If you’ve ever looked at language courses, the chances are you’ve run across The Pimsleur Approach and its lofty claims. Recently, I followed the Pimsleur Russian course as well as the similar, though slightly less well publicised Michel Thomas Russian course and wanted write up some of my thoughts them.

Final update on my Russian learning before I jet off to Russia. Check out part 1 and part 2. This post covers January to March.

More updates on my efforts to learn Russian between September and December. Check out part 1 here.

Travelling across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railroad has been on my bucket list for the better part of a decade. When, in late May 2012, my brother moved to China to teach English, this gave me the perfect excuse to start planning an actual trip. Taking the train from Moscow to Beijing would put me put me only a few hours from visiting my brother and check off a major item from my bucket list to boot, so my plan formed quickly. But I hate to be ‘the tourist’ - I wanted to speak the language and interact meaningfully with the people. I’d attempted to learn Russian once previously with little success. With the looming possibility of being unable to communicate effectively for several weeks, I vowed that this time would be different. This is the first in a series of posts on my attempts to learn Russian that will hopefully be useful to others doing the same.