Learn Russian in a day

Tackling Russian in a day looked tricky – but with the aid of memory palaces, anything is possible ...• Learn how to protest in Russian – video• Five memory techniques for learning languagesThe formal "hello" in Russian is a necessary yet wholly unwelcoming word. It's packed with consonants that trip over each other, often within the same syllable. I try it over and over again, and only sound like I'm spitting. "Zdtras-vooy-tyeh." I am starting to hate it.I'm off to see a memory expert to find out if I can learn a language in a day, and I seem to have picked a particularly tricky one. When I arrive at their office, Ed Cooke and Ben Whately, the men behind the learning site Memrise, say I should try Mandarin instead. Their technique applies to any language equally well – it's just that I am keen on Russian. I have wanted to give it a go since a night in the pub with my Russian girlfriend's family, who told me an excellent ancestral story about a kidnapped Persian, a Polish countess and hidden diamonds – but I wished I could have understood it better.Mastering Russian in a day seems ideal – I would wake up with only a few basic words and go to bed with an untranslated copy of Eugene Onegin.Ed, who has competed in the World Memory Championships and is a Grand Master of Memory, is quick to manage my expectations. Eight hours is not enough time to learn a vast and difficult language in its entirety, but with the help of Duncan Parrish, a Russian-speaking friend of Me...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: The Guardian Russia Language Features Life and style Languages Source Type: news