How to Learn Russian and Ukrainian (or Any Foreign Language)

Tips for self-learners

Learning the language is a key part to having a rewarding experience in another country. If you've made up your mind to learn Russian or Ukrainian, this article will help you with your learning strategy and obtaining the greatest results from the effort you invest.

General language learning principles

Language mastery consists of four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Here is how they interrelate:

Since communication in person is all about listening and speaking, your efforts should give due emphasis to these skills. Many adult language learners have the tendency to focus on book learning — reading about grammar rules, studying written texts and dialogues, memorizing vocabulary words, etc. However, these activities do not activate the brain centers that are responsible for speaking and listening.

Your language learning regimen

A good language regimen for self-learners should consist of:

1. Large doses of listening to native speech at or slightly above your current level of comprehension.
2. Speaking practice — from simply repeating words out loud (for beginners) to holding real conversations with native speakers (for advanced learners).
3. Reading — from basic conversations (for beginners) to texts on topics of personal interest (for intermediate and advanced learners).
4. Grammar study using language textbooks. Exercises may or may not be used depending on your learning style.
5. Dictionary work. New words that you add to your vocabulary need to be mastered along with their correct spelling and morphology (declensions, conjugations, gender, stress shifts, associated prepositions, etc.).
6. Writing. For example, you can find people to correspond with on the Internet, start sending text messages to a friend in the foreign language (if they are also studying it!), or write notes to yourself in your planner in the language.

As much as possible, the language study you do should help satisfy real-life needs. For example, instead of reading the news in English, you can read them in Russian online (or, better yet, listen to the news online). Instead of making notes to yourself in English, you can do it in Russian. Instead of writing on an English forum, you can write on a Russian language one. These things just require a bit more effort and concentration and do not add extra time commitments that you will drop easily when stressed.

Developing listening comprehension skills

Listening comprehension is mostly an unconscious skill that develops in direct proportion to the amount of time you have spent listening to a language. Listening to language recordings can be done actively (focusing intently on the recording) or passively (as "background music"). Both are effective and contribute to building up the necessary level of listening exposure.

Language learners often underestimate the amount of exposure and effort necessary to learn a language at a decent level. Imagine that it simply takes 500-1000 hours of hearing a foreign language to get to the point where you understand almost all of what is said. By listening actively or passively to the language two or three hours a day, you can reach this level in a year — even if you aren't in the country where the language is spoken.

Choosing audio files to listen to

It used to be that you had to buy special language courses to find recordings in a foreign language to listen to. Now, everyone can also find audio files and programs that match his or her level of profiency on the Internet. Here is what kind of things you ought to look for:

Beginner: basic phrases, simple conversations
Intermediate: conversations, discussion, and readings in slightly simplified or slowed-down language
Advanced: movies, radio programs, any videos and recordings of interest available on the Internet

Ukrainian:

Radio Era - News

To be continued (March 6, 2007).