Language Learning — next steps?

I think that the new shift to virtual could be to your benefit. Perhaps you can search out a russian speaker to converse over Zoom. Or better yet, look for a college or university language course to take online or some local group. I have a friend in San Francisco who has been learning Russian for a good number of years (but she struggles). There seem to be a small local group that she learns with; so it is a mix of written assignments or presentations. It also offers the commaraderie of others interested in the language and culture. They used to meet for Russian culture and culinary events as well.
As much as Pimsleur offers flexibility, you may want some formal instruction to round out some of those gaps - but it may also depend on what you hope to achieve. If it is to know the language formally, as an additional language, that is going to be different than learning a language for tourism.

Check YouTube for conversational and instructional videos for all levels of fluency. Really helped me when I was transitioning from Pimsleur French last year.

I second the suggestion to check on whether a local college or university offers classes. You may find a "continuing education" class that costs less than courses offered for credit. In my experience, a class that offers a way to practice outside class (in the old days, that meant cassette tapes to take home) will promote faster learning than a situation in which you are just in class for a few hours per week. But any class will be much more effective than the do-it-yourself approach, given that you are interested in grammar in addition to useful tourist vocabulary.

If you don't have local options for classroom learning, I'd suggest poking around on the internet to find instructors you can work with online. I'm sure such options exist, though it may be a bit tricky to find them. I imagine folks teaching from Russia will charge less per hour than you'd pay an instructor based in a western European country.

If you have any interest in developing writing skills, I'd recommend copying material out of whatever textbook a class (or tutor) uses so you become familiar with the alphabet. I was in Russian class 4 or 5 hours a week, and it only took me about two weeks to become totally comfortable with the new alphabet. However, I was religious about doing my homework, so I got a lot of practice.

A Russian-specific tip -- you mention you can read, but are you familiar with with Russian cursive (Wikipedia)? If not, it's worth thinking about familiarizing yourself with it, as some of the cursive forms of the letters do not closely resemble their block forms.

I bring it up not because of any need on your part to be able to hand-write Russian, but because you mention traveling to Russia at some point -- Russians normally write in cursive (a lot more universally than Americans or Britons do in English), and so if traveling in Russia it's very useful to be able to at least read handwritten Russian, even if you're not writing it yourself. Stylized versions of Russian italic/cursive also tend to show up in posters and signs, so it's helpful to be able to read those as well.

In my quest to learn some Italian I’ve watched Italian movies and TV series (DVDs from the library), started following Italian politicians on twitter, and have read TripAdviser hotel and restaurant reviews in Italian. Not as good as having someone to converse with, but every little bit helps.

Eef,

I sent you a PM.

i really advise to find a private teacher, its going to be hard but its definitely worth it, i did it with french and within a year i was able to understand, read and speak.

Andrew, your point about cursive is a good one. I've noticed that European languages in general are hard to read in cursive. I'll go confidently into a restaurant or bistro or trattoria and be stymied by the hand-written menu.

And Russian is a special problem; the "t" looks like an "m" in cursive; that drove me crazy when I was there. It's been decades, so I don't remember other specific problems, but yes, cursive doesn't translate directly.

Eef, if you have a local community college, the suggestions about continuing education classes are good ones. We took an Italian conversation short course at a local community college about 10 years ago, and it help fill in the gaps that Pimsleur left.

You might also try Babbel, but if you can find a real live class, even an informal one, it will serve you better.

My only experience trying to learn languages after college, has been with language teaching books. I find it helpful to take notes while reading a language teaching book, make a list of example sentences, and then substitute in different vocabulary in the example sentences. You may not be able to just copy from the dictionary. The right suffixes may have to be added. My theory ism if you learn enough example sentences, you reduce your need to consciously learn the grammatical rules of the language. Kids don't consciously learn the grammar of their first language. They just subconsciously memorize enough example sentences until they subconsciously figure out the structure of the language,

My problem with learning a language by hearing somebody speak it, is that I am highly aware that I cannot repeat what I hear. I can only repeat what I think I hear, which is a distorted version of what the person said with the sound patterns and phonemes of my version of English instead of what the person actually said. I did take a phonology class in college; if I read about the phonology of a language and if I see International phonetic symbols, I can teach myself to approximate the pronunciation.

Also when I translate sentence into English, I find it helpful to think the word for word translation without rearranging the word order into proper English. When translating, you only have to rearrange the word order into proper English if you are telling an English speaker what a sentence means. Because learning a language is not mainly memorizing a list of vocabulary, The effort is mainly the grammar: the rules, like the word order (English basic word order is subject, verb, object, but there are 6 logical possibilities in world's languages), the cases, moods, negation, tense, aspect, phonology, conjugations of verbs in some languages, the morphology (the suffixes or affixes or the little endings or beginnings to words you have to add to verbs or sometimes other words, and so on); the built in length of time an action lasts for in a verb, and many other similar stuff you might consciously or subconsciously have to figure out.

I've been using Coffee Break podcasts to try and learn Italian for right now. I haven't looked into it here but in another city I lived in there was an Italian conversationalist meetup group. Might be worth checking out in your area. I'm sure most have moved to Zoom and web meetings.

I'm a bit of a language-learning junkie and actually majored in Russian in college. Languages are meant to communicate with, not just to use privately to conjugate verbs or match proper noun and article endings. In my experience, there is no substitute for just talking. It sounds like you've been trying to get a base level of knowledge by working alone; I recommend you find someone to talk with regularly. Italki or other online tools that offer speaking with a partner would be your best next step, imo. Sure it's awkward for a while but using a language, not studying it, is really the only way to master it.

The second-best way for me is to read general information, i.e., not language learning materials. Websites, newspapers, children's books and eventually simple novels. Something with a story or something you're interested in. I read without a dictionary mostly, just try to glean enough meaning from context to catch the drift, and enjoy figuring out some descriptive words. Start to feel the flow of sentence structure, which verb tenses they actually use. Try not to translate extensively.

The third thing I focus on is expanding the number of verbs I know. You can't talk about anything without action. Nouns won't get you very far. I'm good at conjugations but that's not the point. In my advanced Italian class, there was a woman who never got past using the infinitive and simple present tense, but she knew lots of different verbs and we knew what she was trying to say.

Sure, I do the grammar exercises, but they never get me past a basic structural understanding. Language needs to be used and shared to interact with others.

Having said all this - I did have to give away all my Dostoevsky and Tolstoy novels a few decades back once I could no longer fight through them. War and Peace in four volumes...sigh. I did read them once upon a time. Consistent usage is the key, and that just wasn't compatible with a career, raising kids etc.

Wow! Thank you for your wonderful responses. You have all given me some good ideas about how to move forward with my language study.

I think I will get a tutor. I’m glad that Nelly mentioned iTalki because I have looked at that site and was impressed by how many teachers they had, and how easy it was to sign up for a lesson. When I started Russian, I looked at local classes and found that my timing was off. I will look again and see if things would work better now.

I haven’t learned cursive yet. I have the worksheets to get started. I figured that I would be required to learn it if/when I started more formal lessons.

I have watched some Russian movies. Thank goodness for subtitles! I understand little. But reading reviews on TripAdviser is a great idea! I also have some stories for beginners and just went back to one book and could understand the first story! I’m making progress!

I will report back in a few months and let you know how things are going. For those who are reading this and are interested in starting a language, I have used Pimsleur twice, once for Polish (only 30 lessons available) and I could actually communicate a little with just that, and had a lot of fun with that. Pimsleur Russian has 150 lessons, so I have learned much more. The challenge is getting my aging brain to retain what I’ve learned. It’s in there but I can’t always access it. The downside is that you’re working with a recording, not a real person. Also, there is no written text. This helps with pronunciation, but I found early on that I remembered words better if I wrote the down. So, the first time through the lesson, I do some detective work to find the words, using a variety of books and on-line sources. It’s slow going, and I have probably made some mistakes, but I am not aiming for perfection. I just want to be able to communicate.

Many thanks.

I used ConversationExchange.com to find native Italian speakers, one of whom I've been practicing with for years, as we've become friends. We talk on Skype weekly, 45 minutes in English and 45 minutes in Italian. I got lucky in that she is an elementary school teacher and knows Italian grammar very well.

I see that they support Russian conversation partners - fill out the search box to say that you want a partner who speaks Russian and is learning English. I did a quick search and found many (>1000) eager Russian-speaking English-learners from a variety of countries.

I speak a small amount of Russia, better German, better French. Russian is good because knowing Cyrillic gives you a lot of facility in Serbia, Bulgaria, and parts of Bosnia. The Cyrillic is different (Russian has the "slide-vowels", while Serbian has "slide-consonants").

The key for all languages is hearing others speak and parsing. Anyone can rehearse a sentence and say it. The problem is that the listener then replies, and what then? Parsing, the process of taking a stream of gibberish and finding the words, is required for any speaker of a foreign language. Really the only way to learn to parse is listening to others.

I like to find internet streaming talk radio stations in another language. Then I'll have that station on all day as background audio. It doesn't make much sense for the first few days, but then you start to recognize words and phases. After a few weeks, I "kind of" can figure out what they are saying. Not in detail, but I can understand the topic.

All good advice above, getting a conversation partner is the way to go.

I've tried Pimsleur Russian and was not impressed - but my Mother-in-law actually got to almost conversational level with it over the years (as long as conversations stick to pre-defined topics covered in Pimsleur)

Pushkin institute used to have a bunch of free online courses - a fair deal more academic than Pimsleur, but still doable and - at times - fun. Currently they list list a bunch of non-free online courses plus one-on-one tutoring sessions at about $20 an hour: https://www.pushkin.institute/en/russian_language_courses/

For all practical purposes, especially if you already have some background with Pimsleur, Duolingo would be your best bet for a quick fix. Helps connect auditory perception and listening comprehension to written language. Also free.

For more in-depth but non-systematized tidbits and fun language factoids, check out Michele Berdy's language column in the Moscow Times (also available on Twitter, @MicheleBerdy

Cheers - and have fun!

As far as movies go - for listening comprehension purposes, you might want to stick with Soviet ones (pre-1990s), as the techniques and overall culture of dubbing and voiceover were far superior (even if a tad artificial).

Here's a (subjective) list of top 5 Russian-language movies commonly used in language classes:
Служебный роман (office romance)
Москва слезам не верит (Moscow doesn't believe in tears)
Ирония судьбы или с лёгким паром (The irony of fate)
Любовь и голуби (love and doves)
В бой идут одни "старики" (only "old men" are going into battle)
Операция "Ы" и другие приключения Шурика (operation Y and Shurik's other adventures).

These are usually picked not only for the quality of spoken Russian, but also because they form shared cultural baggage for anyone over 35 from ex-Soviet states.

Here's a (subjective, of course) list of movies I'd recommend for both language acquisition and a better understanding of social background that might, to an extent, be helpful when you head over there. Asterisked are the titles that are more or less within the realms of mainstream movie industry, with the rest being a bit more of a highbrow arthousey fare.

Брат (Brother), 1997 * - a must see for a first-approximation understanding of what the nineties meant for an average Russian, and what Saint Petersburg looked and felt like after the dissolution of USSR
Брат/2 (Brother 2), 2000, a much more commercial sequel
Стиляги (Stilyagi, or "Hipsters") 2008 * - about non-conformist youth of the late 50s, a musical
Лето (Summer), 2018 - about non-conformist youth of the 80s.
Русалка (Mermaid), 2007 *
12 (2007) *
Аритмия (Arrhythmia) 2017 *
Дурак (The Fool), 2014
Левиафан (Leviathan)

Late nineties- early noughts movies critically readdressing the Soviet past:
Космос как предчувствие (Dreaming of space) 2005
Восток-Запад (East/West), 1999 *

For more info on individual titles, check out IMDB.

Most of these are highly critical of either the Soviet past, or the realia of modern Russia (Putin's Russia, as some might call it), so you shouldn't have much trouble finding them on mainstream online platforms (Netflix, amazon prime).

On a separate note, here's some mini-series for after-dinner binge-watching:
Эпидемия (To the lake, 2019) ** - for a glimpse into modern Russian series-making
Приключения Шерлока Холмса и доктора Ватсона (The adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson) 1979 - mid80s. A quality take on Mr. Conan Doyle's classic, very slow-paced, but very, very well done.

Let me know if you have any questions or suggested changes to the list.

Here is an update on my Russian language journey. I have transitioned from Pimsleur to using a teacher through the iTalki.com website. My teacher is great and I feel like I am making good progress.

The iTalki website is a great resource for independent learners. They have teachers/tutors in many languages. If you just want practice speaking, you can use a community tutor. I chose an experienced teacher because I want to fill in my (many) gaps. She is very flexible and patient. The iTalki website lets you sort by language, home country, etc. You can watch a video of each teacher, look at their resume, then take a trial lesson (cheaper and shorter than a regular lesson). You get 3 free trial lessons when you sign up. I love my lessons and I think I am actually thinking in Russian, which is pretty amazing because I know so little!

I think iTalki would be a great resource to review a language you already know or to just learn a few phrases before you travel (may that happen again soon).

Many thanks for all the advice! С Новым годом (Happy New Year!)

PS You were so right about cursive/italics. My textbook has a lot of italics and I’m still getting my brain around an ‘m’ being a ‘t.’ My brain must be completely confused — today o couldn’t find the English ‘a’ on the keyboard — I kept hitting the Russian ‘a’ which is in the ‘f’ spot in English. Eek!