We’ve all started a that after a while, some of that excitement and shine can wear off any new project.  In language learning, it’s often called “chapter three syndrome”.  The initial thrill that you’re off on a journey and can already say a few phrases starts to pall as the structures suddenly start to get complicated and new vocab seems to be flying at you from all directions.  Once you’re properly on the road, though it can hit at every and any stage of your language learning journey.

LIke the “Excited by fluency” post, this one is part of the “Dr Popkins Method?” series, in which I’m telling the story of how I’ve got fluent in several languages, to try and lay bare some of the ingredients of success (or warnings about what not to do). There’s an accompanying video to each post, too (link at the bottom).

My clear need for the language (“extrinsic motivation”)

For me a pressing need for my new language has sometimes been a driving force.

The first language focussed on seriously as an independent adult learner was French.  

I was eighteen and I’d already become fascinated by languages but I wasn’t just dabbling because of a rising fancy. To pass the entrance exam to study history at my university, you had to translate a short passage (about 300 words, I think) into English from Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, Spanish or Russian.  

I’d done German for two years aged 12 to 14 and dropped it at the first opportunity.  The only other language I’d done was French, for five years (aged 11 to 16). Although I could barely say a thing in it, for me it was only the only game in town, like it or not.

Three years later, I chose to stay on at the university to do postgraduate work in Russian history.  The choice of specialism was party because it would give me the chance to learn Russian and spend a year in Russia. 

Once I was on that Russian history path, though, getting good enough at Russian to read my sources was imperative.  

It had to happen as quickly as possible, too, as every month of delay meant burning through a month more of my grant funding. 

To add to my feeling of discomfort as a newbie to Russian studies, most of my fellow beginning doctoral students already had a master’s degree in some aspect of the subject and a good knowledge (at least in reading) of the language.  

I couldn’t get started at the research proper until I’d made great strides with the language.  If I failed at the first hurdle, it would have meant abandoning my doctoral plans, with all the disruption and embarrassment that this could have caused.  

You turn if you want to. The Dr’s not for turining.

German is useful for a specialist in Russia, but it wasn’t essential.  I began German towards the end of my first year as a grad student simply out of unbridled enthusiasm.  The prospect of getting fluent in Russian and living in Russia was not enough, you know?  l wanted to speak German and live in Germany too.  Greedy?  Moi?

My travel plans worked out and I actually got to spend eight months in Germany directly before my research year in Russia.  

When I arrived I Freiburg-im-Breisgau, I needed the language in order to find somewhere to live.  Isn’t that what they mean by being thrown in at the deep end.   

I returned to Germany two years later.  By this stage my post-grad grant funding was exhausted but I still hadn’t finished writing up my thesis.

By a stroke of luck, my supervisor had moved to Heidelberg and offered me a one-year part-time job as his research assistant.  

The only hitch was that, to take this up, I needed to matriculate at Heidelberg university.  My fluent but still rough-and-ready everyday German was not going to suffice to get me through the necessary language exam, the Prüfung zum Nachweis deutscher Sprachkenntnisse (now the Deutsche Sprachprüfung für den Hochschulzugang). 

No certificate, no job.  A summer of focussed work on German was called for.  

After the research job finished, I made my living in Heidelberg by combining English teaching with work as a waiter with a company who sent teams of serving staff to large one-off functions such as weddings, New Year parties and corporate celebrations.  Everything was in German and the more formal the functions, the less comfortable it felt if you couldn’t understand something. I remember the supervisor barking at me one New Year’s Eve event that I should “learn German first” after I had got the wrong end of some instruction.  

After my first degree and before I started as a post-grad, I took a “gap year” in Wales to learn Welsh.

With that language there was no such concrete push factor.  It was a project purely for my own satisfaction. 

You don’t even need Welsh to “get by” in Wales as the dominant language is English. 

All the same, there was still a milder driver in play.

My family and friends all knew that I had “gone to Wales to learn Welsh”.  I would have looked pretty silly if I’d given up without actually getting fluent.  Some “face” was at stake.

Having a plan, goal setting and a study habit

Some people prefer a “take-it-as it comes” approach, but I like a plan to structure my language learning.  

I usually had a main self-study textbook or two to provide roadmap to my language learning projects.  I’ve also used themed vocabulary book for a systematic full-frontal attack the mass of vocab you need to get fluent in a language. 

I could then set completion of such textbooks or vocab collections as the goal for the first stage of learning a language.  For example, I’d give myself six months to work through a course book or a year to learn several thousand words.

I could then work out intermediate, shorter-term goals, for example one chapter every two weeks or one hundred new words week.  

My regular work to move towards such goals became a learning habit.  

I’ve become convinced over the years that habit is actually more important than motivation in language learning. After all, motivation waxes and wanes.  It can be influenced by random factors like how bright and sunny the day is and what we had to eat for lunch.    

Not that motivation and habit are necessarily opposites, though.  

Keeping to a plan and thus achieving those short-term goals sometimes also boosted my enthusiasm.  Even not wanting to break a successful “run” of sticking to a daily or weekly study plan (e.g. thirty minutes at least five days a week) would sometimes spur me on.  

This could sometimes be a double-edged sword when I fell off the wagon.  Yes, of course, I’d often fail to achieve what I’d planned or break my habit for a while. 

But with good materials charting a clear pathway that broken up into clear, natural segments (units of the book) I knew what to do to get back on track.  I could adjust short-term goals quite easily and maybe still even meet the larger goal (or at least just push that back a bit and reschedule the interim stages).   

Judicious use of group classes

Another way I’ve tried to keep myself on the straight and narrow at various stages in my language learning life has been to take evening or weekend classes or an intensive summer or easter school in the language. 

Now, I’m always cautious with classes.  In a group  you’re getting less focussed attention than in a one-to-one lesson.  It’s easier to hide behind other students or put responsibility for your progress onto the teacher. 

Still, from time to time, over the years, I’ve taken once-a-week lunchtime or evening classes in French, Russian and Basque and some other languages (Hungarian, Finnish).  

I don’t expect any magic from such classes. They have helped, sometimes just for a change, sometimes.  Classes have been a chance to get corrective feedback, build some camaraderie….and (yes) benefit from some great content from inspiring teachers.   

I’ve done full-time intensive courses in Welsh, French and German. 

It’s harder to do intensive courses now I have a job.  Two years ago, though, I did a month’s residential Basque course at the Maizpide residential language school at Lazkao (south of Donostia/San Sebastian).  I did this by combining some regular annual paid vacation with a some unpaid leave.

Creating a social context and community

Another thing I’ve always done over the years to reinforce my learning has been to make sure as soon as possible I put myself “in harm’s way”, in situations where I’ll be expected to speak the language.

This works better if I’ve already done some effective foundation work. That’s usually been the case before I visit a country where my target language is spoken. There’s a balance to be struck between “speaking from day one” and blundering out into the field with no structures and no phrases to draw on, isn’t there?. 

I’ve certainly found that by insisting on using the language, avoiding the “ex-pat bubble” and getting involved in activities around a shared interest (not related to the language through which it is pursued) creates situations use of the language, erm, goes without saying.  

Needs change, but interest continues to grow

Over the years, the initial push factors that have spurred me with a language have fallen away.  That’s only natural. 

I passed that French exam. I do not need Russian or German at the moment with my job.  But, because of other choices I’ve made, other interests and personal connections that have developed, I’ve continued to use the languages and thus to get better at them.

The more I’ve got into the culture that comes with a language, the more I’ve wanted to continue to learn.   

Then I can go back, set myself goals, start studying again when I want to improve my abilities in a certain area, talk about new topics, use the language in a new context, or just to freshen things up. Doing language exams have been a great way for me to do this. 

What about you and what’s next up in the “Dr Popkins Method?” series?

So, those are some of the ways I’ve kept going with my language, even at times when I might have feel like giving up.  

Have these strategies worked for you too….or not?  Are there other ways you’ve found to keep yourself moving forward? Let me know in the comments below or drop me an email (address under the “About” tab).  

Next up in the “Dr Popkins Method?” series will be some quick-fire takeaways on how I’ve got fluent and how you can too.  

(1) Is there a Dr Popkins Method to get fluent?

(2) “Dr Popkins Method?” Getting Fluent in French

(3) “Dr Popkins Method?” Getting Fluent in Welsh

(4) “Dr Popkins Method?” How I learned Russian

(5) “Dr Popkins Method?” My strengths and weaknesses

(6) “Dr Popkins Method?” Excited by fluency

The post “Dr Popkins Method?” Keeping going at language learning appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

But first, my annual year-end review and preview wouldn’t be complete without a picture of a Christmas tree.  Here’s my 2018 “bark n spikes” (just made that phrase up….Why stick to language learning? Let’s make some up, too 😉 )

My language learning….and yours

2018 was the first year since 2014 my language learning hasn’t been dominated by preparation for one or two big language exams (Russian, German). I haven’t sampled any new languages either.  That’s unlike last year (Icelandic) and the year before (Indonesian).

Instead, the main focus has been on creating more content on the site and the YouTube channel.

My advanced German got used (but not very much). There was a week in Berlin in April, catching up with some old native-speaker friends and used the language a lot, in a very natural context. Then: to Vienna for a week, not very social, but using the language to get around.

I’ve spoken advanced Russian even less than German this year. Just a few conversations at langauge learners’ events and meeting up with a Russian-speaking friend here in London a couple of times. Oh, and I attended a Russian Orthodox easter celebration, too, and used a bit of the lingo there.

Looking back at last year’s end-of-year post, my one obvious failure has been to get more Russian (and German) writing practice.

It’s hardly a surprise though. I didn’t make any measurable commitments or take any concrete steps. As so often, it’s not a question of not knowing what needs to be done. It’s a question of priorities.

Good intentions alone don’t cut it in language learning.

What I have been doing is getting lots of passive listening practice and reading a lot in both languages.

Most of the reading I do on my commute and otherwise for pleasure is in Russian or German.

Most of the viewing I do for relaxation is in one or other of these languages.

You can still get extensive exposure to a language even when it’s otherwise firmly in “maintenance mode”.

Has your language been in “maintenance mode” this year?  Was that a deliberate decision or did it just happen?  Have you it relatively easy to build in low-level exposure or is it a planning and timing challenge?  Do you have tips to share (that’s what the comments are for 🙂 ).

I’ve continued with pretty regular on-line, one-to-one lessons in Basque, my lower-intermediate level language. i’ve also (except for a busy time of travel in October and November) generally kept up a regular habit of additional thirty-minute Basque self-study slots several times a week.

In August I ramped up the work on Basque, to help me get ready for an appearance in a Basque TV programme.

That was certainly one of the highlights of my language learning year.

A concrete short-to-medium term goal can be a real motivational spur to hard work on a language.

Learning a “lesser used” language can sometimes open more doors than learning a more widely spoken one.

I should add, though, that it didn’t really feel like the extra work delivered tangible dividends. When you’re trudging across the intermediate plateau, that’s quite normal, though. We just have to understand that things are moving under the surface.

Part of the game in language learning is understanding the long-term process and managing your own expectations and mood along the way.

If you’ve undertaken sustained hard work for a period this year, does it feel like it’s paid off or do you feel stuck?

Since the Basque show was filmed, I’ve also attended a couple of meals organised by the London Basque Society. These were a chance to use the language in a relaxed, natural context.

Events attended

I love set-piece language events. I try to take some extra time off work to build a bit of a holiday around them. If that doesn’t work for you, though, what about local language meetups? (If there isn’t one in your area, could you be the organiser?)

The social dimension is such a help in language learning, make sure you’re making it happen.

The fifth Polyglot Gathering was held (like last year) in Bratislava. It was great to be back at the event (and in that city)…and to be a speaker once again.

As always, the Gathering attracted many enthusiastic language learners, including many first-time attendees as well as other seasoned regulars (I haven’t missed one yet).

This year’s Polyglot Conference was in Ljubljana. It was my first visit to this lovely city and the Grand Union Hotel venue worked really well.

This year, for the first time, there was a day-long “workshop” event to begin with, at which I spoke on ways of making reading and listening practice more active.

As usual, I also spent a day at London’s three-day Language Show. This event (trade fair cum conference cum training) was back at its old home of the Olympia conference venue. A highlight for me was having a go at simultaneous conference interpreting at the EU stand.

In addition to the social dimension, I’m enriched by the discussions of language learning method that feature in the “conference”-style events. It all feeds back into work on Howtogetfluent.

Can you use regular social occasions and set-piece annual events can give structure and meaning to your langauge learning week, month or year?

Meanwhile, here on the site…

Talking of methods, one of my aims for 2018 was to talk much more on the site about, erm, “how to get fluent”.

In 2017 I only published two general method pieces (one on Goldlisting and the other on reading). Otherwise, I’d mainly been reviewing language events and sharing insights from my own language learning projects. There was no consistent posting schedule.

Things have been different this year.

2018 kicked off with the launch of the free, five-part video course on how to learn any language.

Since then, there has been new content weekly (Sundays is posting day) and this has included tens of pieces on key aspects of language learning.   Among other topics, there have been new explorations of (among other topics) pronunciation, shadowing, the value (or not) of group language classes, how to overcome shyness when speaking.

At the end of September the one hundredth post came out . It was one of the most fun to write: a list of one hundred language learning tips.

There have also been language-specific posts on German, Russian writing skills, the gender of Welsh nouns and materials for learning Basque.

Language challenges and exams have been a constant theme on the site since the beginning back in 2014. This year there was a survey of different German exams and I’m planning to look at Russian exams at the beginner and intermediate levels).

I always value feedback on the form, content and style of the site.

How do you think the articles could be better?

Are there particular formats or topics that you’ve found especially valuable or missing ones you want to see.

I do my own featured images and most of the photos are my own. To me, this is part of the distinctive style of the site.

A couple of weeks ago, the featured image was a roughly hacked-out shot of my head and shoulders against a purple background. After publication, a friend sent me a link to a background remover app. I think it was a hint. Can’t she see that I’ve got that urban, edgy vibe? 😉

One aim for 2019 is to build out a bigger body of resources and links to help you with specific languages (I’m afraid said that last year but it didn’t happen ) .

I’ll also be writing more in detail on topics relating to individual languages at different levels (especially languages I’ve studied myself).

It’s been great to be able to publish interviews with two more successful advanced Russian exam candidates: Barbara and Aga (to go with the earlier one with Daria).  I’m interested to hear from Russian exam candidates at all levels.

There will be more interviews in 2019 (look out soon for Karen, who’s shared tips this year on working as a translator. She’ll be telling me about studying for the Welsh B2 exam).

Although there was no big personal language project this year, I have been sharing my personal, long-term language story.

The “Dr Popkins Method?” series is a review of how I’ve got fluent in several languages, told with an eye to how the experience could help you (even if only in a contrastive way, as in “ugh, I’d never do it that way”).

It started with a splash in Tenerife…

Whether it’s made any more waves since, I’ll leave you to decide.

There are a couple more instalments to come, so keep an eye out on the site and the YouTube channel.

The question mark in the series title is not an accident, by the way.Will there actually prove to be a “method” to the madness, or not?

Video log

Ah, yes, the Channel.

2018 was the year I really got serious on the Toob. In February I begin the routine of producing at least two new videos a week.

Tuesday is (usually) “Quick Tip” day, while Thursday is the slot for longer explorations of an aspect of language learning, for interviews and for travel and event vlogs.

I’ve been lucky to have some outstanding language-learner guests this year. There were video interviews with Testu Yung from LangFest, language mentor Lydia Machova and Actual Fluency podcast host Kris Broholm.

“Quick Tips” have come at you from all angles, though latterly I did a themed five-episode series, “Embrace Effort” (looking at ways to use focussed reading and listening to learn more actively). Here’s the launch vid:

I quite like the “series” approach, as it gives me more time to develop a theme while still being “bite size”. What do you think?

My travel vlogs tend to get fewer views that the language learning ones. Sometimes I worry that maybe they’re weakening the focus of the channel. On the other hand, to my mind, language and travel do so go together.

There were three 2018 travel series: Athens at the beginning of the year, Vienna in the middle and the Scottish Highlands at the end.

The next travel series will be from Dubai, starting early in 2019.

I also started looking at travel practicalities, with a three-part series on How to use AirBnB (reprise as an article on the site coming up) and a couple of quick travel tips from Vienna.  More occasionally travel tips to come.

I haven’t been using my languages much at all on the channel this year but I did my first vlog in Welsh (from Iceland). There were then two bilingual vlogs in August from the annual Welsh National Eisteddfod (cultural festival), this year held in Cardiff.

Last year I daily vlogged from the Polyglot Gathering. It meant staying up till three or four in the morning each day to hit publish before the following day kicked off. I swore I wouldn’t do it again but I couldn’t help myself and was at it once more at this year’s Gathering.

For the past three years, I covered the Polyglot Conference with a sole vlog, edited way after the event. This time, I vlogged daily from there, too.

Thanks to all who took part in the vlogs.

The red-eye late nights are worth it when people tell me that the vlogs have encouraged them to attend an event for themselves for the first time. The same is true when absent regulars tell me they almost felt as if they were there, thanks to the vlogs.

The Channel is still relatively small, but subscriber numbers have just hit 800 (up from 245 on 1 January 2018). On current projections, the one thousand subs milestone is on the horizon.

I’ll be continuing with the current Channel schedule till February. Then we can reassess how to go forward.

Thoughts and feedback (including constructive criticism), most welcome.

As a reader on the website, do you also enjoy the Howtogetfluent content on YouTube?

If not, it is it because you don’t you like the Channel’s style, is it that you just don’t really do YouTube….or something else entirely?

The Howtogetfluent.com community

One of the great rewards of running a site like Howtogetfluent.com is establishing new contacts with readers and viewers. I always read every comment under a post or video and welcome questions and suggestions for topics to cover.

This year the Howtogetfluent private Facebook Group was also launched. It’s still quite small, but growing steadily. You can join here and share your language learning wins (and frustrations).

I’m usually a late adopter with technology and it won’t surprise you to hear that it was only this year that I started an Instagram account (@drpopkins). I’ve particularly enjoyed the “stories” feature..  Instagram stories are the place for real-time site and channel new content updates in micro-vlog format (along with static updates on twitter @howtogetfluent and Facebook).

Last year I said I wanted to be in e-mail contact more often with members of the Howtogetfluent Email club (you can sign up and get the free, five-part video course on how to learn any language in the sign-up box at the end of this piece or here).

I have sent you more personal email updates on new content than in 2017, but I’d still like to do this more often.

If you’re signed up but haven’t had an email for ages, check that I’m included in your address book/contacts (so that mails don’t go to spam).

Also, if as a longer-standing subscriber you missed my request for GDPR sign-up confirmation in April/May, I’ll have had to take you off the list (so please do sign up again).

I’d also like to continue the type of one-to-one conversations that kicked off in late spring when I asked you to share your language learning problems with me via email and then went on to do some Skype calls with some of you.

Email Club members are a bright and accomplished bunch and the discussions were a fruitful exchange both ways (it seemed to me).

Encouraged by that response, I now also offer a bespoke, paid one-to-one consultation and mentoring/coaching service (one-off or package, all languages) and I’m working on paid courses to be offered via the site and Club in 2019. Watch this space.

What have been your big wins in language learning in 2018?

What’s been holding you back?

Do you plan changes for 2019?

Let me know in the comments below or drop me an email.

What about a new language project for me here on the site 2019?  I have one coming up….and face it with a certain trepidation. Look out for the announcement early in January.

Thanks once again for being part of the community in 2018.

Here’s to our new language learning year together!

Happy New Year/Bonne année/Blwyddyn Newydd Dda/Guten Rutsch/Hyvää uutta vuotta/Boldog új évet/Feliz Ano Novo/Urte berri on/Selamat Tahun Baru/С новым годом/Καλή χρονιά!/Gleðilegt nýtt ár/明けましておめでとうございます!

The post Goodbye 2018, hello 2019! appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

My last in-detail Basque update was at the end of August. That was a period of focussed additional work on the language. There was a clear short-term aim for the end of the moth: taking part in the shoot of the TV programme, Euskalonski, in London.

Though I was quite nervous beforehand, all went well, as I reported afterwards. I even shot my own vlog within the official shoot:

What’s been happening since then?

Steady-as-she-goes September

September was a normal, relatively quiet month. I was busy in the day job, but nothing outside routine working hours. I wound back on the amount of Basque study I was doing, but continued to have one-to-one lessons with two different teachers (via Skype).

In August I’d done twenty lessons and fourteen hours of self-study.

The September study total was down to 11 lessons and five and three-quarter hours of self-study.

That broke down to 7 x 45 min sessions with Iñigo and 4 x 30 min sessions with Eider. I did self-study on eleven days, mainly thirty minute slots. In total I did a Skype session, self-study or both on twenty-one of September’s thirty days, spread pretty evenly though the month.

8 September was “Basque Diaspora Day”. This “tradition” has only begun this year. The day was approved by the government of the Basque Autonomous Region (which includes three of the seven historic Basque provinces). They chose early September because that was when Juan Sebastian Elkano completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1522 (the expedition was initially led by Magellan, who died en route).

The London Basque Society put on a meal at the Haggerston Community Centre. It wasn’t particularly well attended.  That didn’t matter, though, as several people I know were there, including Richard, another long-term Basque learner and fellow veteran of the residential course at Maizpide language centre in Lazkao. The food was outstanding and the wine was flowing.

Overwhelm October (and November)

So far, so good with my current “little-by-little”, “keep-at-it” approach to the language.

Then other things cranked up.  First week of October: in Scotland (vlogs published). Second week: round the clock at the office. Third week: in Dubai with work (and some time to vlog – series coming soon)….Next a three-day turnaround at work and finishing preparing my workshop for the Polyglot Conference before heading out to Ljubljana….Back to London for two-and-a half weeks in early November (first weekend away, second vlogging London’s Language Show, otherwise very busy at work)….After that three weeks away in Asia with work and visiting my sister in Beijing.

You get the idea. It was all highly stimulating stuff but altogether I was away 21 days in October, 16 in November and the first week of December.

Something had to “give”.  My current one post and two videos a week content schedule here at Howtogetfluent, isn’t up for negotiation (at the moment), so it had to be my study of Basque.

I only clocked up one Skype lesson in early October. That was about it for the next two months.

Keeping Basque ticking over

While snowed under at work and on the road, I still did managed to engage with the language, to some extent, though.

During the days that I was at home I often had native-level Basque radio on in the background. I also got thirty minutes additional passive audio exposure through earbuds/the phone two or three times a week when out jogging.

I took Colloquial Basque with me to Asia and reviewed a couple of chapters (again, passively) on flights.

In my bag I also packed a native-level novella and sat a few times in cafés in Singapore and Hong Kong several times reading a few pages with the help of Google Translate on the phone.

None of this was “optimal” learning.

The listening and reading material wasn’t “graded” to my level “+1”, that magic “zone of proximal development” at which we appear to learn most effectively.

My engagement with the textbook was too passive.

I wasn’t doing spaced repetition work or “goldlisting” to consolidate my knowledge of words and phrases.

I’m not too worried about any of that, though.

Learning Basque is back: returning to regular study

I’ve now been back for two weeks and I’m getting back into my regular study slot routine.

I’m still as enthusiastic as ever. At times, I’m still as frustrated, too.

That said, I think it’s getting easier to remember new words. Before I went away, I’d already noticed a steady (though) increase in my ability understand the gist of radio broadcasts. This is continuing.

The two main textbooks I’m using at the moment are Bakarka 4 and (in a new development), Arian B2 (upper intermediate)(pictured above). My level is really B1 (lower intermediate) but I don’t have that book and the content in Arian B2 is super interesting (lots about the Basque country, its people and culture.

If anything, I think I’ve benefitted from a pause, a phenomenon I vlogged on back in the summer.

Have you ever noticed the same?

I’m not back with one-to-one lessons, yet. I had one booked with Eider last weekend but she had to cancel, so I’ve decided to wait till Christmas and New Year celebrations are out of the way. The good news is that two further teachers have appeared on italki (though one of them seems only to offer one-hour slots. which is too much for me in my lower-level languages).

I’m also going to contact the other two regular teachers with whom I’ve been working this year, to see if they’re up for more sessions in the New Year.

Last Saturday it was the London Basque Society’s Christmas meal. It’s one of the annual event that help mark out my language learning year.  I messed up my timing this year and arrived towards the end of the main course, but there was still some food left….and some music from a young professional musician who’s a master on the Basque trikiti (accordion).

Several of the regulars from the Basque lessons that I used to attend were there and it was good to catch up (in Basque, of course).

I also got them to put me back in their WhatsApp group. (I’d somehow dropped out of when I got a new phone in the spring.) Just the thing to share photos afterwards and to say hello to my old London Basque teacher, her partner and their new baby (all now back in Euskal Herria)!

Routine is great but disruption isn’t fatal…if your “anchors” are in place

When you’re learning a language over the long-term, there will be periods when you get knocked off course.

To return to the opening question: how then, do I sustain language learning when the demands of “life” start to get seriously in the way?

Not always very well, as you can see.

Of course, there are always things we could be doing better to keep studying when life gets much busier or we’re on the road.

Here’s the thing, though: over the long term some temporary disruption to your language learning routine doesn’t really matter all that much, so long as we have some fundamental anchors in place.

I mean an underlying framework you can go back to: a study routine with quality materials that appeal to you; opportunities to work in a focussed way with a teacher or exchange partner; a social context including regular (even if infrequent) events and real relationships with other learners and native speakers.

How do you cope when the things get busy? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

The post Learning Basque as life gets in the way appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

This post covers roughly the same German ground – but in more detail – as the second half of the vlog linked at the bottom of this post (the first half of the vid, after Russian).

Greedy for German

When I moved into Russian studies from scratch at doctoral level, I wanted to learn not just Russian but to learn German as well.  Youthful enthusiasm and ambition….?  Yes. Rather reckless?  Yes. Impossible?  No.  Thanks to planning, determination, focus, and a lot of enabling help from others, by the time I’d finished I was fluent in both languages.  

I didn’t start learning German until Autumn 1990, at the beginning of my second year as a graduate student.  

I’d already learned Welsh to fluency, improved my French to a level good enough to use specialist French sources in the final year of my undergraduate history course and was (sort of) on the way with my Russian.  

My approach seemed to be working, so it was a question of rinse-and-repeat.  

Starting German through self-study: methods and materials

I armed myself with a complete self-study course: Paul Coggle’s Teach Yourself German. It came with a cassette tape of all-important audio material.  Coggle, by the way, is still going strong twenty-five years later. I recently received an invitation to his latest book launch in London.  

I worked through the whole book during the autumn term.  

Progress was slow at first, much to the amusement of my friend Patrick (now a professor of German history), who was helping me out a bit.  His verdict on my efforts six weeks in: “Dein Deutsch ist beschissen” (free translation: “your German, while a commendable first effort, perhaps still leaves something to be desired”).

I also got a themed vocab book and started flashcarding the lot, as I’d done with my other languages.  That took me about a year.  

The beauty of the approach to vocab is that it’s systematic.  It gives you confidence that you’ll be able to say something on most common topics and understand as well (provided, in the latter case, that you get enough exposure to the sound of the language).  

Eight months in Freiburg

In January 1991 I was moving to Germany as a participant in the EEC’s Erasmus post-graduate “Free mover” scheme.  At last, I’d have the chance to live abroad and learn a language.  This gave me a clear reason to learn German and some healthy short-term time pressure during the October to December before the move.

Erasmus “Free mover” was a slimmed down (and more flexible) version of the undergraduate Erasmus “exchange”.  You moved to a participant institution in another EEC country and continued your studies more of less on your own.  There was no additional maintenance grant but any fees were waived and you got your travel costs paid.  For me, the other key plus was that you were able to register at the host university without meeting any of the usual language requirements. 

At the planning stage, one option was to apply to go to Sciences Po in Paris. in which I was encouraged by some French friends based at the Maison Français d’Oxford who were helping me keep going with their language.  

That would have been wonderful but I already knew a lot of French and wanted German more than I wanted Paris.  

One of my two doctoral supervisors, Heinz-Dietrich Löwe, had studied at Freiburg im Breisgau.  He put me in touch with his Freiburg supervisor, the distinguished and avuncular Professor Gottfried Schramm who agreed to host me in his department. 

In January I flew to Basel in Switzerland and caught a coach to Freiburg.  There I stayed till mid August.  I’ve already told the story of how I arrived and managed to find a room when able to say little more than “Student, Student, Zimmer bitte” on day one, I was nevertheless able to find room to rent in the home of an elderly Germany lady.  Of course, I also met quite a few students my own age and took part in Professor Schramm’s seminars and “inner circle” (for grad students and favoured under grads).   There was even a small group of Welsh learners at the uni, who’d found a native speaker working in the area.  We would all meet up now and again to speak Welsh. 

I was also still actively studying German.  My work was mainly reviewing Coggle and continuing with the flash cards.  I also bought couple of helpful books.  One was a very comprehensive book of grammar explanations and exercises.  The other was aimed specifically at academics wanting to get a “reading knowledge” of German.  I also bought a television, for extra exposure to the language when at home.    

Some of my early German materials

Long story short:   by the time I left I had a good working knowledge of the language.  

In August I had a couple of weeks back in the UK.  On my first night back the abortive coup took place in the Soviet Union.  It collapsed after a few days and so I was able to head out for a research year in Leningrad on time on 1st September.  

How hard was German compared with French, Russian or Welsh?

How hard was German compared to the other languages I’d learned?  I’d now say that there are several features of German that make it more difficult than Russian for a native English speaker.  Fact is, though, at the time I found it quite a bit easier to get off the ground with German than Russian.  Within six months, I’d say I’d reached a level that took me two years in Russian.   

Perhaps the relative ease with which I became a going concern in German was partly because I went to Germany for a long period relatively early in the day.  Note, though, that I had a solid base before I did.  It had been the same with Russian.  That meant that I had something to work with when daily life hit me in my new surroundings.  

As to German versus Welsh or French: I’d say that for a native English speaker, Welsh is a little harder than a Romance language, but a little easier than German.  With Welsh you have the additional challenge of the minoritised status of the language which can mean fewer opportunities to use it (and you’ll never really have to use it in any situation). 

Russia and Finland….German on the back burner

During my year in Russia, my focus was obviously on my research and on Russian.  Still, one of the foreign research students who started his year at the Central State Historical Archive at the same time as me was a student of Schramm’s whom I’d got to know in Freiburg. Our acquaintance had begun in German and we continued to speak that language during the year in Saint Petersburg.  

The following academic year (1992-3), I was based at the Renvall Institute in Helsinki thanks to a scholarship from the Finnish Ministry of Education.  I was taking beginners Finnish classes at the university and also using Russian quite a lot. That year, though, there was a lot less German.  

It was far from the end of the affair between me and German, though. 

As with a lot of my language learning, it’s happened in phases.  

While I was in Finland, Heinz-Dietrich Löwe left his Oxford fellowship for the chair of East European History at Heidelberg. He offered me a one-year role as a part-time research assistant in his new department. As my grant money was fast running out and as I was keen to go back to Germany, I didn’t have to hesitate before accepting.  

Two and a half years in Heidelberg: German back centre stage 

Thus it was that in July 1993 I returned to Germany, on a ferry down the Baltic from Helsinki.  After docking at Travemünde (near Lübeck), I passed via Hamburg and heading south-west.  My destination was Schwäbisch Hall and a full-time German summer course at the Goethe-Institut, this time thanks to a scholarship from the DAAD. 

The course was pretty relentless: 8.30 till one five days a week (or even Saturday?) for two months.  I had a clear goal to keep me going, though.  At the end I  needed to pass the Heidelberg University German language exam.  Without that I wouldn’t be able to matriculate and to take up the role with HDL.  

I passed the exam and ended up staying in Heidelberg for two and a half years.  As end of the one-year research assistant post approached, I started teaching English too and working as a waiter.  By the time I left, my English teaching was actually taking off.  

My own academic focus was on continuing to analyse the primary sources I’d collected in Russia and the substantial amount of additional material from the library in Helsinki and to write it all up as a doctoral dissertation.

In Heidelberg, one of my housemates had his own computer and Windows 3.1 but there was no way I could afford my own machine.  In any case, I was firmly of the view that I couldn’t possibly think and write on a screen.  I wrote my thesis, all 100,000 words, with a pencil and paper.  When HDL’s secretary had finished for the day, I’d type up what I’d written on the departmental computer.   

My first task on arrival was to sort out somewhere to live.  There was a downturn in the economy, with a result that student numbers were up and it was difficult to find somewhere affordable.  After a spell in the emergency accommodation and sleeping in a tiny windowless basement in Eppelheim, I saw a notice on one of the noticeboards from a German who student who was trying to get a group together to rent an apartment.  (There was no internet yet to help with such things).  

That’s what I’d call a result.  My home life was entirely in German.  Though I never became big friends with any of the housemates, we all got on well enough and would sometimes share meals together.  They also had parents, friends and partners visiting, so I got to have lots of chats and got insights all their lives. 

My real social life was with colleagues in the history department, during and after work.  Again, this was all in German. Some of the friends I made then are still among my best friends today. 

The need to earn a living had slowed completion of my thesis but in summer 1995 I posted it off to Oxford, five and a half years after I’d started my post-grad career.  The examiners weren’t ready to see me until March 1996.  

Leaving Germany via the upper-intermediate plateau

In January of that year, I’d left Heidelberg to become Welsh-medium lecturer in European history (focussing on modern Russia) at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.  

I’d got a long way with German in two and a half years in Heidelberg.  As regards speaking and listening skills, I was functionally fluent and really able to handle anything that came at me in daily life.  

Looking back, though, I had reached a plateau and a solid upper-intermediate level. The idea of fluency as a complex, multi-dimensional thing and for all the listening and speaking experience, my reading and writing skills lagged behind.  The main reason was lack of practice.  I did read a small amount of secondary literature on Russian history in German but did not do much reading for pleasure.  I did read newspapers but still often found them relatively hard-going.  So far as I can remember, I didn’t do any writing it at all.

Back in Heidelberg, spring 2017

Maintaining my German over the years 

That was how things stayed for the next 15 yrs.  

I would go to Germany every few years and make a point of meeting up with my Heidelberg friends.  We always spoke German together.  Most of the people I knew there were in Russian studies and we would sometimes meet up at conferences or when our research trips to St Petersburg or Moscow coincided.  In 1999 I returned to the department Heidelberg for eight months on a sabbatical from my post in Aberystwyth.  

Another thing about fluency: it’s unstable.  While you can certainly “go rusty” what I’ve at I’ve noticed is that once you get to upper intermediate, speaking skills in a language can be reactivated very quickly. On one trip to Germany a German friend said my German sounded a bit like that of a native speaker who’d been out of the country for a long time.  It’s a miracle how the words seem to bubble back out of nowhere. 

Some of my C1 exam preparation materials

Another push forward: the Goethe C1 exam and beyond   

It’s only in the last few years that I’ve begun working again actively on the language.  In the middle of 2015 I decided to do the C1 Goethe Institute exam before Christmas.  Had to work methodically and consistently to get my writing skills up to the next level.  I chronicled the process on the site.  

Through 2016 and early 2017, I continued to have regular italki lessons. That was put on hold, though, as I switched the focus on Russian.  

In May 2017 I paid my first visit to Heidelberg for five years and it was great to check out some of my old haunts.  Several of my “Heidelberg” friends still live there or in the area, so it was another chance to catch up.  

My next goal in German is still the C2 exam.  At the moment my German is back in maintenance mode.  That means reading on my commute.  It also means a lot of listening to the radio when going about my household chores.  I also enjoy watching a programme or two each week on German TV and the odd YouTube video.

You’ll see from my German story that a lot has been about a clear desire, using intermediate goals to keep going, and deliberate choices.  As someone with no special talent for languages, I’m glad to say that I think all these count for more, long term, than do any special gifts.  Is there really such a thing as a “talent for languages” in any case? Next up in the Dr Popkins Method? series will be an exploration of my own profile as a learner, my own mix of strengths and weaknesses (a spur, I hope, to get you looking at yours).

In the meantime, if you’ve got fluent in German how similar was your path to mine? If you’re about to start, do you have any burning questions?  You know where the comments section is….and I’m keen to hear from you  

Related posts:

Is there a Dr Popkins Method to get fluent?

“Dr Popkins Method?” Getting Fluent in French

“Dr Popkins Method?” Getting Fluent in Welsh

“Dr Popkins Method?” How I learned Russian

Project “Revive my German”: three lessons for  your language learning

Learning German: what’s hard, what’s easy?

The post “Dr Popkins Method?” How I got fluent in German appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

If you prefer video, you can scroll straight to the bottom for the link to the companion vlog about my experiences learning Russian (and, in the second half, German). This post covers roughly the same ground, but has a bit more detail (and only covers Russian. German will be up next.).

First steps learning Russian

I started learning Russian in late 1988 or early 1989 for my upcoming graduate studies in history…..I was half-way through a graduate gap-year in Wales when the main focus was supposed to be getting fluent in Welsh.   

Now, I don’t advocate trying to learn two languages at once… There was a risk that this foolhardy enterprise would ruin my Welsh year and leave me no further forward with the new language….On the other hand: my motivation was high…..There was a clear need on the fast-approaching horizon.

When I’m working on a language, I like a one-volume “complete course” textbook in the sense of one that covers all the main structures and core vocab.  In Wales, following a recommendation from a retired linguist I’d met on my intensive summer Welsh course, I started working through the Penguin Russian Course by John Fennell.  

I made flashcards of the vocab and key phrases to learn using spaced repetition, just as I’d done with French and Welsh.   

I was also working though another textbook, Horace Lunt’s Fundamentals of Russian. 

“Lunt” appealed to me as more comprehensive than the Penguin. It had short sentences and many more exercises.  I gave that the flash card treatment too. There was no audio at all, though.

These two books introduced me to all the structures of Russian and gave me a core vocabulary.  What I didn’t yet have was any speaking practice (or any listening beyond the muffled cassettes you could get to go with the Penguin course).  

What was difficult as I started Russian…and what was easier

The new alphabet had turned out not to be difficult to learn at all.  The language was spelled phonetically.  The chief challenge then (as now) as the difference between hard and soft consonants and a new “i” sound.  

There were familiar international words (mainly Latin or Greek) but, as in Welsh, there were far, far fewer of these than in French.  

What was most challenging was learning a language in which nouns, adjectives pronounce and demonstratives declined across three genders and six cases.  

Then there was the complex Slavic verb system…..Let’s move swiftly on

Lunt tells it like it is

Back to Oxford to specialise in Russian history

Back in Oxford, I moved from Hertford to St Antony’s, an all-graduate college.  

It was a very international and multilingual place.  I was there at an exciting time.  That Autumn, the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet puppet regimes in eastern Europe fell one after the other.  It seemed like East European Studies was the place to be.  

As a first year research student I had two tasks: to define my thesis topic and to get good enough at Russian to be able to research it.  

Doctoral studies in Oxford were very unstructured. A lot depended on the informal relationship with the supervisor and an inexhaustible ability just to get on with stuff on your own without any positive feedback. 

For me, there was the added challenge of needing to get a pretty solid reading knowledge of Russian before I could even get going.  

Inspiring help with my Russian

One of my supervisors was Professor Stone, who was known for his linguistic prowess.  He was of view that anybody could pick up a working knowledge of a language in six months.  He’d cheerfully taken me on to study Russian history without Russian where a more cautious don might have sent me away and told me to go off an learn the language first.  

His can-do approach – on top of my previous self-study success with Welsh and French – gave me the self-belief to make it with Russian.  

This was all the more important because there was no framework for beginning graduate students to learn Russian intensively at the university.  

All that was on offer was a Russian reading class aimed at graduate students of Soviet Politics.  The focus was on the turgid, formulaic language of Soviet newspapers. I told the teacher straight out that it wasn’t for me. 

During the year I used to call on the professor once a week for one-to-one help with Russian.  This mainly involved us sitting at his kitchen table while him correcting my exercises from Lunt.  I was also doing translations from Russian Prose Composition, by Borras and Chritianson.

There was a small community of Soviet graduate students in Oxford on an exchange programme funded by the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros.  

Alexei from Kiev was one of them.  He’d been an outstanding undergraduate linguist and was doing doctoral work on the origins of Islam (and had the languages necessary for that).   

I also took weekly lessons with him in his room, paying him five pounds (which I could barely afford).  He helped me with my spoken Russian, though I still couldn’t say very much.  I remember one particular low, when it emerged I still hadn’t learned the word for “Russia” in Russian.  

That all changed in summer of 1990 when I was Alexei’s guest for a couple of months in the Soviet Union.   This was when things started to move with my conversational Russian, thanks to constant practice.  

The challenge of listening practice in the pre-internet era

On this first trip to the Soviet Union, I found understanding was actually more difficult than speaking.   I think that was due to inadequate listening practice before the trip.  

Nowadays, if I were to start Russian, I’d be getting hours of audio exposure on MP3 and the net and lessons with native speakers on Skype.  

Then, the technology just wasn’t there.  

The college had just got (somewhat temperamental) satellite TV and you could book in to watch the “Vremya”, the evening news programme.   

I also tried to listen to broadcasts in Russian on my crackley shortwave radio receiver.  One evening when I was doing this, Alexei called round, heard the broadcast and informed me that it was the Ukrainian service.   

Amazing hospitality and lots of practice: my first trip to the Soviet Union

The summer trip started in Leningrad, where I stayed with his wife’s cousin and her mother in a wonderful old Imperial period apartment on Chernyshevskii street  

We then went to Moscow where there were still a lot red flags a-flutter. There were very few adverts or bill boards (just Communist banners and slogans), hardly any western brands.  The shops may have been empty, but the museums, theatres and concert halls were full.  We stayed in run down dacha about forty minutes out in the country as guests of a typical Moscow intellectual and academic architect who lived off ideas (and fried potato and onion, black bread and tea, cigarettes and vodka) and who gave me a copy of his latest lavishly illustrated volume.    

Next, on by train to Kiev. For a month I stayed with Alexei’s parents in their large apartment in very centre of town.  Looking back, that was quite an imposition and I remain extremely grateful to this day.  Neither of his parents spoke any English.  I  saw all the sights and was also invited for several long meals at friends of Alexei’s among the Kiev intellectual elite – both Russian and Ukrainian speaking.  

By end of summer I could had functional conversational Russian.  Sure, that was in no small measure due to all the exposure and practice.  That wouldn’t have got me nearly as far without all the previous eighteen months’ work on the basic vocabulary and structures, though.  

Don’t go to a country with basis in the language hoping to pick it up.  You’ll get further, faster, if you’ve already done serious groundwork.  

I was travelling and making real progress with my Russia and that was about to get even better.  In my second year, I started learning German and in January 1991 went off for eight months to Freiburg in Germany on the Erasmus student mobility scheme.   

Struggling with life as doctoral researcher

In terms of morale, I really needed these exhilarating wins.  The thing was, for the first two years, there was next to movement at all on the academic front.

I’d say that the first two years of my time as a doctoral student were far more difficult than my later period of intensive study at law school and the stresses of working as a junior lawyer, pulling all nighter on multi-million pound financings.  

I several times came close to giving up the research.  

It was only well into the third year, half way through my time in the Russian archives, that I could see that success had became only a matter of time.  

One early problem was the lack of structure of the doctoral student life or of any meaningful feedback (because I wasn’t producing anything to give feedback on).  

It didn’t help that the college was full of much more self-confident students one- or two-year masters courses in economics or international relations.  Some of them already had jobs lined up in UN or the World Bank.

Among the handful of serious, research-focussed Russianists, I was the only who wasn’t already fluent in the language at the beginning and didn’t have a masters degree in either in it or in wider Russian studies.  It felt like I was running to catch up.

Money worries dogged me during the first year.  With no debt from my undergraduate years (student fees were twenty years in the future) and a three-year post-graduate maintenance grant from the British Academy, my position was much better than it would have been today. 

All the same, I was having to earn extra money just to make ends meet (even though technically this breached the rules of the (inadequate) maintenance grant.  I took on quite a lot of paid teaching work. I enjoyed this, but it was hugely time-consuming, slowing up my work at Russian and on the history.  

I also started working several evenings a week at a news company which took advantage of the latest fax technology to produce a daily type written brief on world affairs for leading decision makers.  I had two tasks.  One was to cut up out the foreign news reports from the day’s papers (ready for analysis by the writers the following day).  The other was to fax out that day’s report to the clients.

By now it was Christmas 1990.  I was over a year in (with only two years funding left).  I was ok with conversational Russian but I still couldn’t read my sources.  My “research”, which at this stage mainly involved digging out and photocopying printed materials in the Bodleian library but not actually reading and analysing them.  

Eight months in Freiburg

In Freiburg I started to read the main source I’d collected from Oxford library: decisions from the “Governing Senate”, Russian Empire’s highest court. 

These were stilted reports in nineteenth century Russian legalese.  Each was about a six hundred words long.  While I could now read something like that in, erm, about thirty seconds, it used to take me a day to read one or two and make notes on record cards.  Sometimes I’d have to look up the same words again and again.  

By this stage, I was no longer actively studying Russian…..It was just a matter of ploughing through the texts and noting vocab as I went (and doing spaced recall on it with flashcards).

On 18 August 1991 my Freiburg time came to an end.  By this stage I also had intermediate German, but that’s a story for another post.  

The next stop, in September 1991, was to be Leningrad on a British Council scholarship for my “archival year”.  

First I’d planned a two or three weeks turnaround in the UK. 

The abortive coup launches my media “career” in Welsh

I awoke on 19 August 1991, my first day back in England, to the news that a coup d’état was underway in the Soviet Union.  In a last roll of the dice, Soviet hard-lines staged a putsch, seizing power and arresting Mikhail Gorbachev at his dacha in the Crimea.  

It briefly looked as if the game was up not only for Soviet reforms, but also for my hopes of a year working in the archives in Leningrad. 

It was at this point that my career as a media pundit took off, in Welsh   Well, yes, that’s an exaggeration, but somehow BBC Radio Cymru got my number and I started doing commentary on events in Russia.   

I continued during the year and then when I was an academic back in Wales. 

The coup collapsed on 22 August and on 1st September, I flew out to Leningrad according to plan.  I was one of the last to go on the old British Council/Soviet exchange programme that had been set up during Khrushtsev’s thaw. 

A year in the USSR….Erm, make that the Russian Federation

That year I was mainly working in the Central State Historical Archive in Leningrad.  Until the late 2000s, the archive was in the Senat-Synod building on the banks of the Neva, next to Catherine the Great’s famous Bronze Horseman statue of Peter the Great (the building is now the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation).    

I was mainly reading files from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.  They were written in copperplate script, which really wasn’t too difficult once you got used to it.  Then, in 1906, the Ministry got typewriters  

I also worked in the National Library on Nevsky Prospekt, where I was mainly looking at newspapers from the 1860s to 1917.  

I also spent some time in the Leningrad provincial archive.  The last month – with the Olympics in full swing in Barcelona – I flew south-west for a month in the provincial archive in Tambov.  

In these local archives, my main sources were hand written village court records from the period 1861 to 1917.  These were pretty difficult to decipher….even for the Russian archivists.  By the end of the year, I was better at it than they were.   

The year was extremely eventful in Russian history and the history of the other former Soviet republics. At the end of 1991 there was a vote for independence in “the Ukraine”, as we then called it. (I still think it should be called “Ukrainia” in English if we’re going to drop the article, as in “the Argentine”/”Argentina” but I suppose Ukraine does rhyme with cheerfully un-articles Bahrain.)

In December the Soviet Union was formally dissolved.  In early 1992 prices were freed as part of the Gaidar government’s “shock therapy” economic reforms.  It was tense and difficult time for Russians.

 In retrospect, perhaps I should have ditched my studies and just gone around with a camera and tape recorder, recording the rapid changes that were taking place and people’s perspectives on them.

Making more Russian friends and travelling to Moldova and Crimea

After a couple of abortive (though story-rich) starts with accommodation, I finally ended up living in the Academy of Sciences Hall of Residence in the north of the city, where I was exposed to a lot of, erm, colloquial Russian.

In spring 1992, one of my friends from the hall of residence invited me to travel down to his home town of Kishinev.  The sleeper train snaked down through Belarus and through the self-proclaimed Prednestrovia Republic, where fighting was taking place (I didn’t see anything, but we weren’t allowed to get out at Tiraspol). 

From Kishinev we went on to Odessa and Crimea.  

I was speaking only Russian at the accommodation and on such trips.  I was also only using Russian with the archivists and academic historians.  I was speaking quite a lot of English and some German too with fellow foreign students (ten Americans and a German).

At the Bakhchisaray Fountain, Crimea, spring 1992

To Finland and then Heidelberg

On 1 September 1992, a year to the day after my arrival, I left Russia by train for Helsinki, where I’d secured a Finnish Ministry of Education scholarship to work in the Slavonic collection of Helsinki University Library and at the Renvall Institute.  

In summer 1993 I moved on again, this time to Heidelberg.  My other supervisor, Professor Löwe, had just got the chair in Russian history there and had offered me a part-time post for a year as a research assistant. 

I stayed for two and a half years, working as a waiter and English teacher once the research job came to an end.  All the time, I was analysing my archival notes and other materials and writing up my thesis.  

Teaching Russian history (in Welsh) and more research trips to Russia

I’d handed in my thesis in summer 1996, though I wasn’t examined in March 1996.  In January that year, I’d left Heidelberg to become a Welsh-medium history lecturer in the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. 

As well as lecturing and tutoring on Russian, Soviet and wider history through the medium of Welsh, I was, of course, also expected to continue research and to publish.  

My ongoing research provided a reason to returned to Russia and I made three or four such trips during 1996 to 1998, each time for a month or two.  I would always go back to the archives and libraries of St Petersburg and, during summer 1997, I also worked in Samara and Tambov.  

These trips provided more chance to use my Russian.

Living in Moscow as an international finance lawyer

In August 2000, I chucked my dream job in Aberystwyth to train as a lawyer.  

When I chose to be a lawyer it was very much to continue my engagement with Russian culture, but to engage in a different way. 

The immediate transition period 2000 to 2004 turned out to be the least active period in my Russian.  I was busy at law school and then as a trainee solicitor, and still doing some writing and attending conferences in Russian history on the side. 

Once you get to a solid upper-intermediate level with a language, though, my experience is it doesn’t go away.  Yes, you may go a little rusty, but it all comes back remarkably rapidly with use.  

In September 2004, eight years after my last visit, I returned to Russia.  This time, to work in Moscow as an international lawyer.  There I stayed until April 2009.  

I didn’t actually need Russian for my legal work in the law firm and most of my ex-pat colleagues didn’t speak it.  

I chose to speak just Russian with the support staff, though, and used the language quite a lot informally with lawyer colleagues (so long as I could win the battle of wills and stop them switching to English).  

An active social life on the upper intermediate plateau

My social life was overwhelmingly in Russian.  

None of my old academic Russian-speaking friends were based in Moscow, but I was still in touch with them and paid visits to Kiev, Kishinev and St Petersburg to catch up.  

I met a lot of new friends in Moscow, too.  With them, I had a very active social life, tempered only by the exhausting long hours at the law firm (working most evenings till midnight, occasionally all through the night and more but, luckily, only three or four weekends a year).   

There were also new renewed opportunities to travel round Russia.  I made trips to Vladimir, Suzdal’, Tver, Nizhnii Novgorod and Kazan’. I still haven’t been to Siberia, though.    

I also went to the cinema and theatre quite often, watched a certain amount of television and  listened to lots of Russian radio.  

My Russian was consolidating all the time but on something of an upper-intermediate plateau.  

Force of circumstances (long days spent in front of a screen reading and writing in English) meant that I wasn’t reading much Russian for leisure or writing at all. I certainly didn’t want to spend my precious free time in active study.  Nor was I getting any corrective feedback on my spoken Russian.  

The Kazan’ kremlin, winter 2008

Back in the UK and working on my Russian again

My time in Russia came to an abrupt and unexpected end in early 2009 when my mum deteriorated and died after a late cancer diagnosis. I decided to take a break from the law and return to the UK.

My Russian stayed as it was, until 2015-6, when I started actively studying again (for the first time since the mid 1990s).  I started taking one-to-one lessons and did summer night class in London.  

I began to use exams as  a motivational goal and to provide an objective yardstick, however imperfect.  In summer 2015 I  did the TRKI/Test of Russian as a Foreign Language upper intermediate (B2) second certificate and then the advanced (C1) TRKI third certificate.  

Since then, I’ve continued to engage with the language.  I’m not having lessons at the moment.

I’m not really speaking much at all either and I’m not writing at all again.  Those are things I need to sort out yet again.  When the time is right, a new phase will begin.  

In the meantime, I am reading more than ever and still listen to the radio a lot and watch Russian drama, comedy and follow Russian YouTubers.

It’s nine years since I was last in Russia.  That’s the longest gap since I ventured to the Soviet Union for the very first time back in 1990.  A return to Russia, or another Russian speaking land, is long overdue and I hope to remedy this, even if only for a holiday, in 2019.  

As with French and Welsh, learning Russian has been an on-off project for me…but one that has become a serious, long-term strand in my life.  It’s opened me to all manner of life-enriching and perspective-widening experiences and there’s still so much more to learn and discover.

I’ve written quite a bit about Russian on the site in the past, but there’ll be more to come for learners of all levels.  Are you learning Russian or thinking of doing so?  Let me know in the comments below how your experiences have gone so far (or drop me an email with your comments or questions – address under the “About” tab).  Do you already see parallels with mine or things that have been (or you plan to make) completely different for you?

Related posts:

Why learn Russian?

How to learn Russian fast

Learn the Russian alphabet quickly: three tricks

Is there a “Dr Popkins Method” to get fluent?

“Dr Popkins Method?” Getting fluent in French

“Dr Popkins Method? Getting fluent in Welsh

The post “Dr Popkins Method?” How I learned Russian appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

I got the idea for this series in Tenerife, where I shot the first video.  That cinematic masterpiece ended with rather comic – and totally unscripted – fall into the pool.  I had the camera running as I was shuffling along the edge, trying to work out the best position for a dynamic dive in as a finishing shot. 

The best laid plans….

The “Dr Popkins Method?” project

The reason I was paying my first visit to the Canary Islands was to attend a retreat with a group of very talented group of language learners and teachers, vloggers and bloggers. 

They were pressing me to tell more about how I’ve got fluent in my ‘best” foreign languages and got a basic working knowledge in several others.   

Did my approach amount to a method which I could package to help you better than I have been doing so far on this site and the YouTube channel?  

I’m a bit uncomfortable about this as an exercise for a couple of reasons. 

First, it’s true that I’ve got a doctorate, but I’m a doctor of Russian history not applied linguistics.  On the other hand, I have qualified to teach Welsh and English to adults.  I also have the research skills that you need to complete any PhD successfully and use those skills both in preparing materials on this site and before I give talks at events such as the Polyglot Gathering.     

Second: yes, I’ve got vast experience of being a student in all types of language classes and in successful self-study.  

But it’s that very experience that makes me suspicious that there could be one method in language learning.   

That and the general critical approach that is another thing that goes with the territory when you’re a PhD, academic historian and lawyer.    

Still, l’ve risen to the challenge.  

There posts are very much my personal history.  

General conclusions are for a later stage.  Still, useful pointers may emerge for you (or maybe you’ll be more struck by the contrast with your own experiences – let me know in the comments below).

A familiar schoolboy story

My story of French at school is a familiar one.

There were no foreign language taught in the schools I attended before I went to secondary school (aged eleven).

Then we had five years French, culminating in the GSCE “O level” (one of the exams that evolved into what is now called the GCSE exam).

We had to start German in the second year and I dropped it like a stone as soon as I could, after two years.

The only reason I kept going with French, I suppose, was because at my school it was compulsory to do at least one foreign language till aged sixteen.

At sixteen, I passed O level French with a “B” (the highest grade was an A, the subsequent A* grade had not yet been introduced).

On paper, that was not too bad but the truth was that I couldn’t speak or really understand any real French.

This became painfully clear on a number of family holidays to France during my secondary school days.

There, my intense embarressment and shyness didn’t help either.

For me, French to “O” level had been just another subject. The language I’d had to keep going with (because you had to do one language).

That was the only exposure I got in those years. It was before the internet and before home video recorders were widespread. So French video was totally inaccessible. You could pick up some crackly radio broadcasts and, of course, buy French books, but I had no particular interest.

Interest sparks and a need emerges

It was in the last two years of high school (aged 16 to 18) that I become quite excited by the idea of learning French and started to see the appeal of languages in general.

That was a paradox as I had decided not to carry on with French for “A” level. I was studying History, Government and Politics, Economics. I loved the subjects and a had a good time.  Looking back, though, we shouldn’t have been allowed to specialise so much.

I can’t really recall how or why this shift towards enthusiasm for languages took place, but the motivation was suddenly there.

I was studying a lot of French and wider European history all of a sudden and this cultural context may have been part of the picture. Also, several of my group of close friends were studying French, German or Latin for “A” level and getting to travel and explore books and films in their languages.

Maybe, at some level, I’d always liked the idea of being able to speak in a foreign language. Who wouldn’t?

It was just that I couldn’t see how you could get there.

I’d approached French like all my other subjects – as abstract knowledge.

While  getting fluent in a language certainly needs to involve a lot of study, it is also very much a practical skill.

In the autumn of my final year at school, I accepted the offer of a place to study history at the University of Oxford.

One thing, then is certain.  I now had a clear need for the language. At the end of the first term at Oxford, I’d have to sit a major exam on a text in French.

I started to do extra work on the language during the lunch hour, with one of my French teachers from the lower school who had very generously offered to help

The summer after A levels, I continued to work on my French.  I can remember sitting on the bed of the farmhouse my parents had rented for our holiday,  somewhere deep in rural France.

I was feeling overwhelmed at the obvious impossibility of remembering all the words you’d need.

I also felt somewhat angry at the university for expecting this obviously impossible task.

I was, though, starting to get into “France” and was busy reading a new door-stopper of a book all about that country (then in the early stages of Mitterand’s regime).

My themed French vocab book and John Ardagh’s book about (then) contemporary France.

The great leap forward: French “on the side” in Oxford

The French text we were examined on at the end of the first semester was Alexis de Tocquevilles L’ ancien régime et la révolution, which weighed in at about three hundred sophisticated, native-level paperback pages.  The English translation was out of print (again, in pre-internet days, that meant there was no practical way for me to get hold of it).

In second and third term, the exams passed, we historians were under much less pressure (people studying other subjects had there first big exams at the end of the first year, when we had none).

I now had the language bug big time.

I was a little envious of those who were doing modern language degrees. There were also one or two students who’d taken a year out before starting university and had gone abroad and learned languages.

I was determined to get fluent in French. I took control of my own learning and threw myself into self-study.

The summer before I’d been overwhelmed by the immensity of the task.  At least I’d understood that knowing a lot of words is central to real progress in language learning.

Now, in extensive language section of Blackwells bookshop (now a shadow of its former self) I found a book of French vocabulary for A level organised by themes and decided to use it to help me tackle the problem systematically.

In the course of the next nine months or so, I proceeded to learn the words off by heart.  I did this by making flashcards with individual French words on one side (or phrases, there were some of these in the book) and English on the other.  I colour-coded the nouns (red ink for feminine, blue for masculine).

I kept the cards in small brown envolopes of twenty and worked on them using “spaced repetition”.  The system was known of course then but I can’t remember reading about it.  It was something I stumbled on unwittingly.  It just seemed common sense to me, given my bad memory.

I also bought “Teach Yourself French Grammar” and worked through that in the same way, making flash cards twice the size of the vocab ones.  These had explanations and examples on one side and a prompting question on the other (in English).  I was using the “testing effect”.

I started listening a lot to French radio, which you could pick up on and off on medium wave in the evening (I have just discovered why tonight, as I write this post).

For the second and third semesters, I also took a once-a-week lunchtime class but, aside from that, wasn’t doing any speaking or production.

I wasn’t trying to do much reading either for the first year or so.  It was vocab, grammar and listening.

The large French dictionary my dad bought me for my Oxford studies (still my main dictionary, despite the lack of any modern IT or internet vocab), plus the Oxford syllabus

The thrill of seeing that I could speak and understand French

In the long vacation at the end of first year, I went on a holiday with my parents to France for the last time.

This was the sixth consecutive summer we’d spent three weeks in France.

The three weeks in the gîte passed much as normal, with no real need to use the language and with me incapable of creating any situations where I could use it.

But then, at the end, we stayed for three or four days as the guests of a French family (work colleagues of an old family friend).

The family could hardly speak English. Thanks to all my efforts, I was now by some margin the best of the four of us in my family in French, so was doing a lot of interpreting as well as free speaking.

It was all very rough and ready but – zut alors! – I was communicating in French. It felt great and confirmed that a lot of listening, the grammar and a lot of words could make difference, even though hadn’t been practising much.

I kept going at French throughout the second undergraduate year in much the same way.

In my third year, I was able to read the language well enough to choose as my specialist “Further subjet” an option called “Literature, Politics and Society in the Third Republic 1871-1914”.

For this, I had to read several French texts as well as a lot of secondary literature in English about the period.

It was one of the highest marked papers in “Finals” (the graduation examinations).

In summer 1988, a few weeks after finishing university, I went off to Wales for nearly a year to learn Welsh.  I also started learning Russian.  More about those experiences in later posts.

Taking French further in my graduate student days and beyond

It wasn’t the end for me and French, though.

In summer 1989, back from Wales and waiting to return to Oxford to begin my post-graduate research, I enrolled on a summer course at Grenoble University.

This was a two or three-week course.  We lived in the university halls of residence.

My plan was to try to find a job there till the end of the summer.  In that, I failed miserably (it was difficult to find something for so short a period), so I was back in Yorkshire for the last six weeks before returning to university.

I was only back in Oxford for four semesters before my studies took me to Germany, Finland and Russia.

Those four semesters as communism collapsed in country after country in Eastern Europe.

I attended events at the Maison Française d’Oxford cultural centre and made several French friends.  I met one of them regularly to practice French.  I even considered going off on the Erasmus post-graduate student mobility programme to spend a semester at Sciences Po in Paris.

In the end, though, I went to Freiburg…  After all, I already spoke quite a lot of French.  German was beckoning, but that’s another story.

I was now able to read French fluently and hold conversations. In the years – now decades – since then, that’s what I’ve kept doing, every now and again.

French is still very much my fourth foreign language, quite a bit behind my Welsh, Russian and German.

One reason for that is that it’s never been a priority.

Another is that I’ve never spent an extended period in France.

Indeed, since the Grenoble courses in 1989, I’ve only even been to France at all five or six times.  I went twice from Germany (1993, 1994) to visit one of the French friends I’d made in Oxford.  Then there was a fifteen year gap until a visit for a week in New Year 2009. Spring 2011 saw me over in Brittany for a few days to take part in Ar Redadeg, the sponsored run for the Breton language. In summer 2016, on my residential Basque course, I crossed into the “northern Basque Country” (from the Spanish to the French state) for an afternoon.

A couple of years ago I did an online evaluation with the Institut Francais.  That showed me on the B2/C1 border. At some point, I’d love to take my French further to do the DALF C1 exam. I’ve got the books

Ready and willing. My French C1 books.

In the meantime, I  listen France Inter radio a few times a month as I got about my household routine.  How much easier that is now I can stream the channel on my internet radio or phone.

When I do get back to French big time, I know what my challenges will be: the colloquial language, including slang, plus writing, which I’ve never much done and is always the skill I find hardest. Maybe it’ll make more sense to start with the B2 exam.

So that’s my story with my first langauge love.  I’d love to hear how YOU got started with your language(s), too. That’s what the comments section’s for down below

Next up: how I learned Welsh.  Check out my French and Welsh stories in the video:

The post “Dr Popkins Method?” Getting fluent in French appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.