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Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris
Hi everyone,
Sorry I'm writing this in English, but that's precisely the problem I wanted to discuss :)
So I've been learning Russian on my own for the past five years, and because of that, my learning has been almost completely passive. This means that today I can read online articles, speeches and the like and get about 80% of the meaning without a dictionary, I even do MOOCs in Russian for the fun of it, yet I'm thoroughly incapable of holding even a simple conversation in Russian. I can barely introduce myself and that's it.
Since there seem to be other self-taught 'Russianists' around, how did you avoid this major pitfall (if you have)?
I know that the more it goes, the more I will feel discouraged to do anything about it because of this ever-growing divide between my passive and active skills, but at the same time it feels so frustrating to go back to 'I live in a house, I work during the day, I take the metro' kind of utterances (and with Russian verbs of movements, this is no exaggeration, I literally can't use the verb 'to go'). Any advice would be really appreciated! Thanks...
 
Glabrigausapes

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

  • Civis Illustris
Location:
Milwaukee
Она может полировать мою винтовку день за днём. :browaction1:
 
Glabrigausapes

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

  • Civis Illustris
Location:
Milwaukee
interprete dixit:
Since there seem to be other self-taught 'Russianists' around, how did you avoid this major pitfall (if you have)?
I know that the more it goes, the more I will feel discouraged to do anything about it because of this ever-growing divide between my passive and active skills, but at the same time it feels so frustrating to go back to 'I live in a house, I work during the day, I take the metro' kind of utterances (and with Russian verbs of movements, this is no exaggeration, I literally can't use the verb 'to go'). Any advice would be really appreciated! Thanks...
Click to expand...
This is a very common thing, and I sympathize completely. The reality is that commonplace speech mechanisms, while very important, are also very 'boring' and many people (like me) have a great deal of difficulty storing information that they consider to be uninteresting (whether this is the case for you, I don't know). The matter is made significantly worse by the fact that (as you mentioned) the whole affair of 'verbs of motion' in Russian (and Slavic language generally) is so unpardonably complex.

My only advice is that you rehearse saying things that are actually relevant to you and your life, and to make the sentences complex in the sense that they are not simply three words (nom-verb-acc) & make use of very necessary turns of phrase (e.g. день ото дня from day to day, друг с другом with one another, и так далее and so forth). Most people 'live in houses' and 'look at pictures', etc., but you might learn to rattle off something like:
'My brother and I never argue about music, books, and so forth, because we know each other well.'
(My own effort at this: Я с братом никогда не спорим о музыке, книгах, и так далее, потому что хорошо знаем друг друга.'
 
Anbrutal Russicus

Anbrutal Russicus

Active Member

Location:
Russia
Гы, я хоть и авиа́цией ра́ньше очень мно́го интересова́лся, и карти́нами/по́стерами в том числе́, но сочета́ние коз и самолётов - это что-то но́венькое! О́чень душе́вно :-D
 
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