I am a 70 year old man, started learning russian 3 years ago with the normal text books but found them confusing, my friend who is from belarus suggested childrens books , which take you right to basics , i found this really usefull and would suggest it , espescially for the mature person like myself .I have just found your channel and find it very pleasant to view, and very informative. Thank you for your hard work. By the way i am leaving for Moscow tomorrow and looking forward to seeing some amazing things and try to use my russian voice.
Keep it up, my friend, I started 8 months ago at 68yrs. Went to evening classes and was sat with teenagers and young people. Great. I'm from Manchester but have lived in germany for over 40yrs. I also have russian comics, and some of those are not easy.
@@dustyfun5944 Auch Hi, ja ich spreche auch Deutsch (aber nicht fehlerfrei). Habe auch kurz in Belgien gelebt und gearbeitet, war aber nichts besonders dort, Kultur und Mentalität haben mir nicht zugesagt. Einen schönen Abend wünsche ich Dir.
Agreed. If I could start my Russian studies from the beginning, I would concentrate a lot more on listening. Understanding is so much more impt than speaking. If I understand 100%, but speak 35%, we can have a good conversation, as I can use my limited vocab to make my point. Speaking 100%, but understanding 35%?...............not a good conversation. . So many YT touts preach "speak immediately". Unnatural in my opinion. A baby speaks when ready, after 1000's of hours of input. I realize that sentences come out of my mouth smoothly, after I heard them MANY times. Forcing them is unnatural and its a confidence killer. . I recently changed my approach to about 70% listening. Its a long road.....especially with Russian....sigh....
I find that the slow Russian videos are very helpful for me now. I ignore the subtitles, and focus on the things and situations around as you describe them. I just hope to get better every day. Bolshoye spaciba!
excellent explanation! for me, i keep russian news or movies on in the background a lot of the time. it's amazing how it gets into your brain. there's one movie i watch over and over ночной гость and i use it to gauge my listening skills. little by little i am understanding more and more. i have a long way to go, but i do notice that i know/understand more now than i did a year ago. your lessons are great. thanks for your work and effort!
Great advice! And I recently discovered your Russian with Stories podcasts. They are very simple yet interactive. Super helpful even though I’m only 10 weeks into learning Russian. I am able to follow most of the stories I have listened to so far. Thank you!
I love listening to pop music. At first it is a noise where I can barely distinguish between one word and the next - let alone what it means. And then gradually over the course of weeks and months it slowly becomes clearer and clearer. It is very rewarding.
All three of your points I will take to heart and remember while I'm learning Russian. Thanks for the slow Russian videos...with them I will practice my listening skills even more.
Thank you for the excellent advice. Your first and last recommendation I was already into, but the second recommendation is new to me. Now I will do this one too. Thank you. I am 76, started a year ago, and I am making good progress. It is fun, challenging yes, and fun as well.
Youre completely right. I think that people just feel like they are better and they know everything. Yet they struggle to learn because they are jumping into expertise when they know nothing about it. I think youre doing a great job. We need more people like you on this earth.
Listening and reading. I go through a short text that I can mostly understand. I'll also make SRS flash cards on my phone of phrases or things that I didn't understand. After a few reads I listen to all these short texts or stories in a playlist. For me I think the key is listening A LOT. I listen to them almost everyday. After a while it becomes more and more clear, plus the SRS flash cards help me too. Thanks for the video.
The advice in your videos is really great, thanks! :) I struggled for a long time (years), trying to listen to material that was too difficult for me, and almost gave up completely. A few months ago I kind of re-started, by concentrating on audio I could already _mostly_ understand (rather than anything I found a bit toooo difficult), plus watching videos for very small native Russian children (e.g. the Малышарики channel on RU-vid is excellent - it focuses on words and meaning). Plus lots of re-watching and re-listening. The results have been really encouraging and I feel enthusiastic again! :) So yes, I agree - if you push yourself a little bit, but not to the point of frustration and self-doubt, you'll make better progress over the long term :)
Daria, You give great advice, I am only up to lesson eight [8] but as you suggest revision is important and it is amazing what comes from revision and listening. Thank you.
Excellent advice. I have a very good understanding of English, Spanish and French, but Russian, German and Czech had been till recently my stumbling blocks. Listening to audio I couldn't understand was frustrating and I nearly gave up. Then I discovered the concept of "comprehensible input", what you explained... listening to things that I can understand (either slow speech or speech that uses simple words). Thanks to you, Daria, I am now on track to gradually being able to listen to audio at my level. I now have the Motivation to keep going. Большое спасибо!
I am 73 urs old and started learning Russian 1 year ago. I’ve made these mistakes and realized how much time I wasted. Also, as you had said in another video, I had to learn to relax in order to listen and learn better. Thanks for all of your videos.
Daria, your course is so much fun. I will stick with you as much as my free time will permit. Thank you. By the way...I love the way you end each lesson...bye, bye.
I am finally able to discern where one word ends and the following begins. I have been doing more reading and translating than listening, but that I am changing, in no small part to your channel.
The one good argument I’ve heard for listening to Russian that’s over your level (like news or movies) is to get a sense of how the languages sounds, to listen to the prosody, and intonation. Stuff like that. It’s not useful for learning words or grammar obviously so I don’t use it as a primary means of language acquisition but occasionally it’s fun to put on a movie I enjoy in Russian so I can listen to it passively and absorb the sounds of the language.
I am Brazilian and I have a hard time understanding the natives, but their English is very easy to understand. Thanks for your wonderful videos. Пака Пака
I find watching films or shows helpful because even though I may only understand 15% of the words, the actions help me understand at least 60% of what’s truly going on. And I then end up hearing words and phrases repeat that I can associate with actions on screen. A second run through with English subtitles adds another level of understanding as well. Overall, I grew my vocabulary and listening skills so much this way. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of Russian films that interest me that’s available where I live.
Great advice. My Russian language reading skills are better than my listening skills. I just tried one of your techniques about reading the text first, and then listening, and it really helped. I listen to children's audio books with accompanying text, but now I will stop reading while I listen. And, I will stop trying to understand Russian language news broadcasts as that is frustrating.
Another great video! ... I listen to lots of music, but it's the same songs that I like - ones that were sent to me by friends on VK. I read the tekct and even translate it - though the online translators are much better when used line by line - then compiling your own translation to pair with the tekct itself. ...Movies are too much for me - so I focus on learning how to speak small phrases, and stuff to make the guys laugh. I play a Russian mod for Arma 3 online - on a server with 60 - 120 people from my community, who all speak Russian, and many of them speak English to some extent as well. Add to that - I play Arma 3 по Русски so I get to see names of items and subjects - then listen to how people talk about it. In addition to books and videos, I keep a notebook where I write in Russian every day, new words and phrases - which helps me remember what I learn. It's weird and not really optimal - but I want to learn to speak comfortably with people in real social situations. VK and my community help me learn how to do some of that! You as well Daria, you are a wonderful teacher - and always have something interesting to say or to share, СПАСИБО БОЛЬШОЕ!!!
"Movies are too much for me - so I focus on learning how to speak small phrases, and stuff to make the guys laugh." If it's a subject that's really interesting then it's not so much work as fun. I live in a part of Mexico pretty close to the part of the US border. Some guys in Mexico speak English quite well - a lot of the time it's because they got addicted to US baseball and grew up watching the San Diego Padre's. Once I found TV programs produced in Mexico I started making more progress and other people here remarked on it. Just doing Netflix style binging on different shows in Spanish helped because I forgot I was even listening to so much Spanish - first couple time with English subtitles, then just Spanish subtitles. TV shows, movies and sports are some of the best ways to pick up the everyday phrases, types of humor, cultural references, differences between how guys speak with each other on a sports team or in a bar and how they speak with women etc. It just almost gets to be second nature to hear the sound world of that language and different ways those speakers have of saying things that are in that culture - just like in English you hear so many references to football and baseball metaphors like hitting a home run, reaching the finish line - things would be completely confusing to someone from a different country.
Thank you for publishing these videos, even though I have studied written Russian a lot I've always had difficulties understanding Russian movies like Александр Невский, Иван Грозный, Андрей Рублев, Сталкер even though they are so easy to pull up on RU-vid nowadays - wonderful. Film students know Eisenstein's "Potemkin" but the great films by Eisenstein and Tarkovsky aren't nearly as well know, except maybe the unforgettable music scoring by Profofiev in Alexander Nevsky. Even though the history in these films isn't accurate they were made under difficult circumstances. Knowing some things about Russian history, especially its centuries of invasions from Central Asia and also other neighbor countries like Sweden and Poland can help you understand some things about the Russian world view - one thing being how important the Soviet Union was in defeating Nazi Germany. I never knew quite how to get the Russian "L" sound until now, the Russian "R" sound is harder to get right but I finally can pronounce basic words like Здравствуйте - you can't get the combined consonants out unless you roll the "R."
You are right Daria. You have to crawl before you walk. I think I jumped ahead, instead of listening to children songs, I am listening to Ani Lorak. But, when I listen to her songs, I look up the Russian/English lyrics. And you have a good point about native speakers not fully understanding there own language. Here in the United States I don't understand some songs on the radio, and I have to look up the lyrics to know what they are singing.
I like watching Russian movies and cartoons, even if I don’t understand everything I can usually get the gist by what is happening, plus there’s quite a few really good Russian TV series that are on RU-vid, those also have subtitles but I don’t always pay attention to the subtitles. Thanks for the advice and I hope I’m able to implement it properly! Spasibo!
Three good pieces of advice. However, what do you think of this way of learning a foreign language: listen several times to the unknown text even if you don't understand it. You will then get used to the way the language is used from a native speaker. Second, try to read the text together with the listening Iprovided you have listened to the text several times without reading the text. Then work with the text, find out the meaning and some of the central grammar, and then listen again without looking at the text. It is the way the world known Linguagphone courses suggest you do: Listen several times, read the text while listening several times, work out the text's meaning and then listen again without the text. It worked for me in other languages, so it might work for you too.
Well, regarding listening and reading: I prefer to listen first to see if I understand something. First I listen 2 or 3 times without reading to see how much I'm able to understand. And then it's when I start reading with the audio, paying attention to the pronunciation and the words I didn't get at first. For me it works that way because it reinforces the words I understood without reading. Normally I can understand approximately 70% of what a Russian native speaker says provided that he/she isn't speaking way too fast
I want to share my experiences with Chinese language, Chinese listening is the most hard part in Chinese because Chinese language has four tones and fifth one is light one , China has a lot of local languages very different from the formal language and a lot of Chinese people have very weird and difficult accent , after six years of being a translator and interpreter I still find difficulties because of the accent issue which made me can't guess the word because it was pronounced very far from usual, the most important method for learning for intermediate level is movies tv series with subtitles songs lyrics and reading news , practicing with native speakers for me I can talk more than 3 hours with no stop in Chinese , never give up on learning a language that needs a lot of patience.
Hi Daria, I started learning Russian 3 months ago. Everything has started,because I was having injury of a back and I had to find a new hobby. For the record I'm Polish ,but I live in Manchester for 4 years that's way I developed my English level to B2/C1. What is the most important I fallen in love with прекрасный Русский язык
It is good to listen to what we are familiar with but to listen to harder conversations to familiarize self with new patterns of vocabulary and phrases is a good idea as well. It's a matter of listening to the pulses in the conversation. It is like how a musician hears. Groups of notes in chords or groups of words and their sounds in sentences. It is definitely about familiarization. And then it is a matter of how do we use what we have become familiar with?
Good wisdom. Thank you for posting. I listen to Russian radio while driving but I only catch the words that I already know. It does little to help my progress. I like the idea to listen to children's books. Do you have any links to start? Thank you.
I am 59 years old and my lady is from Ukraine. She only speaks Russian and I’ve been in this learning stage for 3 years. Maybe it’s time for me to start the children’s books so as to advance quicker. I can speak some basic things and have about 750 words in my vocabulary but in 3 years I feel I should be more advanced, I will get some children’s books now. Thanks Daria.
I completely agree with you. I have no shame in reading kids books. Speaking of which, any recomendations on which books are great for first time reading?
Я лайк слушаю муз, снова и снова. Я не формально студент. Если я слушаю и не понимаю, это сйли (I can't spell seelee) интересно с фокус. Русский язык это муз, гаварел или поёотел. (Almost no grammar) Literally learning from music videos I keep liking and you, давай! With passion впероёд 😍 🇷🇺💞
I never believed in intimidating people or telling them they don't understand. I think people understand perfectly....they just don't want to know that they understand it.
Would you recommend as not just listening but learning, to listen to Russian with Russian subtitles to read? I find it's most enjoyable that way to practice, but I understand it takes away from the listening exercise
I actually find that listening to music an reading the words helps me. It's a natural mnemonic, and there truly is nothing worse than having a song in your head to which you don't know the words. It's like mnemonic learning paired with a really annoying incentive. True you can't just read it, but listen again and again, when you feel comfortable that you have learned the words (an aside, there's a vremya I steklo song and the lyric is "знай что ангелы не спать" but when I 1st heard it I swear I heard "смешно ангелы не спать"🤣 I've chosen my inaccurate translation)
The question that I never get an answer to is "What level do you have to get to in order to be considered "fluent" As a native English speaker there are lots of words I do not understand. Based on tests I have an above average vocabulary and there are still thousands of words I do not know. Many are in specific fields like medicine or finance but your point is well taken. How can we expect to know every word in a second or third language when we don't know every word in our native language? BTW I appreciate your work here, thank you.
I guess usually people mean that they want to communicate in some foreign language like native speakers:) doesn't mean that they should know all the words and understand all the grammar rules
I know this video is old, but I subscribed only a few weeks ago (I was led here from Russian With Max's channel). To answer your question about how I practice listening...I have a short video about it on my channel called 'Russian Study Methods - Utilizing Time Part 2'. But basically, on downloaded podcasts I turn on the 'repeat' function on an audio player. I always look for a repeat option on websites with audio files, and surprisingly, I have never found one.
Setting might be a better word (Настройки для повторение). In Windows Media Player, I can turn on 'Repeat' in the settings. I create playlists, but one playlist is for moving only 1 audiofile there, & while I work in an office, I play that audiofile & the podcast will automatically replay over and over. So, there's a constant repetition of hearing those words, and they become easier and easier to recognize. It is the most helpful method I have found for improving my listening skills. (I don't know any native Russians in my area so my conversation practice is limited).
Got the point. But how to enrich vocabulary if we stick to what we already know? Native toddlers learn first by listening, but I don't think it's the same process with adults... Thanks a lot for the video. I always appreciate your efforts.
Hi! I must contradict your statements. I learnt understandig swedish completly by watching swedish TV. In the begining I understood almost nothing. And suddenly I understood almost everything. Reading and liistening simultanously is a great method to build a link between the spoken word (how language is pronounced) and the typeface. After a while you see the writen words and hear how they sound internally. Btw. I had 6 or 7 years russian in skool, but I never understood someone speaking russian. I would like to learn understanding russian like I learnt understanding swedish, but I don´t know if the russian TV is propaganda or not (Sorry, I´m prejudiced.).
В обучении своих учеников английскому (а сейчас ещё и РКИ) я при аудировании следую другому порядку: сначала слушаем, потом читаем script, потом снова слушаем. Ну то есть сначала всё же лучше напрячь ушки :-) и постараться всё расслышать самому, а прочитав перед аудированием, уже хочешь не хочешь, а услышишь какие-то спорные трудные моменты.
Yep, translate, read and listen then start over again. I'm an Engineer an never thought of learning this way..No Math! But it works and funny it's the little things that catch my interest, like the word или and the phrase и так далее.
Daria (привет) я все еше чувствую то же самое спасбою. I still feel the same way, Thank you. Your lessons helped me a lot to get through C O V I D. Thank you very much.
