Best Resources to Learn Russian? German? Etc.? | Hacker News Reader

Best Resources to Learn Russian? German? Etc.?

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Has anyone here taught themselves Russian? What was it like? What Russian-specific resources do you recommend? (For instance, what's the best Russian dictionary? Best textbook?) Did you have a particular routine or language learning hack that really worked for you?

I'm interested studying Russian or Spanish someday soon, but I think that if you have an answer for a different language (French, German, Korean, etc.), you should reply anyway, someone else might be able to use it!

I know there are answers for this kind question out there on the internet already (and have already read some of them, myself), but I thought HN might have some interesting input. Especially for "hacker" minded people that want to optimize their learning, and especially in this time of grandiose New Year's resolutions to learn new languages.

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The problem with language learning is that without a good reason for learning you are unlikely to stick at it.

I used to be that guy that wanted to learn a ton of foreign languages. I'd start enthusiastically, buy the learning materials and then it would dawn on me. "When am I going to get to China or Russia? How will these help me in the near future or even the long term?"

These days I've realised that I'm only going to learn a language if it's in my best interest to do so. I'm focused on Thai (my wife's native language) and French because I'm moving to Canada.

I've use Pimsleur as a starting point for Japanese, Italian, French, Mandarin, and Brazilian Portuguese. They have 3 levels of 30 lessons each typically, and getting through level 1 before going to a country has been more than enough to get by conversationally and impress the natives. If I go back to a country a second or third time or I have friends here that speak that language, I'll try to get through levels 2 and 3, but so far I've only done that with Japanese and Italian.

Wow, that's impressive! I'll have to check Pimsleur out. What do you do for language maintenance? Did you ever get the languages mixed up?

I live in Los Angeles, so there are usually native speakers of every language around for practice. For Japanese (which I learned a decade ago back in college), I watched a lot of anime, dated Japanese girls, and ate at Japanese restaurants before spending a few months in Japan. For Italian, a have a few Italian friends so I tortured them with my terrible accent for practice, and listed to opera. French was easy because both my parents speak it, so I practiced on them, plus watched a lot of French movies. Mandarin I practice with my coworker (although as a Cantonese Malaysian, Mandarin is not his native dialect so he has an accent just like me), and whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant. My latest language is Brazilian Portuguese, which I am learning in anticipation of a trip to Brazil. I'm also learning Capoeira and learning to cook Brazilian BBQ, so I practice a bit at my local churrascaria.

In addition to these languages, I also learned Spanish starting in pre-school, and I speak a little Tagalog (my wife is from the Philippines). In answer to your question about getting the languages mixed up, not really. I learned them at separate times, so I think they're stored in different places in my brain.

I had to learn Russian in school and for the life of me I can't understand why anyone would want to do this to themselves voluntarily. Russian looks weird, sounds weird, and nobody speaks it apart from movie villains (and that not even very well). But that's just my opinion. ;-)

I also had to learn French in school and it was beautiful. Hearing French and speaking French is just great. And it was tons easier to learn than Russian.

Later I taught myself English, first by watching Movies and later by reading books (novels). It helps with the pronunciation if you read it in the voice of a native speaker e.g. a well known actor. The English grammar I read up on some websites. I need English to provide support for my software products. In the first months it took ages to write an email and I had to use a dictionary for most of the words.

Having made quite a few trips to Spain in the last couple of years, Spanish would be the language I'd like to learn if I had the time. It sounds great and half the world speaks it.

And about that weird German language. Although being a native German speaker myself, I'm not sure I can recommend learning it. Nobody speaks it outside of Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland and it's not great fun to learn something you can't use.

I'm natively russian. The best online dictionary is http://slovari.yandex.ru/

You may touch me in Skype if you want to speak with native tech guy :-) vladimir.ignatyev

That dictionary is really good! Thanks!

Question: Where do interesting Russian speakers on the internet hang out? Is there a Russian HN?

Russian HN is http://geektimes.ru/ (ex. Habrahabr.ru) Also http://toster.ru is the kind of stackoverflow, but there are a lot of newbies.

They don't have Russian available yet* but check out https://www.duolingo.com

*though it will be coming soon according to https://www.duolingo.com/comment/2175794

I've been Duolingo for a week (so far) to learn basic German and I like the site. The initial lessons I am doing are in nice small bite-sized pieces, so you can do a section in like 15 minutes. It keeps track of your position and you can go back there later. It also sends you daily reminder emails. Useful, overall.

I've found Memrise to be a good way to learn languages, using just a few minutes twice a day. I've tried a few ways online and offline before this, and none have been anywhere near as successful.

With both Russian and German I had a problem memorizing the vocabulary. German genders don't make sense - why is a table a strong, proud man, whereas a mangy, flea-infested feral tomcat a proper lady?

It helps me to compare books in translation - say a work of fiction written in English, and that same book translated into Russian.

It also helps a great deal to chat with native speakers. Around here their are many Mexicans and Ukrainians, so I've been learning Mexican Spanish - it's dialect is quite different from Castillian Spanish - as well as Ukrianian.

> With both Russian and German I had a problem memorizing the vocabulary. German genders don't make sense - why is a table a strong, proud man, whereas a mangy, flea-infested feral tomcat a proper lady?

Gosh this resonates. I remember learning "das Mädchen" and feeling my brain throw up its little brain-hands in resignation and defeat. I assume you've read Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language"? Link: http://crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_German_Language The "Tale of the Fishwife and its Sad Fate" is so funny.

Did you ever get a strategy for the German nouns besides the rules-of-thumb and raw grueling familiarization/memorization?

I've been learning Mexican Spanish - it's dialect is quite different from Castillian Spanish

I grew up in Los Angeles, so Mexican Spanish is what I speak almost fluently (though in high school AP Spanish we had to learn Castillian Spanish as well). I had trouble getting the hang of Puerto Rican Spanish, but I was able to master it by my 4th visit there (and convince the natives I was was one of them!). It was back to square one when I went to the Dominican Republic, which was a little tougher to mimic.

> German genders don't make sense - why is a table a strong, proud man, whereas a mangy, flea-infested feral tomcat a proper lady?

This should be the least of your worries and - in fact - should be the last you should learn. Just pick one gender for all nouns. You'll be understood anyway.

That's not what I'm told by native German speakers. They tell me that using the wrong gender makes me sound illiterate.

However I readily agree that the emphasis placed on genders by American schoolteachers is misplaced. The problem is that I myself devoted far more effort to getting the genders right than to anything else.

In four years of junior high and high school study, we were never once so much as requested to practice extended conversations, however we often had written tests that we would fail were we to provide the wrong genders in our solutions.

The very first time in my life I ever had a conversation of any sort in German, was a ten minute chat with a German immigrant to the US, when he interviewed me for my MIT application.

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