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Tarvos - TAC 2015 Pushkin/Scan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5048 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 553 of 1511 10 March 2013 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Making a grammar mistake or two and getting your point across in a nice and accurate way is not your current level of Russian. You usually make much more mistakes than one or two and not only grammar mistakes. But that's normal. We all make mistakes when we learn foreign languages (we sometimes make mistakes in our own languages). Many people on the forum are more than happy with my activity. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5048 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 554 of 1511 10 March 2013 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I mean that in general Colloquial Russian teaches Russian as if it was a dead language. Pronunciation is explained unbelievably badly, grammar is not given in a pragmatic way, vocabulary is not explained well.
Have I ever stated the opposite? Edited by Марк on 10 March 2013 at 7:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4836 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 555 of 1511 10 March 2013 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't know where you get your information from, but in fact Colloquial Russian is one of the better courses that are out there. I must admit the Langenscheidt course I used before was organized better, but when dealing with self-teaching courses one always has to accept some shortcomings. Which alternative would you propose?
No, but as you have been told several times by several people, your comments can be a bit unfriendly. For my part, I can't complain, but your personal feud with tarvos is a bit petty. He's obviously able of getting his point across in oral conversation. If that's what he wants, you shouldn't get upset about his mistakes in written Russian. And thanking God that tarvos hasn't studied any Russian lately is absolutely impolite and offensive. Edited by Josquin on 10 March 2013 at 7:31pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 556 of 1511 10 March 2013 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Making a grammar mistake or two and getting your point across in a nice and accurate way is not your current level of Russian. You usually make much more mistakes than one or two and not only grammar mistakes. But that's normal. We all make mistakes when we learn foreign languages (we sometimes make mistakes in our own languages). Many people on the forum are more than happy with my activity. [/QUOTE] Probably not. But then there are five grammar mistakes and an idiomatic misuse of a phrase, so what. I haven't stated perfection in Russian, just that I can understand and have a discussion, if I do it with 10 or 20 mistakes is really not a big deal to me. And for the record, you are THE ONLY PERSON EVER who complains about not understanding me. Nobody else does. People have consistently told me over the last few months that it's been good. That my Russian is flawed is no secret (and that my ability to write a long essay in Russian is pretty much nonexistent is also a given) but then again I only write here to give short updates in context about what I've been doing. My focus is on real colloquial spoken Russian because I am going to travel in Russia in the summer (where I'll need to focus on the spoken language) and on writing in informal, Facebook/VKontakte style environments. I occasionally also write letters, but they are not fancy and personal correspondence which is also the area I'm most familiar with, so it's easy for me to do. I'm also, let me phrase this properly so we get this clear: intentionally working with a tutor to improve my Russian in both the spoken and the grammatical areas of the language, who is being more than consistent in helping me get the language right and aiding me in finding my mistakes. But even she admits to having a very easy time communicating with me and thinks I am easy to work with. I am not making shit up, I am going on feedback of other people who I have intentionally hired to do this job to help me speak better Russian. I have regular contact with Russians who are more than happy to converse with me and are more than happy to talk to me despite my mistakes, and who seem to have no trouble understanding me and aiding me when I say something that is incorrect or incomprehensible. If my level is not perfection or incomprehensible to you because you take literally every single grammar mistake ever out of context, then that is your problem. You are the only one in this thread complaining about the unintelligiblity of my Russian, in fact, you are the only person on the PLANET doing so. And no one is more critical towards my Russian than I am myself and the tens of people who I have communicated with succesfully purely in Russian corroborate this fact. To then denigrate my Russian isn't not only plain wrong, it's pathetic, low, and unworthy of someone who is claming "to help". This is patently NOT how you learn a language, and trust me, I've been in the positions where I've had to make to with improper use of language and find a way out multiple times in many more languages than in Russian only. If you want to be snide towards people who do not share your language philosophy, this is not the place for it. If you want to correct grammar and be pedantic for the sake of it, this is not the place for it. If you want to be plain rude and impolite to somebody DOING THEIR BEST TO LEARN YOUR LANGUAGE AND ADAPT TO YOUR RULES this is not the place for it. I have asked you dozens of times to be polite in this thread. Not once, not twice, tens. My patience with you is over and I am done arguing with you in this thread. If you want to belittle someone's efforts go do it somewhere else, I have no intention with arguing you any more on the internet. This is my log, this is where I describe my experiences of language learning and you can be polite and offer corrections (see what jeff does for my Swedish or what Josquin does for my German, or even what Vermillion has done for my French), or you can converse about my experiences, or anything under the sun, but I won't have this nonsense in my log. Full stop. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 557 of 1511 11 March 2013 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Dealing with Mark's pettiness aside, I have studied some languages today, mainly Breton
(which was not very encouraging) and Romanian (which was). My Breton is good in translation (although I make a fair few mistakes with word order and verb conjugation), but I tried listening to the radio this Saturday and although I can make out plenty of words I cannot follow a conversation, so that will have to be improved. Romanian is another story. I today tried to have a chat with a Romanian friend of mine and it's moderately possible for me to understand, in writing, what she's saying (unless she's talking about pharmacology in which case I of course don't stand a whelk's chance in a supernova). I fully believe in Benny's approach of talking to people and learning by doing, and it's the most motivating thing for me. Fortunately I have one person at least to speak Romanian to, so that will work. And even with my shitty Romanian grammar I can make myself understood somehow (even though it sounds barbaric). I guess the Romanian literature greats would roll in their grave at my manhandling of the language, but then again, I rather like manhandling languages because that means I am handling them in the first place. Just like I moderately abuse Russian. But that's okay, it's all a consensual game and Russian is a fierce dominatrix, Romanian is a bit more gentle :) Corrections for Mark: My Breton is so bad I should never be allowed to write it, of course. It is even worse than my Russian. Can you believe that???? ;))) Edited by tarvos on 11 March 2013 at 12:40am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4350 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 558 of 1511 11 March 2013 at 8:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Keep up the good work Tavros. Don't worry about sounding barbaric, it's a step towards civilized. I have the same attitude as you, trying, writing, speaking, using the language even with flaws, because one day you wake up and "suddenly" you speak well. That's why I always encourage people who learn greek to write and speak alot, despite errors. Errors of grammar and spelling can be fixed. Problems of attitude, that's a bit more tricky...
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5048 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 559 of 1511 11 March 2013 at 10:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5048 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 560 of 1511 11 March 2013 at 10:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
1 person has voted this message useful |
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