When I began with Russian, I tailored my approach rather unconventionally, with learning the script before reading even the first thing about its grammar. It worked out pretty well for me as within three days of week 1, I was able to write and pronounce Russian correctly. So that was that!
I focussed on working on my vocabulary week 2 onwards and that went well for three weeks too. However, similar to the absurd translations I did last week, I got stuck with a lot more words for their proper usage. Luckily, my friend Katya, a Moscow resident and native and my source on all things Russian, is a proud grammar nerd! I discussed the matter with her and this finally brings me to this post’s main message: I am getting a grammar textbook!
I have, since the beginning, tried to learn by myself but I cannot risk learning incorrect grammar usage as a result of being my own teacher. It worked well for the first month, as it resulted in intriguing me enough to keep going. One month into the thing, I need a structure, so change of strategies is in order.
Well, so much for the boring stuff. Remember the main reason for this little project of mine is reading my favourite authors in original? I am now able to partially read Anna Karenina’s first sentence, so yay for me! It is after all one of the finest opening lines in literature and I cannot just mention it and not quote it along side:
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
or as they say in Russian:
“Bсе счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.”
Let’s hope I am able to understand this sentence completely very soon!
P. S. I have spent almost three weeks on solely building my vocabulary and the cover picture is a click of my notebook which lists one such collection of Russian words that I have covered along the way. пока пока, i.e. Bye bye!
Week 3 Update
Why am I learning Russian?
Week 5 Update
Literary Lemonades 