The month I started using audiobooks

Table of Contents

1. Monthly Stats
2. Highlights
3. Anki
4. Grammar
5. Speaking
6. Listening and Reading
7. Watching
8. Overall and Next Month

First, as always, before I get into the meat of the update, here are my Anki and Toggl stats.

My Anki

(this is ~150 cards a day)

My Toggl

Highlights

This is averaging a bit over 4 hours a day doing stuff in Russian! Big highlights of this include almost all of my listening being audiobooks instead of podcasts. These are, quite literally, the first audiobooks I've listened to in Russian and I'm pleasantly surprised how enjoyable they were.

Anki

I nailed my Anki every day except one, and that was the day that I spent 7 hours in a row taking an exam, so I gave myself a pass for it. I didn't even do the "do one card" trick! Overall, quite pleased with my anki. I spent a bit under 30m a day, on average, on Anki, which feels quite manageable. Also Anki is a game changer for language learning. Highly recommend it to everyone.

Grammar

Once again I promised that I'd do more grammar and I've once again failed. Next month for sure! I still find the виды русского глагола to be an intensely interesting textbook, but it requires a lot of motivation to start each time, which is a bummer.

I worked out a bit of a more concrete system with my teacher, so hopeful that'll help bolster my habit a bit! final last words

Speaking

I spent 19 hours this month speaking with native speakers. Some collection of italki lessons, language exchanges, and pronunciation lessons. Had a pretty unique experience this month though when I presented on my Russian learning journey and fielded questions from the audience. And it was all in Russian, given to Russian native speakers who were (and are, probably) learning English. The style of the presentation was 1-on-1 interview with some pre-made slides in the background. Overall it went quite well and I received a lot of praise, which always feels nice!

Listening and Reading

I listened to three audiobooks in their entirety this month:

1. Собака баскервеилей
2. На западном фронте без перемен
3. Долина ужаса

I also read a few books:

1. Ночь перед рождеством. This was a disaster, barely understandable in Russian for me. Only could get the gist of what was going on, and nearly every word I highlighted to see the meaning of was too old to be useful.
2. Избранный - Kind of a shitty lit rpg book. First time reading one of these and found that they just aren't for me.

The Sherlock Holmes novels were quite easy to understand, while All Quiet on the Western Front was quite difficult. Despite the difficulty, it still might end up being my favorite book of the year, and it's only March. It hit me extremely hard, and I have the language of this book to thank for making me understand that, even in Russian, I can feel things. Feeling the emotion of the novel really means that I'm understanding without having to think too much, which is a great sign for my progress (imo).

Watching

This category was mostly dedicated to the shows Анна детективъ and Тайны госпожи Кирсонавой, both of which I love. The 1800s detective sub-genre is just really fun for me (have you noticed a pattern with Sherlock Holmes??). The shows are fairly comprehensible, with noticeable dips whenever they talk to the народ (peasantry, basically).

I also, as always, watched lots of random things on YouTube. Most common denominator for the moment is let's plays of random video games. Great for learning slang and some (potentially useful) vocabulary.

Overall and Next Month

Feeling great about my progress this month. It has become, in many cases, effortless to consume Russian content made for natives, which is wildly motivating.

Starting a new regimen this month with my teacher and also taking on a challenge. Recently started the book Трудно быть богом which is a Russian sci-fi classic. I read a graded reader of this book when I was still a новичок and really liked it, so I'm pumped to attempt it in the original. It's definitely quite difficult so far, though I can understand most of what is happening.

Fingers crossed I manage to get some more grammar study in, but I also have a potentially very busy month ahead since I'm starting a new job and also just bought a house. Can't underestimate the impact of those!

Thanks for reading! Закругляюсь!