Reviewing Unit 3

Today I reviewed lessons 1 and 2 from Unit 3 of RS. I hadn't realized how much vocabulary I had forgotten! I made flash cards with all the forgotten vocabulary. In total I have 7 flash cards with several words on each card.
I have made the flash cards according to the recommendations in How to Learn Any Language. Initially, I had planned to buy ready-made flash cards, but I am glad that I didn't. As stated in the book, these handmade cards are custom-made for my learning. Nevertheless, I have discovered something that I like even more about these cards. I like to see my own handwriting in Cyrillic. Barry Farber does mention the excitement of writing in a foreign language, but I hadn't expected to be so motivated by it.

When I began writing on my first flash card, my handwriting looked like a child's. I wrote about 3 or 4 flash cards and then decided to throw them away because my handwriting looked so ridiculous. I have now become more accustomed to it and I can see my own personality showing up in these foreign letters. At first the letters looked very blocked. Now they are less harsh.
I haven't learned the cursive Cyrillic letters. I saw a recommendation from someone that said to write your flash cards in both cursive and print, but I will stick to print for the time being.

RS: Level 1 Unit 3 Lesson 10

I have finally finished this lesson. I started working on it nearly a month ago and I couldn't make it through. It was a tough lesson on telling time. It has taken me so long to get through this lesson, that I have forgotten a lot of the vocabulary from the previous lessons. I will have to go back a review old lessons before I can move forward to the final lesson of Unit 3. I didn't have time to listen to my cassettes or do any reading. I will have to get better at managing my time if I want to fit all of these various tasks into one day.

Motivation level: Good

Accomplishment: Fair

I love languages.

I am creating this blog to record my daily experiences of learning a new language.

I feel satisfied with my level of fluency in my first L2, French. I learned French in the classroom for many years before a one-year immersion in France. I plan to continue to improve my French fluency, but I want to actively acheive fluency in another language.

To learn Russian, I am not going to follow a classroom program of study. Rather, I am going to work on the self-taught method.

It is an experiment for me. I want to know if I can teach myself more effectively and efficiently than I can learn in a classroom environment.

I chose Russian as my next language for several reasons. I wanted to learn a language that does not use the Roman alphabet. I am interested in Russian literature. I have a friend who speaks Russian natively.

I have been working on learning Russian for almost a year now. I recently became unmotivated to continue, so I picked up a book by Barry Farber titled How to Learn Any Language. He gave me a few helpful hints, so I am changing my strategy slightly. I am also more motivated to continue with my studies after having read his short book.

Ideally, I hope to study about 2 hours a day. One hour will be spent with the Rosetta Stone software that I purchased from eBay. The second hour will be spent studying my grammar book and a Russian website that I have chosen, as well as listening to my audio cassettes. I will be making flashcards of new vocabulary words to study at dull moments during the day.

Here is a list of my current study materials:
Rosetta Stone software, Personal Edition set;
Take Off in Russian audio cassettes from Oxford;
Teach Yourself Beginner's Russian Grammar;
First Reader in Russian, Ann Rolbin;
Unistar 99,5 website (http://www.unistar.by/);
Harper Collins Russian Concise Dictionary;
homemade flash cards on index cards;
Russian for Beginners, Duff & Makaroff;
Russian Stories: A Dual Language Book from Dover.

My current study materials

1. Russian Personal Edition level 1, Rosetta Stone;


2. Russian I: 3rd Ed. (Comprehensive), Pimsleur;


3. Take Off in Russian audio cassettes, Oxford (2001);


4. Russian Complete Course, Living Language;


5. Teach Yourself Beginner's Russian Grammar;


6. The Big Silver Book of Russian Verbs (Big Books), Jack Franke;


7. First Reader in Russian, Ann Rolbin;


8. Unistar 99,5 website www.unistar.by;


9. Harper Collins Russian Concise Dictionary;


10. The Pocket Oxford Russian Dictionary: Russian-English English-Russian;


11. homemade flash cards on index cards;


12. Russian for Beginners, Duff & Makaroff;


13. Russian Stories: A Dual Language Book, Dover.