I think I've been making some pretty important... recognitions... Well, I've recognized some things. Based on studying Polish for a little less than a year.

Well, of course it must be stressed that I had a serious advantage in it being pretty closely related to my native Russian.

That aside, so I've been using flashcards, and found several very ineffective approaches. Like I've mentioned, foreign word on one side, translation on the other - doesn't work (for me). My brain seems to stick to the information that it already knows - the words of the translation - and creates barely any long-lasting associations for the foreign word... Then I tried to also leave the other side blank. That wasn't great...

Anyway, I think I know what's going on. Our brain needs associations to remember things, and I think the best way to remember a word is in a vivid context. So I've been writing more or less vivid example sentences on the other side of my flashcards... The problem with this is, that it only works at later stages of studying, because you need to know the other words in the example sentences for it to be memorable, instead of just a mess of unfamiliar symbol combinations.

This makes me think that flashcards might not be particularly useful when you're a beginner. And like I've said before, it's best to just read a lot and expose yourself to the language, and you're going to come across the most important words often enough to remember them naturally.

The problem with this, for me, is, well, Welsh. Specifically, I go to Amazon, there's either books for beginners at 10 bucks for 50 pages (which might not necessarily be a rip-off at this point... but they're also really boring, from what I've been able to tell). Or, inexplicably, books for $60-80. I don't know what they're about, I didn't even try to look inside. (Not to mention that even if there were reasonable offers, I might still not have the funds.)

So it's pretty hard for me to learn by reading a lot... Well, I've found a few free stories for learners. And there's also the Welsh Wikipedia. But compare that to my experience with Polish - reading the Witcher stories, full of action and humor (and often more negative things). I felt really motivated to come back to it every day. Whereas, with Welsh, well, there's just my obsessive learning instinct... And it's not inexhaustible.

The only thing I could possibly look forward to with Welsh is its folklore in the form of a medieval poem, I believe, called "Mabinogion". But, it's in an old version of Welsh, and I've already read an English translation of it, which wasn't actually particularly exciting... And I mention it only because I find the idea of medieval poetry and folklore charming and alluring (although the actual execution often leaves a lot to be desired).