this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
34 points (97.2% liked)
Language Learning
711 readers
4 users here now
A community all about learning languages!
Ask / talk about a specific language or language learning in general.
Sopuli's instance rules apply
- Remember the human! (no harassment, threats, etc.)
- No racism or other discrimination
- No Nazis, QAnon or similar whackos and no endorsement of them
- No porn
- No ads or spam
- No content against Finnish law
Other active Lemmy language communities:
- !duolingo@lemmy.world
- !japaneselanguage@sopuli.xyz
- !chinese@lemmy.world
- !learn_finnish@sopuli.xyz
- !german@lemmy.world
- !latin@piefed.social
- !estonian@sopuli.xyz
- !spanish@sopuli.xyz
- !translator@sopuli.xyz (translation studies)
- !esperanto@sopuli.xyz
Other communities outside Lemmy:
Community banner & icon credits:
Icon: The book cover of Babel (2022 novel by R. F. Kuang)
Banner: Epic of Gilgamesh tablet (© The Trustees of the British Museum)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Completely fell off on vocab, so my grammar workbook (Russian) is harder to get through and I'm feeling frustrated. I really want to be able to read a grade 1 reader with few to no mistakes or unfamiliar words by winter or spring but I think I'm really off track.
Obviously, the solution is to spend more time listening to native speakers and learning vocab, but I'm in a rut. I've been exposed to about 6k words but I have a hard time with recall and sentence construction. Right now I feel good about present tense but past tense is a mess.
Anyone got some tips for motivation?
When I'm frustrated with immersion, I try to shift my focus from understand-most-of-it to pick-out-something I do understand. From that perspective, I do OK, recognizing some common word pretty often. It's not much, but I'll take any small win I can get. On the flip side, maybe pick out certain words that give you trouble and focus on why.
Also, try going back to easier/repeat material. Going back a few chapters in the book or rewatching beginner videos or rereading level 0 graded readers until you've practically memorized them. I tend to find some material I can look at and say 'this used to be hard, I am making some progress at least!'
Motivation is just hard though, good luck!
As someone who's started and stopped a bunch, I'd say remember the cliche: "The best time to do it was 10 years ago. The second best time is now." Don't let any setbacks distract you from making progress. That effort now opens up future possibilities.