
Best Resources to Learn Russian? German? Etc.? - throwaway349
Has anyone here taught themselves Russian? What was it like? What Russian-specific resources do you recommend? (For instance, what&#x27;s the best Russian dictionary? Best textbook?) Did you have a particular routine or language learning hack that really worked for you?<p>I&#x27;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!<p>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 &quot;hacker&quot; minded people that want to optimize their learning, and especially in this time of grandiose New Year&#x27;s resolutions to learn new languages.
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hackerboos
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.

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byoung2
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.

~~~
throwaway349
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?

~~~
byoung2
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.

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NameNickHN
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.

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v_ignatyev
I'm natively russian. The best online dictionary is
[http://slovari.yandex.ru/](http://slovari.yandex.ru/)

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

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throwaway349
That dictionary is really good! Thanks!

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

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

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bcn
They don't have Russian available yet* but check out
[https://www.duolingo.com](https://www.duolingo.com)

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

~~~
vram22
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.

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cromulent
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.

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MichaelCrawford
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.

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NameNickHN
> 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.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
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.

