For the past 6 months I've been learning Russian and am still struggling to break through. While I'm making progress, it's very slow going and I'm looking for a better way short of moving there (maybe in a few years).
Every piece of advice I've received has fallen into 1 of 2 categories - the traditional (grammar heavy lectures, canned dialogues, workbook exercises, flashcard drills...) or the pragmatic (talking with native speakers, local language groups, learning only the vocabulary for common situations, watching subtitled movies). I've tried different cocktails of all these. I do learn from the traditional methods, but only if I repeat them 10 times. And while the practical methods are more authentic, I end up drowning in the uncharted waters of the language instead of absorbing it.
Is learning a language just miles of crawling through the shit, or is there a way to make non-linear progress? I'm willing to try anything.
Every piece of advice I've received has fallen into 1 of 2 categories - the traditional (grammar heavy lectures, canned dialogues, workbook exercises, flashcard drills...) or the pragmatic (talking with native speakers, local language groups, learning only the vocabulary for common situations, watching subtitled movies). I've tried different cocktails of all these. I do learn from the traditional methods, but only if I repeat them 10 times. And while the practical methods are more authentic, I end up drowning in the uncharted waters of the language instead of absorbing it.
Is learning a language just miles of crawling through the shit, or is there a way to make non-linear progress? I'm willing to try anything.