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Geoffw in TAC2015: RU, HE and Friends | ||
Tags: Football/Soccer | Yiddish | Hebrew | Dutch | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Russian | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4691 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 185 of 251 24 January 2014 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | ||
I suspect we may be in "violent agreement" here. On the one hand, it did seem like learning the two columns next to the column under -a was a bit redundant. However: 1) I don't think there's any way around simply learning at least the first column, 2) the time and effort required to memorize the next two columns was truly trivial, so why not, and 3) my previous experience has been to start looking at the charts, see the relationships, but then drown in a sea of tiny exceptions and end up forgetting everything. It seemed easier to get my initial mental foothold by simply memorizing them--once I found such an easy way to do that. As a matter of practice, I'm sure when I am actually using these endings and actively identifying them in my reading/listening that the relationship between these forms will end up being how I remember them long term, just as you suggest. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4691 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 186 of 251 02 February 2014 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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First Tadoku done, and the results are in: 210 pages of Russian read last month.
The overwhelming majority of that was Harry Potter. As essentially a rank beginner, I judge this to be a successful effort. Now I may try to shift gears slightly in February and focus a bit more on intensive reading and Anki which were neglected severely during January in favor of the Tadoku. Total Anki words learned is still just over 300-- which represents a big slowdown, but also is still a third of the way toward my goal of 1000. For some perspective here, after checking out of the Tadoku for Russian this weekend, I picked up one of my German-translated Star Trek novels again, and promptly read about 100 pages. Even when reading other German books, or reading English, it normally takes a good while for me to read 100 pages, but in this case it was probably only 2-3 hours. I suspect that the pages are shorter than my other books, for one. But the level of the prose also is easier. I don't know every word in the book, but I often read 2 or 3 pages without running into a word that gives me any real trouble. For comparison, it's fairly uncommon that I'll have a whole page in Das Cusanus Spiel with no unknown words (the pages are noticeably longer, to be fair), and when unknown words come there, they come in big bunches. Wolfgang Jeschke seems to use a more highbrow vocabulary than some other writers. I noticed this effect with George R. R. Martin and the Song of Ice and Fire series. On the few occasions when I've peeked at an English-language original from the series, I've seen a ton of words that I at least need to slow down for, and certainly couldn't use in a sentence myself. For comparison, despite my much weaker vocabulary in Dutch, the couple chapters I've read of Herman Koch's "Het Diner" didn't seem to pose any great vocabulary problems for me. I've seen it suggested that my experience with the Star Trek novel this weekend is where the best vocabulary acquisition occurs--lots of "easy" reading, as opposed to a little "hard" reading. At the same time, the most obvious benefits for me have come at the rank beginner stage, where a little bit of really difficult extensive reading can take me from beginner to intermediate understanding in a relatively minuscule amount of time. Anyone out there have any opinions, anecdotes, etc. on this point? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5169 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 187 of 251 03 February 2014 at 9:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I totally agree. I've tried to read hard texts in Georgian and, even with a translation
by its side, I couldn't make many words out of the context. I'd have to go for a few essential words and make the Georgian-English match. When I tried an easier book, I knew about half of the words. It was still not enough for an effective reading, but at least I could focus on the remaining ones a bit more. I'm going to start to read in German in a few months, and I want to focus on easier, translated texts on familiar subjects first. My ultimate goal is to read about the native language literature, but reading translated and even non-fiction word is a good compromise in the beginning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4691 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 188 of 251 23 February 2014 at 3:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey there! So February has been a bit of a vacation for my regularly scheduled TAC programming, but that doesn't
mean I've been idle, exactly. So what HAVE I been up to, aside from the handful of pages of Russian reading and few hours of radio listening? I read several hundred pages and finished two books in German that I started and abandoned ages ago; a Star Trek novel and the first book of a German fantasy series, Das Geheimnis von Askir. I also read a couple more chapters in the German translation of Tolkien's Return of the King. Someday I will finish the entire LoTR in German. I did three weeks' worth of Assimil lessons for Polish, which had the side effect of letting me practice my French, and occasionally even picked up some new insights into Russian. I see Polish as not even a side project, but more of a diversion, but whatever I call it, it's been an enjoyable experience so far, and as a hobbyist, that's REALLY the ultimate goal. I can tell that it has been MUCH easier for me to pick up Polish now that I've been working on Russian intensively for a while. I'll probably drop it any day now--but who knows? That's what I said several times about Dutch, and just earlier this month I found myself having an impromptu conversation with someone in Dutch. I made a lot of progress in the Italian translation of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, and I may be able to finish it soon. After doing all that intensive reading in Russian, coming back to Italian the reading is so easy by comparison that it feels like I'm cheating somehow. Perhaps some things are clicking a little better for me in my comprehension, too, as I get a little more experience. I also watched several hours of Italian TV and a few halves of some Serie A games, as well. But besides that, I guess I haven't been doing much with languages... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4691 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 189 of 251 24 February 2014 at 2:32am | IP Logged | ||
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It's back on the wagon for me, in a matter of speaking. I just officially resumed my run at Assimil Russian by
learning lesson 22. I'm hoping to make Assimil Russian a daily routine from here on out. In other news, I did several hours of L-R with Polish Harry Potter today. (I think it was actually enough that when I did my Russian lesson, I struggled with producing the Russian pronunciation for a little bit.) Still not planning to set official goals for Polish, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5059 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 190 of 251 24 February 2014 at 11:00am | IP Logged | ||
Are you talking about Czech or about Russian? Anyway, 57 declension types doesn't seem to be many if we take into account all the exceptions and special cases. In Russian the number of patterns is significantly increased by the shifting stress for example. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4691 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 191 of 251 24 February 2014 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | ||
The video is talking about Czech of course--but I was trying to figure out what the equivalent number would be for Russian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4691 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 192 of 251 28 March 2014 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Geruchten over mijn dood zijn sterk overdreven.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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