The most important thing when learning a foreign language is your mindset and motivation. Many foreign students have this idea that Russian language is tough, difficult, challenging. They struggle when they are learning it and as a result – they don’t like it. They lose interest. This is a very common tendency among language learners. Even those people who have deep interest in the language, when facing some obstacles on the way sooner or later start to consider a thought about giving up. In fact, most foreign students struggle and fail because of psychology and not because of the methods or teachers.
Psychology is 80% of success. And the method Online Russian Language School «Native Russian» based on it.
As Tony Robbins, the peak performance couch likes to say: “80 % of success comes from emotion”. The other 20% are the methods you are using, they are also important. But if you observe the people who study foreign languages you will see, that enthusiastic and motivated students learn much faster. So, the first important thing to realize when you start learning Russian language, or any other language, is that non-linguistic factors are essential in the learning process. Engage your body, your psychology, your mind. When you have positive emotions, you feel good – you learn much faster.
Every time before you start your Russian lessons, get in the peak emotional state, feel great, turn on your favorite music, jump around like a crazy person, dance. That will help you start your lessons with great emotions and the right state of mind. That will also make you feel more confident about yourself. It is likely that after some time during the learning process you will start to feel tired and bored. It’s normal. Take a break for 5 or 10 minutes, put your shoulders back, your chin up, eyes up and smile. Work with your body again, change your emotions through your body. That will instantly bring you back in the great emotional state.
Let’s talk about the other 20% now. What are the methods you can implement in order to learn Russian successfully? Try to remember when you were a child, how did you memorize words? What did you do? Did you struggle with yourself to memorize them? Of course not, because you were doing it naturally. And you were repeating those words over and over again.
You can use this too in your Russian language learning. Write down the list of words that you don’t know. If you have a Russian friend, ask him/her to record the pronunciation of those words and then you can listen to the recording while looking at those words. Again, don’t struggle to memorize, just relax and let it come into your eyes and your ears naturally.
You can do the same thing when you are watching a movie. Pick some Russian movie with subtitles which you like, watch it, feel relaxed and just listen. It doesn’t matter how much you could understand the first time. Don’t put pressure on yourself. It is not an exam and nobody is testing you. Enjoy the movie and let your ears get used to the sound of the language you are learning. If you want, you can watch this movie again, but this time try to be more attentive to the words you hear. Music is also a great way to learn. Find the songs in Russian that you like, listen to them a couple of times, tune your ear, then find the lyrics of those songs, write them down, find the unknown words in the vocabulary in order to understand the meaning and try to sing those songs. When you are alone in the house or in the street, sing those songs out loud – that will help you hear yourself and will also put you in the top emotional state again.
The other useful thing would be reading. If you are too scared to open a Russian book and be attacked by the army of scary unknown words – take a deep breath, close your eyes, and try to diminish this thought in your mind to the size of the grain. Smile, and then pick the book that you like. You can start reading the children books, they are usually of a smaller size and with easier vocabulary. Again, feel completely relaxed. If you need, you can use your body again before reading. Jump a little, put your shoulders back and smile. This way you will learn Russian successfully.
All in all, learning a foreign language is always an adventure. It’s like a roller-coaster ride where you go up and down on a high speed feeling scared and excited at the same time. Those strong emotions help you to make this experience more memorable and enjoy it more. Therefore it is highly important to remember about the strategy that “80% of success comes from emotion”. Work on your body, work on your motivation, make yourself belief that “Russian can be fun and effortless” and this way you will reach the level of success you are looking for in your Russian learning process.
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