Four Years + One = Fluency!

I call this year, my “Plus One” year, because it is my “Goal Year“ for reaching conversational fluency in Russian. I have completed four years of study already, which gives me a sturdy foundation to build upon. So this year, I am concentrating solely on developing my speaking and listening skills.  My original intent was to visit Russia in 2020, however, some events of life have unfortunately changed my plans.  Sadly, I must postpone my trip, but hopefully it won’t be delayed for too long.  Be that as it may, I still wish to keep my original language goal in place, in spite of my altered plans.  Keeping promises is important, even those that you make to yourself.

So what are my plans for achieving this goal?  Well, it won’t be easy, but I believe that for every worthy goal, it will always come with a struggle.  Very often, things that come easy for us, we simply take them for granted.  However, when a goal costs us something, only then will it become valuable.  I have no complicated methods, or special programs, or any personal tutors that will assist me.  I only have a simple study plan in which I will apply plenty of effort to follow.  Since the main focus of my studies is based on conversation, I need to include plenty of listening and speaking practice along with real conversation with native speakers.

So, here is a quick outline of my plan, as I don’t bore you with too much of the details I will keep it simple.  Maybe you will also like some of these ideas and add them to your study plans.

1. Learn how to construct proper Russian sentence structure.I am currently taking an online course which will help me to form proper sentences in my head for use during active conversation.
2. • This is something I have struggled with a lot while learning Russian, much of which, was with the cases, tenses and matching correct endings.  This course will also help reduce many of my grammar mistakes in this area as well.
3. Watch Russian TV series for listening practice.I listen to series during my spare time and on weekends.  I have full scripts of the series allowing me to follow along and study.
4. • To make the most of my time, I listen and repeat.  This helps not only with pronunciation and speaking practice, but listening as well.
5. • I have found that the best use of your time is when you can practice with two or more skills simultaneously during a session.  For example,
6. • • Speaking the words out loud as you write them in your notebook,
7. • • Read the text as you’re listening to the audio or video,
8. • • Type your notes in Russian, helps you learn the Cyrillic keys on the keyboard,
9. • • Listen and then repeat what you hear.
10. Keeping a daily language journal or diary.I have been doing this for years and yes it is just like a regular journal where you capture your daily thoughts.  I write down what I did that day, or what I’m planning to do in the future etc. only it is written in Russian.
11. • Then either the same day or many days later, I practice speaking by reading my journal out loud as if I am telling someone else about my day.
12. • This activity will help develop many language skills to practice and build upon for example, you can practice telling things using present, future and past tenses.
13. Write down and learn my “Life Scripts”.I take the stories of my life and write them down in Russian.  These are stories about my family, things I like/don’t like, childhood adventures, places that I have traveled to, places where I have lived, some funny stories about myself, my relatives and friends etc.  Then either the same day or a few days later I will read them out loud.  I keep doing this until I learn how to tell my “Life Scripts” by heart.
14. • Chances are when you  travel and after you begin meeting people, the introductions are over, you will then be asked to tell something about yourself.  So instead of total silence, you could be telling someone about your childhood, or where you grew up, or your family, these stories won’t change.  So this is why I call them, “Life Scripts”, because these are stories that you will probably tell over and over to many many people.
15. • I have also found that this practice also forces me to learn new words in order to tell the story.  This is also good practice to help you start “thinking” in Russian as you tell your story.  It really helps me to make a connection with the Russian words when I am speaking, because they are stories I am personally connected to.  Which you will find is a very powerful tool to help you learn new vocabulary.
16.  Create audio recordings to be reviewed by native speakers.I think this is great practice for confidence building and to have your pronunciation critiqued. Many times I thought I was pronouncing something correctly when I really wasn’t.  So it is good to catch these things as early as possible.
17. • There are many apps that you can download and most of them are free which makes such practice possible.
18. • So I do this on a regular basis just to make sure that I am actually understandable when I am speaking.
19. The last but not least, will be to practice live speaking session with language exchange partners.  This will allow me to exercise the accumulation of all the above study practices by putting them to real world use.
20. • This will be a refining moment of all my efforts and help me to polish any areas that I may have overlooked or find where I need more practice.

This gives you an overview of my study plans for achieving conversational fluency.  The most important thing to remember, in my option, when creating a study plan is to not over complicate it.  Create your plan in sections that will not overwhelm you.  When creating your study plan, follow the well know and time tested, SMART method of design.

• Specific,
• Measurable,
• Attainable,
• Relevant and
• Timely.

You will then be well on your way to success in your goals if you follow these simple rules.  I wish you much success in achieving your language goals and that you receive much satisfaction from your progress.

-Eugene