor to write words in English if I just don't understand.

[sportbilly]

@Luisaceo......I have used busuu and also conversation exchange......for me it is "win win".....as of course I am trying to improve my Russian, and also have access to girls......who don't doubt your intentions once they can see you have base language skills (and a story behind why you are learning).....had a degree of success with it, however, sure when I go to live in Russia soon the options will multiply.