How long does it take to learn Russian well from scratch? Brother Yu took it for 6 months (1)

The following is my real experience.

I started from scratch and spent six months (with an interval in between) to pass the Russian Federation Russian Language B1 level. (Equivalent to IELTS 4.5)

Reasons for starting to learn Russian

Russia, a country, has always fascinated me. First of all, I am a military fan: when mentioning Russia, military fans’ eyes light up. Planes, bombs, rocket launchers, and submarine nuclear bombs are waiting for you~especially its military ideas and martial culture. As a military fan and a lover of military books, I am very attracted to it. like. Secondly, Russia also has beautiful scenery and a vast territory, which is very suitable for me, an artistic man in his early thirties. I have traveled to Russia three times.

My work is also related to Russian. The unit I worked for previously had a project in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. Although the unit had professional translators, it also needed managers to know a little bit of Russian. Learning some Russian can also improve work effectiveness and integrate better with Kazakh employees.

When I was in college, I liked buying books, so I accumulated a few Russian textbooks. When I was in college, I had a little foundation for self-study because I watched some Russian movies.

It should be noted that my previous basic knowledge of Russian was limited to being able to read 33 Russian letters and a few simplest sentences (almost no more than 5 sentences). Not enough for A1 level. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is basically zero foundation.

Due to the demands of work and my love for this language, I have to catch up with my work adjustment and have more free time, so I made up my mind to spend some time studying Russian intensively and take the Russian ТРКИ exam. To test your own learning effect.

In fact, I know in my heart that Russian is a difficult language, but I do like this language, and I am a person who is determined to do it, so I grit my teeth and stamp my feet to give myself Issue a military order and start school!

Set goals for yourself first

Everything needs to be planned first. Many people fail to learn the language. Either their goals are too high or their goals are too low. There is no positive feedback for what you learn in the middle, no performance incentives, and you don’t know whether you are good at learning or not, so it is easy to give up halfway.

Therefore, I must first determine my purpose: my hard target for learning Russian is to pass the Russian B1 exam. If I fail this exam, I must also pass the A2 exam. At least I must obtain a formal competency certificate and give myself a Account. Second, I have to be able to greet and chat with Russian people, and I can’t be dumb. Therefore, the learning process must be close to the reality of life and work, and we must not repeat the mistake of learning English for more than ten years and not being able to communicate freely.

My study plan

Now that the goal has been determined, we need to have a practical plan: My plan is:

1. Lay a good foundation first, especially I need to have a good grasp of pronunciation first, because I spent a certain amount of time learning about this language when I was in college, and I still understand the basic pronunciation rules of Russian. Before formal learning, I could distinguish soft sounds from hard sounds, and I basically knew how to do it. Pronounces the uvular sound, which is "р" in Russian. This is an advantage.

2 gnawed at the textbook. Listen to, practice, and write the content of the textbook over and over again. After all, the textbook is the most direct summary of knowledge. Only by first mastering the knowledge in the textbook solidly can you understand it and draw inferences about other cases.

3. Don’t be greedy for more and seek perfection, and practice each lesson in a down-to-earth manner. It doesn’t matter if you can’t read the text, you must be able to recite it.

In this way, according to these three principles, I started to learn. Because I learned from the experience of mute English, I paid great attention to listening and speaking from the beginning. The Russian textbook of Heilongjiang University is my favorite textbook. It has many exercises and sufficient explanations of grammar. In addition, I can't put it down the "Introduction to Russian" by FLTRP. . There are 16 lessons in phonetics class 1***.

In the first month of my study, I did nothing but practice pronunciation over and over again. From the first lesson to the 16th lesson, I played a listening section and I read along with it. Each exercise was Don't let it go, try your best to imitate the Russian voice. When you get tired of listening to the Russian language, you will switch to "Introduction to Russian" and continue listening. When you are tired, you will take out a paper and pen and memorize the words. After a while, your brain will change back, and you will continue. Listen, it took almost a month of tossing and turning and just working hard like this.

When I have nothing to do at work, I put on my headphones and practice my listening skills like crazy. For some reason, as soon as I put on the headphones, I felt inexplicably excited. I felt like I was adding bricks and tiles to my brain. Every little bit of progress made me feel complacent. The pronunciation part already involved some simple spoken language and dialogue, so I practiced it over and over again, imagining myself having a dialogue.

Sometimes I wonder how to say this greeting in Chinese and then translate it into Russian. Sometimes I read a sentence in Russian and think about how to translate it into Chinese to make it more down-to-earth. There are a lot of cultural differences involved, which is very interesting:

For example, the greetings in the Russian army are very different. The subordinates call their superiors: Здоровье желаю! The literal translation is: I wish you good health! In Chinese, when a subordinate addresses a superior, he or she directly calls him: "Good leader." He only calls him "healthy" when he wishes someone a happy birthday or new year. The cultural differences inside can only be felt by experiencing it carefully.

The questions in Russian are also different from those in Chinese. Russian Мама дома? Is mom at home? If the emphasis is on "mother", it means asking if mother is at home. If the emphasis is on "at home", it means asking if mother is at home. This is very different from Chinese. Questions in Russian only change the intonation, and there are no changes in the text, while in Chinese, question words must be added in most cases. It shows that Russian can mobilize people's emotions and is more free and unrestrained than Chinese.

The first test of learning results

Just when I was practicing АБВГД in full swing, my employer suddenly issued a notice, maybe because I was too busy and still had time to learn Russian. Sent me on a business trip to Kazakhstan. This makes me so beautiful.

This is my first time going to Central Asia and I have always wanted to see it. It’s also a Russian-speaking country. It’s too early to test my Russian proficiency, but I can always practice saying hello, right? One month of study, coupled with the foundation in college, two months at best, what can be said? I have no idea. However, the next experience was far beyond my expectations and gave me many surprises.

The first time I spoke in Russian was at the airport. While waiting for the flight to check in luggage at the Capital Airport, something went wrong. Several Kazakh passengers, possibly having problems with their luggage, hurriedly left the queue and came back after a while, wanting to occupy their original seats. , a Russian-looking aunt standing in line at the back was very unhappy, and said a lot of things, meaning why didn't you line up? I blurted out to her: Вы Правы (You are right), and got her response. She pursed her lips at me~^_^ It seems that my pronunciation is very standard.

When I saw that my pronunciation was probably OK, there was a Kazakh uncle behind me. I asked him directly: Вы из Казахстана? (Are you from Kazakhstan?) The Kazakh uncle was surprised and he was very nice. , I guess my pronunciation was very standard, so he thought I knew Russian and just said blah blah blah. I didn’t understand it very well at the time, and I couldn’t understand it at all~^_^ The uncle was unwilling to give in and found a young Kazakh man. , said in Chinese, they are from a certain oil company... Bula Bula. I exchanged greetings with them in the most rudimentary Russian. I learned a little Russian in my spare time. I feel very happy, even if I know a little bit of other people's language, it is much better than not knowing it at all.

I was very happy during this business trip to Almaty and Aktau. The exotic scenery along the way, especially the Caspian Sea, surprised me. It was not the lake in my mind at all, but the rough ocean ~ Kazakhstan People are actually very nice and love to say hello. When they heard that my pronunciation of greetings was very standard (in fact, I only knew the expressions of greetings at the time), they started talking to me in Russian like a machine gun. I had to say: Извините, извините, по-английски пожалуйста~ (Sorry, sorry, please speak English)

(To be continued)