Anyone else studying Russian?

Pretty self-explanatory. I recently started studying Russian using some awesome books I took out of the university library, some online lessons (for pronunciation purposes, mainly), and a few other random resources.

I'm finding it easier than I'd expected, although I haven't really gotten to the meat of the noun declensions, which (even with experience in Latin) will probably severely trip me up.

I just ordered Harry Potter in Russian from Amazon.com, too, but I'm going to be stuck waiting on that for quite a while- the estimated delivery time to New Zealand was 16-44 days!

So... anybody else struggling to learn to говорить и читать по-русськи?

The nouns aren't the hardest part, it is the verbs of motion. It is so foreign to an English speaker that it is really challenging. Getting a feel for the cases is tricky too, but a lot of that is memorization and learning some rules. There is a lot more "art" to the verbs of motion though.

I'd recommend the Penguin Russian guide. Also the Matzner dictionary is excellent. You might also want 501 Russian Verbs.

Good luck!

I know this is very old, но да, я изучаю русский язык

Ya torja! I've recently finished all 3 Pimsleur courses and beginner and advanced Michel Thomas. Found them pretty good. There's an online workbook (can't remember the name right now) that I'm using as well.
So far it's not too bad!

Starting my Russian class on Saturday!

My daughter took college Russian for two years. When she came to visit us in Moscow no one understood a word she said. She couldn't even get a Coke from a kiosk.

Some things about formal Russian language courses are useful, but for everyday needs in Moscow street Russian rules. It's clipped, to the point, and a lot of it is common slang.

But English is the same. Having met many ESL speakers who were taught in formal classes, they were lost in common daily conversations.

"gimme a Coke"
"Ok, no prob"

"Howzitgoin dude?"
"Yeah, it's ok."

You don't learn this kind of English in school. Ditto for Russian.

On my first trip to Russia, I wasn't met at the agreed-upon location, my bags were lost, and I had to grab a ticket on the next train to St. Petersburg. It was raining, and I had raging jetlag.

My years of classroom Russian welled up like a Gulf oil disaster. Babbling Russian in the first 24 hours on the ground jumpstarted me, and my speech improved in the succeeding weeks on the ground.

Just get there. In my many years of travel to Russia since that first trip in 1993, week one has started out shaky, and facility gradually returned in the following weeks. I'm just back from a trip to North Caucasus and Tatarstan, and, per usual, the formal conjugations and declensions have stuck with me, and the vocabulary was what took the worst hit. So:

Learn the formal rules cold. I know, this is asking a lot, since there are so many 'exceptions' to Russian rules that they often scarcely feel like rules at all. Nontheless, do your best.

Then, hammer on vocabulary. Know the words, and the rest will follow.

I can...

What do you need to know..?

Cheers