#1. Memorizing Long Texts
Anki is a website (and app) that helps you memorize information.
It’s quite useful for language learning. But if you don’t use it correctly, you might end up simply memorizing lots of words in a phrase without knowing or remembering their meanings and uses. This is what happened to me in the beginning.
For example, I started by memorizing John 3:16 in Russian right away.
I memorized the entire passage, but I struggled to recall the meaning of individual words. I could recite the text, but if you picked a word at random and asked for its meaning, I might need some time to remember it—or not remember it at all. I would recognize the word but wouldn’t recall what it meant.
The solution to this?
Just learn single words.
I know people would say it’s better to learn words within phrases, with context, and I agree. But if you’re just starting, you don’t have enough vocabulary to understand the context. Memorizing additional words beyond the one you’re focused on only makes things unnecessarily harder. So, in the beginning, it’s better to stick to memorizing single words.
For example, you could search for “the 100 most used words in Russian” and memorize them using Anki.
Then, you can advance to extremely short phrases by asking AI to create them using the 1000 Most Used Words in Russian. (Actually, using very short phrases [3 words] is still my favorite way to learn a new word.) After that, you can start memorizing longer texts that are important to you (I memorize Bible verses, for example).
This way, I learn the meaning of each word in a phrase instead of simply memorizing the word.
#2. Mixing Everything Together
I used to put everything I was learning into a single card: Russian.
Any possible subject was inside that card—colors, numbers, pronouns, body parts, random words, grammar, daily Russian, biblical themes, workout vocabulary, you name it. Everything in just one card. It’s so confusing!
It’s much better to create different folders based on subjects.
It also helps when you need to study a specific subject.
#3. Skipping Correct Pronunciation from the Start
I didn’t want to listen to audio clips, so I just pronounced the words the way I thought they should be.
But like English, Russian is not a phonetic language. The way words are written often differs from how they are pronounced. Because of this, I frequently mispronounced words, stressing the wrong syllables or overlooking sound changes that occur with letters in certain situations. It’s really not a good idea to memorize and internalize mispronounced words.
So, make sure to memorize words by pronouncing them correctly from the start.
If you also don’t want to listen to audio clips, you might be interested in using the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).
To Recap
- Memorize single words or extremely short sentences
- Create folders to organize your study by subject
- Learn the correct pronunciation from the beginning